Mia Bays is an Oscar‑winning, BAFTA‑nominated film producer, executive producer, strategist and equality agitator with 35 years’ experience across the independent film sector on over 450 feature films. She produced Martin McDonagh’s Oscar‑winning Six Shooter and earned two BAFTA nominations including Best Debut for Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, executive produced by David Bowie.
Since October 2021, she has led the BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund, the UK’s largest public film fund. She launched a new £54m strategy in 2023 covering development and production across shorts, features, documentary and immersive work. Under her tenure, the fund had its most decorated year in 2023 and its highest-ever BAFTA nominations in 2025, supporting acclaimed titles such as Blue Jean, Kneecap, How to Have Sex, Scrapper, Rye Lane, Bird, and Sky Peals. Recent releases and prizes have been for Harry Lighton’s multi-BAFTA-nominated Pillion(over £1million at the UK box office following its Cannes Film Festival premiere and prize) and a BAFTA for Best Debut for My Father’s Shadow.
Mia previously served as creative producer for Film London/BBC Film’s Microwave scheme (2007–14), launching talent such as Riz Ahmed and Hong Khaou, and was Director‑at‑Large of Birds’ Eye View (2015–21), where she founded #ReclaimTheFrame to champion female filmmakers, raising over £1million to spend on the UK releases of films by women such as Atlantics by Mati Diop and Portrait of A Lady on Fire by Celine Sciamma. Raised in inner‑city London by a single mother, Mia has a lifelong commitment to widening access to the film industry.