BAFTA Breakthrough 2024: Mawaan Rizwan, Nava Mau Among 43 “Must-Watch” Young Creatives

Award-winning actor Mawaan Rizwan and Baby Reindeer star Nava Mau are among this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort.

Spotlighting 43 “must-watch” creatives working across film, games and television in the U.K., U.S. and India, the flagship talent initiative is supported by Netflix and aims to provide a springboard for young creatives in costume design, production, casting, editing, games design, performance, directing, composing and cinematography.

Rizwan is best known for his role in BBC Three comedy Juice, which landed him a BAFTA award in May this year. Mau broke through with her performance in the wildly popular Netflix show Baby Reindeer in April.

Top Boy editor Shahnaz Dulaimy and Kyla Harris of We Might Regret This are among the U.K. Breakthroughs as Jih-E Peng, cinematographer on Girls Will Be Girls and Juliana Hoffpauir, costume designer on the Glen Powell-led comedy Hit Man, made the U.S. list. Game producer Abhinav Chokhavatia and director Christo Tomy are included in the India Breakthroughs.

Past BAFTA Breakthrough stars include Florence Pugh, Josh O’Connor, Ambika Mod, Bella Ramsey, Letitia Wright, Paapa Essiedu, Jessie Buckley and Tom Holland. You can read more about how BAFTA chooses its Breakthroughs and how the program helps develop careers here, where Ade Rawcliffe, chair of the Learning, Inclusion & Talent Committee at BAFTA, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in depth about the scheme, explaining it helps give creatives confidence.

Rawcliffe, also a board member who sat in on the executive group for Breakthrough U.K. this year, said of the initiative: “It’s profile… It gives people confidence. You will have access to people who have done it before. They’ll help you with those things that are difficult. What BAFTA does is connect you to that. Being an Academy, [it means] people that have done things before are sharing their knowledge.”

Awarded to those in the midst, or on the cusp, of their breakthrough moment, the year-long initiative includes one-to-one meetings and career guidance, full voting membership and access to BAFTA and networking events. Meetings have been set up with Cillian Murphy, Paul Rudd, Emma Thompson, Danny Boyle, Paul Greengrass, Barry Jenkins, Martin McDonagh, Abi Morgan, Lesley Manville and Brad Pitt, among many others.

This year’s Breakthrough U.K. cohort was selected by five specialist sub-committees comprising industry figures with BAFTA and Netflix representatives. In the U.S., a jury of leading cross-industry figures including producer Kerstin Emhoff and actor John David Washington selected this year’s cohort.

The Breakthrough India jury was chaired by film producer and Breakthrough India ambassador Guneet Monga Kapoor and also included vice president of content, Netflix India Monika Shergill and filmmaker Sushmit Ghosh.

“This year we have an amazing roster of casting directors, producers, writers, performers, lead artists, cinematographers, lead developers, and more,” said BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip. “We urge the industry to take note. A huge thank you to Netflix, whose support makes BAFTA Breakthrough possible.”

Below is the full list of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort.

U.K. BREAKTHROUGHS (21):

Alice Russell, Director – If the Streets Were on Fire

Beth Park, Lead Performance Director – Black Myth: Wukong

Clair Titley, Director – The Contestant

Cobbie Yates, Costume Designer – Layla

Daf James, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer/Musical Director – Lost Boys & Fairies

Fred Hoffman, Art Director – Paper Trail

Georgina Hurcombe, Creator/Producer/Director – Pop Paper City

Harry Gilbert, Casting Director – G’wed

Jennifer English, Performer – Baldur’s Gate 3

Kyla Harris*, Lead Performer/Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This

Lauren Sequeira, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer – Domino Day

Lee Getty*, Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This

Loran Dunn, Producer – Hoard

Luna Carmoon, Writer/Director – Hoard

Luned Tonderai, Series Director – Miriam: Death Of A Reality Star

Mawaan Rizwan, Performer/Writer/Creator/Executive Producer – Juice

Otto Baxter, Writer/Director/Performer – The Puppet Asylum

Poulomi Basu, Creator/Director/Writer/Art Director – MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero

Rochelle Newman, Producer – White Nanny Black Child

Shahnaz Dulaimy, Editor – Top Boy

Sophie Knowles, Lead Artist – Viewfinder

*applied as a team

U.S. BREAKTHROUGHS (13):

Angela Walker Patton**, Director – Daughters

Elaine Gómez, Creative Director – Blink Land

Erica Tremblay, Writer/Director – Fancy Dance

Hanna Park, Editor – Bottoms

Jih-E Peng, Cinematographer – Girls Will Be Girls

Joy Ngiaw, Composer – WondLa

Juliana Hoffpauir, Costume Designer – Hit Man

Karrie Shirou Shao, Game Writer/Lead Designer – Pacific Drive

Nafisa Kaptownwala, Casting Director – Dìdi

Natalie Rae**, Director – Daughters

Nava Mau, Performer – Baby Reindeer

Nicole He, Creative Director – The Crush House

Sean Wang, Writer/Director – Dìdi

**applied as a team

INDIA BREAKTHROUGHS (9):

Abhinav Chokhavatia, Game Producer – Down and Out

Christo Tomy, Director – Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case

Deepa Bhatia, Writer/Director/Producer – First Act

Dhiman Karmakar, Sound Designer/Production Sound Mixer – Amar Singh Chamkila

Jaydeep Sarkar, Showrunner/Series Director/Executive Producer – Rainbow Rishta

Monisha Thyagarajan, Series Producer – The Hunt for Veerappan

Neeraj Kumar, Producer/Lead Developer – Artifice: War Tactics

Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Writer/Director/Performer – Aachar & Co.

Varun Grover, Writer/Director – All India Rank