International Women’s Day 2025 panel: LFA alumni on accelerating action on-set and in VR

14 March 2025

As part of International Women’s Day, London Film Academy welcomed Alice Caronna and Méabh McGovern for a panel talk with our students. Alice and Méabh are both LFA graduates and trailblazers in their respective entertainment industries.

Alice has been a first assistant director since graduating in 2008, with a slew of impressive credits to her name. She’s worked on BAFTA-winning films including Rocks (2019). More recently, Alice has helped shepherd some of the most acclaimed and current TV shows to our screens, including Silo (2023-2025), Scoop (2024), and the Europe-set third season of Atlanta (2022).

Méabh graduated from the BA (Hons) Filmmaking course in 2023 and is already working at the forefront of immersive VR experiences at the UK-based Singer Studios. Off the back of their Emmy-nominated The Pirate Queen with Lucy Liu (2024), Méabh and Singer Studios are set to release Trailblazer in May, which stars Daisy Ridley and charts Bertha Benz' remarkable contributions to the development of motorised vehicles.

On theme with some of the work that Alice and Méabh have attached themselves to throughout their careers, they joined us at LFA to discuss gender equality in the entertainment industry and what still needs to be done to ‘accelerate action’ towards complete gender parity.

Breaking into the industry

Alice shared that her journey into the industry was primarily free from gender-based discrimination:

Being a woman, I’ve never really had any issues. There might have been a couple of instances when I was a young woman, and the directors and DPs I was working with were male, much older than me, and I had the feeling they didn’t like the idea of a young woman telling them what to do. But I feel like I've been very lucky, and I've worked hard to get where I am.

Alice Caronna

Méabh’s trajectory was in part defined by the women she had met both during and after her time at LFA, as Singer Studios itself being was founded by former LFA alumna, Eloise Singer:

What I love about Eloise (Singer)’s focus is that it’s women forgotten in history. 'The Pirate Queen' was about a woman forgotten by history. People historically think ‘women can’t be pirates’, when Zheng Yi was actually the most successful pirate in history. She went from being a courtesan, to marrying a pirate, to him dying and her taking over his fleet. She implemented banking and feminist laws into piracy. Same thing with 'Trailblazer', Bertha Benz was an engineer as much has her husband was. She was the first person to do a long-distance journey in a motor car.

Méabh McGovern

The state of gender parity

Alice feels strongly that the landscape of the film and TV industry, specifically with gender parity, has improved significantly over the past decade – although there is still work to be done:

The film industry still is male dominated, obviously, but it has changed massively. The amount of projects I've worked on where all the key roles were female: director, DP, producer, myself. I’ve worked with so many female directors, female cinematographers, and I think even just maybe ten years ago, especially in the camera department, it was all male dominated. I can definitely see changes, and there are way more opportunities for younger female filmmakers, whether it’s as a director, or DP, or all sorts of other roles really.

Alice Caronna

As LFA students, past and present, look to the industry’s future, more and more attention is being paid to current hiring processes and the ways they can be reconsidered and become more inclusive. Méabh puts it aptly:

Conscious hiring is a good thing. I’m lucky enough that Singer Studios is a female-led company, and we’re a female-led team. That, and making opportunities available for younger people who may not have been able to experience it otherwise.

Méabh McGovern

Thanks again to Alice and Méabh for talking to LFA students and to providding advice and inspiration to the next generation of filmmakers.