Will Rowan is a Computer Vision researcher focused on developing practical tools to advance Virtual Production and support filmmakers. As a Research Fellow on a £1.7M Innovate UK project, he collaborates with industry leaders to create real-time solutions for scene relighting and environment integration. With a PhD introducing the ‘Intelligent Face Agent,’ he combines technical innovation with his background as a film programmer and critic, designing tools that seamlessly blend creative and technological practices.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in filmmaking? What inspired you to pursue a career in the film industry?
Film has become my natural home through my work as a critic, programmer, and researcher. I started out as a journalist and satirist for local newspapers and magazines and discovered an urgency to the work that's kept me hooked since. Even now, as deadlines mount and my keyboard sits all too still, I know there’s a story that needs telling and that keeps me going.
Curiosity pushed me to pursue a career in the film industry, and I find it a great place to be curious. Whether I'm watching a film, wandering around a set, or chatting with a filmmaker, I'm reminded why I love this work and the medium, and it pushes me to keep exploring.
What does being part of Berlinale Talents mean to you? Is there something about the city that resonates with your creative process?
Being selected as a Talent feels fantastic - it's both an enormous privilege and a brilliant chance to exchange with creative people from all over the world. It’s also recognition of the work I’ve been doing, especially given the unconventional path I’ve taken to get here.
I've been to Berlin twice before, and each time the city has left me feeling energised. There's this sense of freedom that flows through Berlin, and I'm sure that energy will spark something new in my creative process during Talents.
How do you balance expressing your unique voice while creating work that resonates with audiences around the world?
I started writing very locally, in local newspapers and satire magazines, serving print runs that you would only find in one specific place at one specific time. This taught me the importance of building direct connections with your audience. I love finding new ways to bring people together through film - last year, I organised a Before Sunrise tour of Vienna, racing around with a group to hit all the filming locations before, in our case, sunset. It's these forms of connection that let me express my own voice most clearly and let me take other people along for the ride.
When an audience and a film come together, they create something much more complex and fascinating than even the film itself; throwing a critic into the mix only elevates this further, and it’s in this elevation of film as a contributory and expansive medium that my interests lie.
This year’s theme is 'Listen Courageously – Cinematic Narratives in Times of Dissonance.' How does the theme connect to your work and the stories you want to tell?
I believe it's important to let stories sink in on a deeper level, letting them shape our experience of and interaction with the world. Sometimes it's a narrator's voice that finds a new home in our heads; other times it's seeing your own neighbourhood through new eyes. As a critic, I'm looking for those stories that take root and change my understanding of the world - whether it's through an image, a feeling, or a character. Moving images have such power to them that it's always with a sense of trepidation, as well as excitement, that I look out as the lights come down.