Pinny Grylls

Pinny Grylls is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and ethnographer. In 2002 she co-founded Birds Eye View Film Festival. Pinny’s debut short documentary ‘Peter and Ben’ premiered at IDFA, winning awards at festivals including Aspen, LSFF and SXSW. She has made documentaries for Channel 4 (Who Do You Think You Were?), The Guardian (Thank You Women) BBC/National Theatre (The Hour) and The Royal Opera House (Becoming Zerlina).

Grand Theft Hamlet is her debut feature documentary and is co-directed with her partner, actor Sam Crane. In 2024 it won the SXSW Jury Award for Best Feature Doc, and was screened at HOT DOCS, Vision Du Reel and CPHDox. The film is about their journey to stage a live performance of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto which won a Stage Innovation Award. The BFI is currently supporting her to develop a fiction feature, Hear My Voice, which is about a boy who dreams of being an opera singer and his relationship with his deaf father. Since 2016 Pinny has been deaf/ hard of hearing and is now a sign language user and lip reader. She was just awarded the BFI & Chanel Luminous Gala Filmmaker Award 2024.