Join us for our final event of 2025 at the Film & TV Charity offices!
We will have a special guest speaker Rico Johnson-Sinclair (@RicoJS_)Training & Skills Director of CrewHQ at Warner Bros. Discovery!
In this session Rico will explore their journey through the film industry, through the lens of the experiences in their life that formed them. Delving deep into the theme, Rico will outline differences in structure and systems across the corporate landscape, life inside the belly of the beast and how collaboration can overcome the destructive systems of capitalism.
You’ll also get a chance to hear about the work they currently do at CrewHQ, working across HBO, Warner Bros. TV and Warner Bros. Features, and how to get involved.
This will be followed by a networking session where QFN members can spend time getting to know each other :)
Event Details
🗓 Date: Thursday 18th December 2025
⏰ Timings:
6:15pm – 🛬 Arrival and check-in
6:45pm–7:45pm – 🗣️ Talk + Q&A
7:45pm–8:30pm – 🤝 Networking
📍 Location: Film & TV Charity, 22 Golden Square, London, W1F 9AD
This workshop is made possible through the generous support of our the British Film Commission, the QFN is very grateful for their ongoing commitment to fostering inclusion within the UK screen industries.
About Rico Johnson-Sinclair:
Currently working as Skills and Training Director at Warner Bros. Discovery developing and leading on CrewHQ, a skills and training centre based at the renowned Warner Bros. Studio Leavesden, Rico works to develop and nurture ‘below-the-line’ crew and embed inclusion into training and skills from inception.
After working with Flatpack Festival in Birmingham, Rico Johnson-Sinclair went on to build CineQ, a queer film festival that prioritises queer and trans, Black and Indigenous people and people of colour which is now in its 6th year. Although his career has developed since then, his ethos has always centred audiences first, understanding that the screen’s industries have the power to shape hearts and minds.
Outside of programming and exhibition, Rico consults with organisations around events that focus on inclusion and diversity and works with talent to develop emerging voices centring on untold stories from historically marginalised communities in partnership with organisations such as European Film Academy and The New Black Film Collective.
Not limited to film, Rico has led campaigns that focus on marginalised communities; he was also Festival Manager of SHOUT Festival, Birmingham's queer arts and culture festival offering a mix of dance. music, theatre, live art, visual arts, and film, with a key focus on artist development, and has previously worked for organisations such as Coventry City of Culture and Film Hub Midlands.
His last role was as Race Equality Lead for the British Film Institute, working to bring a critical perspective into conversations about race in the film industry and working intersectionality to develop work around class, disability and gender from an intersectional perspective.
Rico was also co-director of ARTEF (the Anti-Racist Taskforce for European Film) an organisation that seeks to develop equitable processes across European exhibition and production, with successful events at Cannes, Berlinale and BFI London Film Festival in 2022 and 2023.He produced the BFI-backed film 'Sweet Mother' in 2019 written and directed by Zane Igbe, has worked as a consulting producer for many films in the regions and nations and is currently on his first short film as Writer/Director named 'PREY' which was also funded by BFI and premiered in March 2023.
Rico’s programming interests are specific to LGBTQIA+ & QTBIPOC stories that emotionally move and galvanise our communities after Tongues Untied (dir: Marlon Riggs) was instrumental in his own journey to self-acceptance. Using joy as resistance, Rico tries to focus on stories with levity to use as punctuation in heavier programmes to offer relief for difficult realities and stories that are important to depict.