Our Team
Sixteen Films, started in 2002, is headed up by film Director Ken Loach, and Producer Rebecca O'Brien.
Ken loach
Ken Loach was born in 1936 in Nuneaton. He attended King Edward VI Grammar School and went on to study law at St. Peter's Hall, Oxford. After a brief spell in the theatre, Loach was recruited by the BBC in 1963 as a television director. This launched a long career directing films for television and the cinema, from Cathy Come Home and Kes in the sixties to Land And Freedom, Sweet Sixteen, The Wind That Shakes The Barley (Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 2006), Looking for Eric, The Angels’ Share and I, Daniel Blake (Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 2016).
If he's not bothering people about their yawning or their chosen shade of off white paint, he's likely on the Twerton Park terraces yelling at his beloved Bath City Football Club.
rebecca o'brien
Rebecca O’Brien began her film life working at the Edinburgh Film Festival. After a short stint in theatre admin at Riverside Studios she took a one week film production course and fell headlong into production. She worked on early Channel Four films and dramas, including “My Beautiful Laundrette” (as Location Manager) and the Michael Rosen inspired multi-cultural kids’ series “Everybody Here”. Her feature film producing debut was “Friendship’s Death” written and directed by Peter Wollen and starring Tilda Swinton and Bill Paterson. Her first film with Ken Loach was “Hidden Agenda” and since then they have made eighteen feature films together and many other documentary and short projects. In 2002 they formed Sixteen Films. Apart from the Loach/Laverty films, Rebecca also produced the “Bean” movie for Working Title, “Princesa” for Parallax Pictures, “City of Tiny Lights” for Sixteen Films and has executive produced for Camilla Bray, Ian Knox and Henrique Goldman. In 2016 she produced “Versus – the Life and Films of Ken Loach” a documentary directed by Louise Osmond.
Rebecca has sat on various film industry boards including PACT, the European Film Academy, the UK Film Council and South West Screen. She is currently a board member of the British Screen Advisory Council. Rebecca makes awesome flapjacks.
Emma Lawson
Emma joined Sixteen Films via the most circuitous route in a million other industries.
Emma manages Ken, expectations, and team birthdays. She likes white trainers, drinks very strong tea and has a low cringe threshold.
ateeq rahman
Ateeq has been with the company since 2020. He snuck into the building whilst everyone else was locked down and we haven’t been able to get rid of him since.
He keeps the accounts department in check. He holds strong views and lifts heavy weights.
habib Rahman
Habib began his career as an accountant at The National Theatre before moving on to The Almeida Theatre in 1999. Habib joined Sixteen Films via Parallax Pictures in 2003. Habib is a truly entrepreneurial spirit with a keen interest in internet start-up businesses: he has recently transformed his life, turning from hopeless sugar addict to resident gym bunny. Now - when not tied to his calculator - he is most often found in the kitchen cupboard, extolling the virtues of weight-training and peanut butter oatcakes.
Jack Thomas-O'Brien
Jack Thomas-O’Brien has been working at Sixteen Films for too long. He is now a Producer - working across all projects at the company with his own slate of work in development & now production.
He spends too much time working on short films, reading about football and drinking squash to be taken too seriously.
naomi smith
Naomi is the newest face in the Sixteen Films Office, assisting Rebecca and Jack with their films in development and production.
You are guaranteed to find her in a pair of dungarees and is always on the look out for a new house plant to add to her ever growing collection.
SIXTEEN FILMS ALUMNI and friends (not exhaustive!)
