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Festival Jury

Each year Doc'n Roll invites an all-star group of music and film lovers to help cap off our London event by awarding the Doc'n Roll Jury Award for Documentary of the Year.

Our 2023 jury is comprised of award-winning director Alfred George Bailey, 6 Music Presenter & DJ Deb Grant, musician (Goat Girl) and filmmaker Ellie Rose Davies, film critic Jason Solomons, Head of Co-Production at Sky Jack Oliver, and Head of Documentary at Misfits Entertainment Lizzie Gillett.

Read about past winners of the Doc'n Roll Documentary of the Year.

ALFRED GEORGE BAILEY

Alfred George Bailey is a London-based film director and screenwriter whose creative journey began when he started playing drums in his father's North West London gospel church. Upon leaving the church, at 16 he joined a jazz funk band as percussionist, and later was a drummer for his friend Courtney Pine CBE, the world-renowned saxophonist.

For the past 25 years, Alfred’s photography, ranging from reportage to portraits of musicians and dancers, has been celebrated for its intimacy and emotional depth; qualities that he has carried forward into filmmaking. His debut feature film as director and cinematographer was Gregory Porter: Don't Forget Your Music, the result of four years of following the Grammy-winning singer's rise to international stardom from humble beginnings in Bakersfield, California.

His critically acclaimed second feature film, again as director and cinematographer, was Show Me The Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall. Winner of the Grierson British Documentary Award and other honours, it charted the the fascinating life of the infamous music and documentary photographer responsible for some of the most iconic images of world-famous musicians across many genres and pivotal moments in American history.

As a writer-director, Alfred has a curious eye, and is fascinated with the human condition, exploring and encapsulating its many facets to tell deeply compelling stories that connect with us all. Cinematically his style is rooted in, and influenced by art, literature, music and the aesthetic of classic cinema. His unique body of creative work has a visual timelessness and humanising sensibility which speaks to the very heart of us all.

DEB GRANT

Deb Grant is a Dublin-born DJ, broadcaster and writer who now lives and works between London and Manchester. She has spent over 20 years hunting for records around the world and is known for her eclectic live sets, her monthly music column for the Big Issue and her daily radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music with Tom Ravenscroft, New Music Fix Daily, which spotlights the best in new underground music of every genre.

ELLIE ROSE-DAVIES

Ellie Rose-Davies’ creative practices include music, DJing, radio broadcasting, writing, film-making, sound healing and cooking. She is a founding member of the band Goat Girl and now writes and performs her own music as edna, alongside collaborating with other musicians. During her chemotherapy in treatment in 2020, Ellie made a film documenting the making of Goat Girl’s 2021 album On All Fours, which was supported by Doc'n Roll and included a screening and Q&A at Rio Cinema.

JASON SOLOMONS

Known as the “Voice of London Film” for his 25 years as film critic, presenter, DJ and interviewer on BBC Radio London, Jason is currently film editor of The New European newspaper and curator and host of the Cinedrome at the Green Man Festival.

Having written long-running columns for The Observer and The Mail on Sunday, among many other publications, Jason is now a BAFTA film committee member forging a new career as an independent British film producer. He has several projects in development, including a big-screen adaptation of Edward Chisholm’s best-selling memoir A Waiter in Paris.

Jason is a regular commentator on BBC News, and is also host of two podcasts: A Rabbit’s Foot, on film and culture, and Meet The Producer, about the business and craft of producing movies, supported by the Production Guild of Great Britain.

JACK OLIVER

Jack Oliver is Head of Co-Productions at Sky. He is an experienced broadcast executive and producer with a strong track record in commissioning and acquiring distinctive international content for UK audiences. His responsibilities extend across Sky's portfolio of channels, with a heavy focus on Sky Documentaries, Arts, Nature and Crime. Sky's new channels offer a strong and appealing slate of features and series that hold a cinematic scale and great storytelling at its heart.

Recent credits include The United Way, Tina Exterminate All The Brutes and The Return: Life After Isis, Janet 4x60’, The Princess, Spector 4 X60’ and Kingdom Of Dreams 4×60’, Mission To Burnley. On Sky Arts, the focus is to encourage participation and engagement in the arts, celebrating art in all its forms. Recent successful documentaries include The Blitz Kids, King Rocker, Poly Styrene, Voices of Ireland, Great Songwriters, The Lost Leonardo, Joseph Shabalala, Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris and Katherine Hepburn.

LIZZIE GILLETT

Lizzie Gillett is the Head of Documentary at Misfits Entertainment, best known for the BAFTA-nominated film McQueen and the Emmy-winning Rising Phoenix.

Most recently Lizzie produced The Territory, a feature documentary co-produced with the Uru-eu-wau-wau indigenous community in Brazil, which tells the story of the fight for the Amazon rainforest. After premiering to rave reviews at Sundance Film Festival in 2022, the film was acquired by National Geographic for global release.