Clair Titley

(She/Her)

Clair’s breakthrough project is the feature-length documentary The Contestant.

It’s amazing how something seemingly innocuous can change the course of your life. This is true for the journey of director Clair Titley, who intended to become a theatre set designer, but during her Art Foundation course she fell in love with film, and completed a film degree. Even then, her intention was to work in scripted drama, until work experience at Bristol indie, Testimony Films, run by Steve Humphries, gave her the bug for documentary. It was the artform’s power to impact lives through the telling of real stories and authentic emotions that won her over and she’s not looked back since.

Clair cut her teeth making oral history films for the BBC, before developing, writing and directing the feature-length documentary The Contestant (2023, Misfits Entertainment). A serendipitous trip down a YouTube rabbit hole led her to Japanese reality TV star Tomoaki ‘Nasubi’ Hamatsu. His story was an intriguing tale of human interest, involving solitary confinement, psychological torture, media mockery, the origin of an explicit emoji, self-discovery and redemption. And, more importantly, Nasubi’s story had never properly been told before until Clair brought her light touch and inquisitive mind to exploring it.

In their own words…

“I had a moment a few years ago when I was getting a little disillusioned with what I was doing. I nearly left the industry. I realised that if I wanted to continue I had to make films that I was passionate about, to tell stories that needed to be told, and The Contestant was one of those passion projects I really wanted to make. So I made sacrifices in order to do that. The positive feedback we’ve had to it is just wonderful validation for all the blood, sweat and tears that went into it over the years.”