Lyttanya Shannon | Director

Lyttanya Shannon | Director

Lyttanya’s interest in the media began as a teenager when she loved poring over magazines like J17. She knew she wanted to get into journalism from the age of 11, and eventually became a broadcast journalist for the BBC. While she enjoyed meeting interesting people and telling their stories, she realised she was craving more time and space to explore her subject matter in greater detail.

Taking a leap of faith, she left her job of ten years in order to learn the art of documentary making at the National Film and Television School. Her first big career highlight after graduation was BBC2’s state of the nation series Hospital, where she climbed the ranks from Assistant Producer to Producer/Director and honed her storytelling skills. Her first opportunity to direct her own documentary for broadcast came in 2017, working on the acclaimed Death by Delivery, which looked into maternity healthcare discrepancies for black women in the US. Shortly after she won Channel 4's First Cut Pitch, making her first single documentary for a British audience. 

It has been a breakthrough year for Lyttanya, directing BBC film Subnormal: A British Scandal, for which she collaborated with executive producers Steve McQueen and James Rogan. She says it was an unforgettable career highlight to work with such brilliant filmmakers, while documenting a largely forgotten history that positioned black people as their own heroes in the face of injustice.  

Lyttanya is delighted to be part of Breakthrough UK, and hopes to continue exploring powerful human stories that challenge our perceptions, and improve our understanding of the world and each other. 

Lyttanya’s Breakthrough credit is TV documentary Subnormal: A British Scandal (BBC)

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