Emily Badescu

Emily Badescu is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the recipient of the 2025 Fulbright-BAFTA scholarship. Emily began storytelling through installations, video, and sound art while studying Fine Art at UAL in the UK. Upon graduating in 2016 Emily moved to Brighton, where she discovered both documentary-filmmaking and skateboarding. Inspired by the skatepark’s intergenerational community, she started filming - and hasn’t stopped. After a summer documenting skateparks in Texas, she trained with OTOXO Productions in Barcelona. Since then, she’s directed, produced, and edited award-winning documentaries and videos. Her credits include VICE, Netflix, BBC, AppleTV+, and The Guardian. A skilled editor, her work includes the SXSW-premiering Alien On Stage - described as “one of the funniest documentaries in years” (IndieWire) and “life-affirming” (Mark Kermode) - as well as edit consulting at Sheffield DocFest. 

Supported by We Are Doc Women and ScreenSkills mentorships, she advocates for a more inclusive industry, using her skills to empower people to co-create films through participatory workshops with the charity Rites for Girls and world-leading dance company Rambert. Though her career has grown beyond the skatepark, Emily stays connected to the global skateboarding community, carving out time to make work that blends academia, art, and kinaesthetic intelligence. During her time on Duke University's MFA|EDA programme she plans to further explore storytelling as a community-building tool. You can check out her work at: www.emilybadescu.com