Owain Astles is a director and 1st AD based between New York, Bristol and London. Owain’s work focuses on social impact and participatory filmmaking, primarily in narrative and docudrama. Owain’s work has screened at multiple BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying festivals and he is a member of BAFTA Connect. Currently Owain studies on the Grad Film programme at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in New York, where he is a recipient of the BAFTA / Pigott scholarship.

Most recently, Owain worked as a Participatory Director with Inside Job Productions, co-creating films with men in London prisons. He took part in BFI NETWORK’s Shorts2Features scheme, developing his first feature, a love story set in prison.

As a 1st AD, Owain has worked with the likes of BFI Network, BBC Films, Converse and Netflix. Achievements include winning Best Short Film at BFI London Film Festival 2022 and Best British Short at the British Short Film Awards 2022.

Owain has delivered Homeless Action Week,  an event involving people in Bristol’s homeless community and Cardboard Camp, a theatre partnership between Cardboard Citizens and Bristol Old Vic, working with people experiencing homelessness. Most recently, he produced Inspire Festival for the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance at Rich Mix cinema in East London. In 2018 he gave a TEDx talk, on his lived experience of homelessness.