Welcome to the official website of award-winning author and filmmaker Ben Pickering.

Ben’s first foray into movie-making came in 1995, when at just 16 he produced and starred in his first feature, the coming-of-age drama BACKSTREET. Two years later he produced and starred in the low-budget gangster thriller TRAGIC IRONY, made on 16mm film for just £6,000.

After making his directorial debut with the pilot for docudrama series HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER, Ben stepped back from the film industry to read Politics at university, surviving to the final year of a PhD on the European Union before returning to his first love: film. In 2009 he produced the 35mm short BEACHED in conjunction with the London Film School. It was selected for the Strasbourg International Film Festival and screened at the Cannes Short Film Corner.

In 2012, he finally took the plunge and directed his first feature, crime thriller TWO DAYS IN THE SMOKE. A reimagining of his earlier film TRAGIC IRONY, the reboot starred Matt di Angelo (Borgia), Lili Bordán (Battlestar Galactica) and Alan Ford (Snatch). The London- and Paris-set feature was originally released in the UK in October 2014 as THE SMOKE and internationally in 2015 as LONDON PAYBACK. A Director’s Cut will be released in December 2019 under its original title TWO DAYS IN THE SMOKE.

After co-producing Isle of Man heist caper RATTED OUT and associate producing psychological thriller THE STRANGER, he returned to the director’s chair for the Cornish-set portmanteau WELCOME TO CURIOSITY starring Amrita Acharia (Game of Thrones), Jack Ashton (Call the Midwife), Richard Blackwood (EastEnders), Kacey Clarke (The InBetweeners) and Stephen Marcus (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). The film was released in Canada, the US and the UK in May 2018.

Ben published his first novel – FREIHEIT, a dystopian alternative history of post-war Britain in a world where Adolf Hitler had never existed (for which he won a Koestler Platinum Award) – in September 2019.

He is currently writing his second, THE LAST RESORT, while taking on producing duties for Darren Ripley’s Wales-set comedy TAFF’S GOLD, Neil Monaghan’s romantic farce TWO WRONGS and Clive Nolan’s steam-punk musical series THE PROFESSOR KING CHRONICLES.

He plans to return to the director’s chair in 2020 with the Irish-set psychological thriller THE CAGE and Bollywood musical BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE INDIA.