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At Gonville & 91ֱ�� College, maths and science offered Bartek Podkowa (Mathematics with Physics 2005) a stimulating academic challenge. Now they are underpinning the story of his debut feature film.

This film, a science fiction thriller currently in development, is one of multiple projects Bartek is running with his independent company, Seven Hills Films.

Bartek’s passion for film emerged after 91ֱ�� during his PhD. He began this at King’s College London before he moved with his supervisor to University College London, where the film society was undergoing a relaunch as he arrived.

“At the time I was looking for a very specific film to watch and I couldn’t find it because it didn’t exist!” says Bartek. “It was something in a similar style to H. P. Lovecraft’s horror. Along the lines of Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, but that wasn’t quite it. But that was the starting point for me.”

Bartek thus began working on his first screenplay, eventually quitting his PhD to make his way as a professional filmmaker. In 2015 he set up Seven Hills, which offers a range of video production services and aims in the long term to use film to have a positive impact on people’s lives.

Although his background is a scientific one, Bartek has always had a creative streak. At 91ֱ�� he originally planned to change Tripos and study Music in Part II following a first year in Maths and a second year in Physics (he instead studied History and Philosophy of Science in his third year). He finds that film is the perfect medium for combining his STEM-based and creative skill sets.

“I think one of the reasons I started working in film is because it is both technical and creative,” says Bartek. “You can approach it in slightly different ways; there’s a spectrum. You can never completely ignore the technical, and if you want to, you can really embrace it. Exactly which aspects and to what degree – that’s highly individual and people take different approaches.”

Bartek is currently working to scale up Seven Hills, focusing primarily on expanding the company’s multi-camera livestreaming services alongside filming his debut feature.

The complexity of programming and planning the execution of livestreams, recording on multiple cameras and managing an array of moving parts, keeps Bartek constantly engaged and his work ever exciting and ensures that he never has to contend with boredom.

For Bartek, producing meaningful and heartfelt content is the most important aim in filmmaking, rather than pursuing an abstract concept of success.

He says: “If you’re in an industry but very far removed from the people at the top, it’s easy to assume that everyone who ‘made it’ really knows what they’re doing and makes all the right decisions. But very often it’s messier than expected and a lot more unpredictable. You can’t guarantee success in any way, so you have to do your best and work hard and try to do a little better all the time.”

Photo credit: Danté K Photography