The Story Collective hires See-Saw Films’ Mazzarella as development head

Ceci Mazzarella (left) and Elouise West

Fifth Season-backed UK drama prodco The Story Collective has hired Ceci Mazzarella as head of development from See-Saw Films.

Mazzarella is joined at the London-based firm by Elouise West, who is moving from All3Media-backed New Pictures to become head of commercial, legal and business affairs.

At See-Saw, Mazzarella worked across the development of many UK film projects and helped establish See-Saw’s nascent limited-series TV slate. Her credits include Operation Mincemeat and the forthcoming feature One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn and Helena Bonham Carter.

Building on her creative contacts in both feature film and TV, she will work with The Story Collective executive producer Kate Lewis to develop a slate of writer-driven TV projects.

Over the past four years, West was responsible for running business affairs at New Pictures for a wide range of productions, from Des for ITV to Champion, the first TV project from Candice Carty-Williams for the BBC and Netflix.

In her new role, she will also be responsible for overseeing business affairs on all company productions as well as the shows being produced within the company’s investment portfolio.

The appointments come as production continues on The Story Collective’s first scripted project, the Disney+ commission A Thousand Blows (working title), created by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders).

Damian Keogh, CEO of The Story Collective, said: “As production continues on A Thousand Blows and our development slate grows within our investment portfolio, we feel very lucky that Elouise and Ceci have agreed to join us. Both are highly talented in their fields and, most importantly as we build our ethos, extremely kind, patient, fun and collaborative.”