Meet the Bradford man behind TV and film company nurturing new talent
Here he writes about returning to the industry, after a hiatus:
I have returned to the creative fold as CEO and producer under my now rebranded company, Cellsya7 Studios (C7), specialising in television, movie and innovative technologies. Using my working-class upbringing, I am crafting content that resonates, feels personal, yet is cinematic in scale, but taking it one step further by incorporating its very own science lab.
Cambridge is a city celebrated for its Nobel laureates, transformative biotech breakthroughs and audacious research. Alongside my Cambridge-based Chief Technology Officer Ahmad Al Hamoud, I am reinventing storytelling, making originality its lifeblood, while our lab becomes a crucible for accelerating production and testing how speculative technologies, inventions and social ideas might leap from fiction into reality.
Technology Officer Ahmad Al Hamoud
What sets this venture apart is the C7 team’s extraordinary interdisciplinarity: some are experts in machine intelligence, others in design and others in cognitive sciences. Al Hamoud is an award-winning filmmaker, producer and visionary researcher at the confluence of epigenetics, human-computer interfaces and neuromorphic AI. His work probes how emerging sciences can radically transform the way we perceive, interact with and craft stories - both human and machine-generated - blurring the boundaries between imagination and the tangible world.
We want to bring together minds who think differently. People who aren’t constrained. Or afraid to fail. Only through ‘doing’ do we learn, only when we learn can we then win big.
This introduction is but a preview of things to come - sneaking through the keyhole is all we’re allowed for now. We have to wait for C7 to pick up the microphone when it’s good and ready to show and tell. No diagrams. No publicly available white papers. Not even a full explanation of what is being built.
Cellsya7 is thinking 10 years ahead. It’s about unlocking possibilities to usher in the next status quo of the creative industry.
Al Hamoud states: “At C7, inspired by the MIT Media Lab, we turn fiction into experiments, crafting technologies and ideas today that will redefine how humans and machines dream tomorrow.”
The quiet advantage of C7 is curiosity, which is the kind of currency you need to stand out. And it’s beginning to attract attention from prospective funders beyond the UK who recognise the potential.
C7’s first completed project - a short film entitled ‘Gaming the System’ - had our short film selected at the Bahrain Film Festival of 2025. C7’s current development slate includes a TV series set in 1960s Bradford amongst textile mills and South Asian migrants, as well as an Oceans 11 style heist movie. And with such content, there will be a conscious effort to drive down the cost of production, harness the working class creatives and hire talent based strictly on merit.
For me, the most important factor is to attract good hearted people with a passion for stories. Your talent is welcomed, but it’s your manner and work ethic that will cast the final vote at C7. We want to create a family environment, which fosters healthy relationships, amazing on-set experiences and great memories.
In due course, I intend to nurture emerging talent with tailored opportunities who tend to face ever-increasing barriers in the arts. This can be down to lack of professional credits, geography, your accent, your class, your work/home life balance, your age or any other bump in the road.
We should be putting creative excellence and humanity above all else. Just think of the Nolans and Ritchies we have lost due to narrow thinking and closed shops.
The ‘7’ in Cellsya7 is a nod to the 7 skies - so when we say there’s no limit, it’s not lip service. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Action.
