Solomon Golding’s childhood has the trappings of a feature film. He was raised between Tottenham, Jamaica, Ghana and Cambridge, and was inspired to take up ballet and leave home aged 11 to attend London’s Royal Ballet School after watching Billy Elliot and the Harry Potter films.
In 2013, he went on to be the first UK-born Black ballet dancer to join the Royal Ballet. He also danced with the Hong Kong Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, before taking the leap into producing.
“I was always searching to be part of telling stories that weren’t perpetuating dated or binary ideas of people’s cultures and genders,” he recalls. “I got to the point I felt like I had expended enough energy in ballet, and wanted to push my storytelling.”
Golding set up House of Solomon as an art curation, creative direction and production company in 2019, and was awarded a scholarship to study at the National Film and Television School, graduating in 2023. He connected with filmmaker Sally Potter through the college, with Golding coming on board to co-produce a modern retelling of her 1992 film Orlando, titled Orlando, Now, currently in development.
His graduate short Killing Boris Johnson, directed by Musa Alderson-Clarke, played at Cannes in 2023. “We ended up having [Reform UK MP] Lee Anderson on GB News saying the producers should be put in prison. That was amazing.”
Golding worked on Mikko Makela’s feature Sebastian (produced by fellow Star of Tomorrow James Watson), and is now in-house production assistant at Sarah Brocklehurst’s Brock Media. Here, he assisted on Sundance title The Outrun, and is helping build the TV slate, with projects including Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Small Worlds and The House, a series Golding describes as “Industry for the ballet world”.
On his own film slate, Golding is collaborating with his brother, artist Amartey Golding, and is developing a queer love story about a Jamaican man in the UK living with Alzheimer’s disease. “There’s a special alchemy I’ve fallen in love with [in producing],” he notes, “which is similar to performing and similar to being a ballet dancer — to create and manifest someone’s idea.”
Contact: Solomon Golding
No comments yet