Guiding Lights mentors include Madden, Park, Abrahamson

The 2013 directing mentors include Oliver Parker, John Madden [pictured], Joanna Hogg and Lenny Abrahamson,

Writing mentors include Will Davies, Peter Straughan and Lucinda Coxon.

Producing mentors are Nira Park, Andrea Calderwood and Robyn Slovo.

This year’s participants are directors Afarin Eghbal, Laura Smith, Andrew Lang, Henry Darke and Carmel Winters, writers Andy Yerlett, Lucy Moore, Martin Wallace and Thomas Martin, and producers Jessica Levick, Rob Watson and Alexa Seligman.

Each mentor is paired with a mentee they work with over nine months. Some mentorships extend beyond this scheme — for instance producer Nicky Bentham was mentored by EON’s Barbara Broccoli, who is now executive producing Bentham’s The Silent Storm.

Guiding Lights patron Alison Thompson, co-president of Focus Features International (FFI), said, “During the four years that I’ve been involved with Guiding Lights, first as a mentor and now as Patron, a hugely impressive line-up of professionals have generously given their time to the scheme, including Sam Mendes, Danny Boyle, Lone Scherfig, Kenneth Branagh, Paul Greengrass, Graham Broadbent, Abi Morgan, Tim Bevan, Christopher Hampton and James Marsh. The standard of the selected participants continues to rise, and we’re delighted to have been able to lure the same calibre of industry talent on board for 2013.”