ABOUT THE COMPANY
Orpheus Pictures is a London-based company founded by Jessica Benhamou. Journalistic inquisitiveness, multi-national heritage and a dashing of mischief compels us towards daring, original stories into the unknown.
Expert in securing sensitive access and international collaborations, we take audiences inside prisons, psychiatric hospitals, police forces, little-known communities and much more from around the world.
FOUNDER: JESSICA BENHAMOU
Jessica is a director, writer and producer with a passion for stories that tap into hidden histories, thrilling investigations, world literature, science and spirituality, as well as dysfunctional romantic relationships and families with unsolved, deep-seated, intergenerational trauma. She is drawn to complicated, flawed individuals wrestling with matters of the heart and their place in society and the universe.
Writer and director credits include: Alchemy of the Word (2025), a drama short about the damned poets, Rimbaud and Verlaine; 250 Years of Jane Austen (2025), a documentary about Austen's legacy for the Jane Austen Society UK; Love is a Hand Grenade (2021), which played at BFI Flare, Flickers' Rhode Island's Roving Eye, Bolton and Show Me Shorts; Sadeh (2021), a documentary short that screened at the UK Jewish Film Festival, Iris Prize, AmDocs and Cinequest; and an episode of the cybercrime docuseries, Hacker:Hunter (2021); She has worked in immersive and theatre including writing and directing the immersive murder mystery, Wedded to Murder (2024); and translating/directing The Kahena: Berber Queen (2022) as part of Global Jewish Voices at the Bush Theatre. Jessica produced the BIFA-longlisted feature, Love Type D (2019), and is an Associate Producer on the upcoming feature, Brighton Stories (2025).
Jessica has a number of TV and feature projects in development. Her TV pilot for Barren, a female-led HETV thriller series set in a fertility clinic is in development with a BAFTA-winning production company. The pilot script was selected for the WFTV Kay Mellor Screenwriters’ Lab 2025 and shortlisted for TIFF’s Sloan Science on Screen Breakthroughs programme. Jessica’s pilot script for her TV series, The Real Margot, was shortlisted for the Sky Arts RSL Writers Award 2021. As a director, she is developing a genre-bending feature, Vamped, with writer Kate Thorman, which was a finalist for the UK Next Wave Genre Lab. Her investigative documentary, The Ridge, is in funded development with EMMY-winning Submarine Entertainment, and her docu-drama, Bambi, telling the origin story of the world's most famous deer, received a small grant from the prestigious Claims Conference Emerging Filmmaker Contest.
In 2016, Jessica was awarded the Cointreau Creative Crew Grant for creative entrepreneurs for one of her first films and named Marie Claire's 'Wonder Woman' of the month.
CONTACT
General Enquiries:
team@orpheuspictures.co.uk