Restless Native Productions is a Scottish independent production company that specialises in comedy and genre from the founder of the BAFTA and BIFA qualifying short comedy film festival Short Com and genre festival SI-FAN. As a passionate fan of comedy and genre in film, TV and live performance; Chris Aitken has decided to use his experience as a respected curator and comedy publicist (representing talent such as Laura Davies, The Delightful Sausage, Fin Taylor, John Hastings, Short & Curly, Stuart Laws & more) and skills as a screenwriter to work with emerging filmmaking, writing and performing talent.
As a writer he has worked with BAFTA winning and nominated talent as well as Edinburgh Comedy Award winning talent and made several shorts and sketches. He has been in the BBC comedy department for consideration for the Feed My Funny Pilot (as the only unknown) and reached interview stage for Film London Microwave First Feature scheme,.
The company name is inspired by the 1985 Scottish feature film; Restless Natives. It was the film that inspired Chris that the sort of stories he wants to see and make set in Scotland can be made here. Look Local, Think Global is the company motto. We want to produce stories promoting Scottish talent and locations but with the potential of reaching global audiences. We want to create bold; ambitious, funny and memorable content that audiences far and wide can appreciate. Inspiring people that they can have a career in the arts if they have no reference or background in it. Particularly those based outside of London, or from disadvantaged backgrounds or with disabilities.
In 2023 we produced several sketches for the BBC that featured some of Scotland's finest funniest talent. Two of our films we're selected for the BBC Scotland compilation show Short Stuff. Our film Da's was a big hit for their social media channels and went on a successful international film festival run being selected for Academy qualifying festivals such at Holly Shorts and the USA Today Best New Film Festival Salute Your Shorts.
RNP is delighted to be one of the 48 production companies to be awarded the Small Indie Fund by the BBC in 2023.
Restless Native Productions is a registered company: SC747524