Celebrate Life CIC
Celebrate Life is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company dedicated to bringing people together through music and the arts.
Launched in 2009 with small music events that blended film and messages of peace, we soon expanded into larger cultural collaborations across London.
We became a CIC in 2019 and have since focused on filmmaking and workshops, with a particular emphasis on youth engagement, knife-crime prevention, and sharing uplifting stories from local communities.
In 2022, we released Power to Change, an insightful documentary highlighting the human stories behind London’s knife crime and youth violence.
Building on this work, we are now developing and delivering Peace Workshops designed to support and empower teenagers.
Our core team includes Roni Redmond, Wendy Lewis, and Rob Dunford, with additional contributors joining us for specific projects.
Meet the Team
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Wendy Lewis
DIRECTOR
Wendy Lewis is the Director of Celebrate Life CIC and an independent filmmaker dedicated to creating impactful, community-focused storytelling. Through her work, she uses film as a tool for connection and change.
Wendy is the in-house designer, creating the flyers, sending out the mailings, editing the videos and creating this website.
She is also a singer/song-writer specialising in North Indian Classical Vocal and traditional Celtic melodies. You can see some of her music here: https://www.youtube.com/@WendyLewis
Wendy grew up for the most part in rural France, living with her family on several acres of land which they farmed sustainably while running a small publishing company. She was educated at home and had ample time to pursue her interests, especially art.
She moved to London in 2008 and remembers the culture shock, coming from a place where she could walk all day and not meet a soul, to the bustling metropolis that is London. She now juggles motherhood with her Celebrate Life activities.
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Roni Redmond
DIRECTOR
Roni Redmond is a Director of Celebrate Life CIC, where she plays a key role in organising the various projects, whether that’s developing workshops or arranging a film shoot.
Roni was born in Cyprus, and came to the UK at seven years old to escape the political unrest in the former British colony. Music, dance and the arts are her passions, and throughout her life she has used her talents in a variety of ways. She started her working career as a secretary at BBC Radio, meeting an array of interesting creative people. After leaving the BBC she was self-employed working at Portobello Road and Camden markets buying and selling vinyl records and enjoying being part of a free flow dance and mime troupe, before meeting her husband, getting married and having a family.
In the 1990s Roni picked up her career collaborating with student union, local performers and health organisations to organise educational music festivals - raising awareness around HIV, drug abuse, racism and homelessness. Now a Grandmother, Roni loves bringing people together to share their humanity, and being part of Celebrate Life is the perfect opportunity to do this.
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Rob Dunford
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Rob Dunford started his career working in Post-Production at ITV, UK. From there he decided to develop his skills first in location sound, working on two short narrative films set in Spain and then as a freelance sound engineer with director Bashart Malik on several indie shorts set around the Bristol area.
It was around this time that he met Celebrate Life and took on the role of camera/sound capture for music events that Celebrate Life were organising. Since then Rob Dunford has worked exclusively for Celebrate Life on numerous short films and the documentary Power to Change.
"Being a part of Celebrate Life, has challenged me to aim higher and higher in our video productions. Never would I have imagined I would be helping this small group of creatives produce such inspiring material. It’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks."