Ask anyone who the most successful woman in the global film industry is and they’ll tell you it’s Kathryn Bigelow, winner of this year’s Oscar for Best Director. Ask them to name a second woman; or a third. Anything? Anybody?
Female film-makers are notoriously underestimated and under-represented in the movie business. Few people know that some of the biggest grossing films of the past year – Fish Tank, Bright Star and An Education, to name just a few – were directed by women. As the iconic director of Bright Star, Jane Campion, reminded fans at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, just six per cent of film directors are female. The genre is dominated by men. Bigelow’s Oscar win last week, for the gritty war film The Hurt Locker, made history: she is the first woman to win Best Director.
Acclaimed director Kim Longinotto at the Birds Eye Festival last week
Female film-makers, inspired by Bigelow’s success, are trying to break the glass ceiling, right here in Islington. Campion has called for an army of tough new recruits to fight for equality in the director’s chair. But who are Islington’s pioneers, and why haven’t we heard of them before?
“It’s very difficult to be a film director and bring up a family,” explains Louise Radinger, founder of the Highbury Film Group. “It’s a very male-dominated business. There are all sorts of cliquey, male networking groups, and if you want to make it you have to ignore all this. It’s not easy. I don’t want to go around saying ‘I’m a woman’ and draw attention to it.
“Perhaps women aren’t brought up to be as assertive as men. To get on in this business, you need to be single-minded, perseverant, and you need to have time on your hands. Women need to challenge the perception that directing is a man’s game.”
The perception is a prevalent one; but it’s far from true. Female film-makers are – unknown to most of the viewing public – behind many of the biggest blockbusters of modern times. Jane Campion won an Oscar for her 1994 classic, The Piano, and Bright Star, her most recent hit, grossed over £6m. Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy, was unanimously praised by critics on its release earlier in the year. Bend it like Beckham, one of the highest grossing films of 2002, was directed by Londoner Gurinder Chadha. The list – homage to the off-screen stars behind many great British movies – goes on.
As well as setting up and running her own film company, Radinger is an award-winning director, whose films I, Sorry and Cluster, shot on location in Highbury, have won nationwide critical acclaim. Now a board member for Holloway-based film festival Reel Islington Screenings, she is determined to make sure female directors get the recognition they deserve.
“I do think the genre is changing,” she says. “I’m watching films to show in our summer festival at the moment, and I’m willing there to be some good movies made by women in there. I get excited when I find out that a film is directed by a woman, especially a local one.”
Rachel Millward, chief executive of Islington-based Birds Eye View, a festival celebrating and supporting female film directors, also hopes that change is coming.
“It doesn’t bother me what kind of films women make – comedy, action, thriller, whatever – I just want them to spring from passion and conviction,” she explains. “So often studios and audiences expect women to make emotional, soppy movies, but there is no reason why women cannot make action films. That’s why Bigelow is important.
“In the past, women have tended to go into producing, managing, hair and make-up, rather than directing or writing. Go into a classroom with a camera and it’s the boys jumping up, wanting to have a go. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Millward’s Birds Eye View festival, which has just ended its week-long stint in the British Film Institute on the South Bank, has been running for six years, playing host to familiar and not-so-familiar faces in the world of female film directing. This year’s programme, opened by actress Jane Horrocks, featured films made by women from across the world – Poland, Palestine, Kenya, India and the UK – and previewed upcoming releases by Drew Barrymore and Jessica Hausner.
It’s exciting news for Islington’s female directors, and a step in the right direction for women hoping to get into the business. Inspired by the success of Birds Eye View, director Ruth Torjussen, 47, set up FilmDirecting4Women, an organisation aimed at educating the next generation of female film-makers.
“The norm is that a film director is a man, so people aren’t looking for women in the genre,” Torjussen says. “I’ve taught over a hundred students since we opened last year, and some start out really demoralised because of their gender. My advice is that you can be a shy little mouse behind the camera, but once you get on set you have to have show people your vision.
“Female directors can add things to films that men can’t. The Hurt Locker is told in a woman’s way – it has a softness to it, less of the ‘let’s get the guns out’ attitude that a male director might have. Don’t get me wrong, most of my favourite films are made by blokes. But what we’re used to watching is the male version of events.”
“Kathryn Bigelow is totally an inspiration,” she adds. “It didn’t just get to that point where they had to let a woman win an Oscar for directing because we were getting stroppy about it. She won it on her own merit.”
FilmDirecting4Women builds up local talent to raise awareness of the potential and capability of females in the film-making world. Torjussen’s ultimate aim, she explains, is equality: that half of all films are made by women.
“I know it sounds ludicrous, but it’s a goal,” she says. “Getting the balance right will be difficult and it will take a long time. But we’re getting there.
“Some women say they can’t make movies because there’s not enough money around. But somebody, somewhere is making movies all the time. The funding is there, if you just look for it. If you’re going to be a moaning minnie then you’ll never get anywhere, but if you put yourself out there, you can do it. We all can.”
Photo Credit - Ruth Cook
