Last week we celebrated 10 favourite female film and TV icons, so this week it's the turn of heroines behind the camera.
In Britain only 7% of film directors are women, but with the help of events like Birds Eye View film festival, and this collection of fine female filmmakers, times they are a-changing! May we present, in no particular order, our Top 10 Fabulous Female Filmmakers:
1. Sarah Polley started life as an actress in her native Canada before turning her hand to directing. Away From Her (2007), starring Julie Christie as an independent and charismatic woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's, is a quietly heartbreaking masterpiece, and it was nominated for two Oscars. Not bad for a 29-year-old!
2. Kim Longinotto is a legendary British documentary filmmaker whose back catalogue features an incredible range of stories from across the world, often about women's lives. Her latest doc, Hold Me Tight; Let Me Go, (2007), won Best British Feature Documentary at Britdoc film festival, and it's both harrowing and heart-warming. Many of her films are available to view on the Channel 4 4Docs website; I urge you to see them all, now!
3. Daisy Asquith made her first broadcast documentary at age 19. She's an inspiring independent filmmaker whose films are warm and engaging: you can feel the relationships she develops with characters seeping through the screen. Her latest documentary Clowns, is showing this week on BBC2.
4. Gurinder Chadha is a British feature film director of Indian origin who makes cheerful chick flicks with an Asian twist, like Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Bride & Prejudice (2004). She's also responsible for bringing Keira Knightley to global attention. I'm not sure I can forgive her for that.
5. Lynne Ramsay's feature films, like the dark and disturbing Morvern Callar (2002), have earned her a BAFTA, and numerous other awards. Her next project is rumoured to be an adaptation of controversial monster-baby book, We Need To Talk About Kevin...
6. Samira Makhmalbaf directed her first feature film aged 17. She's quite the high-achiever, so she trotted across the border to Afghanistan to shoot her most recent film, Two-Legged Horse (2008), after Iranian authorities banned her from shooting on home soil, and she didn't let a bomb attack during filming prevent her from completing it. She describes Iranian women as, "like freshwater springs: the more pressure applied, the more force they show once they are freed." We like her.
7. Cecilia Miniucchi is the up-and-coming writer and director of Expired (2007), a feature film written for and starring the wonderful Samantha Morton. It tells the tale of two damaged, LA-dwelling traffic cops who can barely talk to each other, let alone have sex, and it's full of humour and poignancy, if not a few excruciating moments, as they navigate their new relationship. The film is Miniucchi's first full-length feature, and it's already receiving rave reviews. One to watch. Um, literally.
8. Jennifer Fox's series Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2007) started life as a feature length documentary... and became 6 hours of ground-breaking lady testimony! It's a mammoth viewing experience, but thoroughly worth the time (think about it: you, a big bar of chocolate, and companionship from women from all over the world, brought to you by the magic of DVD!). Jennifer is a brilliantly inspiring woman (with a New York loft and globe-trotting, polyamorous lifestyle to die for) who demonstrates that you don't need the world's most expensive camera to make an amazing film. Her experiments with style and form, and her journeys across continents to find out what modern life really means for women worldwide, have resulted in a reassuring and uplifting tale of how all of us ladies are connected, wherever we're from and whatever we're doing. Plus, you can enter a competition to film the next documentary in the series!
9. Mira Nair has been making movies since before I was born, and her more recent projects include Monsoon Wedding (2001), Vanity Fair (2004) and The Namesake (2006). Born in India, Nair often focuses on culture clashes, and her films are dazzling, vibrant tales with more than a little drama, and perhaps the odd sob. Multicultural loveliness at its most colourful.
10. Xanthe Hamilton is an emerging filmmaker from Jersey whose short documentaries have appeared on Current TV, Channel 4, and Birds Eye View film festival, amongst others. She runs Mix-TV, a company dedicated to making social documentaries, and her films just keep getting better and better. Another one to watch. Literally.