Browse content similar to Beeban Kidron - Film Director. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
fighting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. He | :00:05. | :00:12. | |
denies the allegations. It is time for HARDtalk now. | :00:12. | :00:19. | |
Why are there so few women film- makers? Does it matter? The Cannes | :00:19. | :00:24. | |
Film Festival was criticised this year when all 22 films and the | :00:24. | :00:28. | |
competition were directed by men. Hollywood is not much better. A | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
recent study found that less than 10 % of its directors were women. | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
Beeban Kidron is my guest today. She has made the big time. She | :00:38. | :00:44. | |
directed the Bridget Jones May Day, The Edge of Reason. Most of four | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
other films concern more radical material. She made a documentary | :00:49. | :00:55. | |
about anti- nuclear women protesters at Greenham Common and | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
an adaptation of the lesbian novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Her | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
latest documentary is about India's sacred prostitutes. Do women and | :01:04. | :01:14. | |
:01:14. | :01:24. | ||
the choices they make interest to most? Beeban Kidron, welcome to | :01:24. | :01:30. | |
HARDtalk. It does seem odd that we are in the 21st century and there | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
are not more women who have voted through to the big-time. Why do you | :01:34. | :01:40. | |
think that is? I think it is the same everywhere. They are having | :01:40. | :01:45. | |
the same debate in business, politics, the front bench. Look at | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
one thing, Women are primary carers of the young, the old and the | :01:50. | :01:56. | |
domestic. If that is the case, they will not be in difficult places. | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
Men fight to get there, for women it is harder. It does seem that | :02:02. | :02:12. | |
their film making is worse than other areas. Film-making is often | :02:12. | :02:18. | |
about women. You might think women might be more interested in it. 9% | :02:18. | :02:24. | |
of Hollywood directors in 2008 were women. That is the same as 1998. It | :02:24. | :02:30. | |
has not changed. I got an e-mail saying he was solve this problem. | :02:30. | :02:35. | |
The question is, why are there no women over the age of 35? You have | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
to ask yourself, what happens to women beyond that age? The start to | :02:40. | :02:48. | |
have children. Film-making is a 247 occupation. You fight to make your | :02:48. | :02:53. | |
film. Once you have won that fight, it takes months and months and | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
months. It is not so double work for people with others to look | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
after. -- the double. Those of us who started when we were young, we | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
were able to work it out by the time we had children. Then, there | :03:08. | :03:14. | |
are ours with significant partners who can help us. It is a problem. | :03:14. | :03:19. | |
You wrote about the experience of having children and trying to work. | :03:19. | :03:25. | |
You said that with all the marching and agitating that it was difficult | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
to find someone to bring up the children. Who did we think it would | :03:30. | :03:35. | |
be? That is the question that has not been answered. In public life, | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
that needs to be answered. It is impossible for women to get ahead | :03:40. | :03:47. | |
in the business where the hours are monstrous. Absolutely monstrous. It | :03:47. | :03:52. | |
is not unusual if you are making a big feature film to get up at 4am | :03:52. | :03:57. | |
and not get home until midnight six or seven days a week. That is | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
difficult to pull off. That is a side from creativity or any other | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
issues. Then we come to the question of whether it matters. | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
Women are choosing to look after children. We do not have an answer | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
to the question of who would do it instead. Does it matter that women | :04:15. | :04:22. | |
are not making films? Of course it matters. There are women everywhere. | :04:22. | :04:27. | |
To be frank, we are half of the world. We are half of the stories. | :04:27. | :04:34. | |
We are half of the consumers. Unless you recognise that, you will | :04:34. | :04:42. | |
not have the full gamut of shimmied experience. -- human experience. We | :04:42. | :04:47. | |
hold the story of contemporary life and history. Unless you have that | :04:47. | :04:53. | |
new ones to look at it, you will miss out. -- that particular look | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
at it. Are men not telling stories? Of course they are. They are | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
brilliant. That does not mean you should not have the full gaze on a | :05:04. | :05:10. | |
number of sussed -- subject. It is not a choice. It is not something | :05:10. | :05:15. | |
that will be addressed for a long time, if ever, given the nature of | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
the problem at its heart. I think it is something that we must | :05:20. | :05:26. | |
continually address. If you do not do it for us, we must do it for our | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
daughters. If not our daughters, are granddaughters. I think if you | :05:30. | :05:36. | |
want people to be fairly human, they must feel that they can | :05:36. | :05:43. | |
participate in the full spectrum of human experience. For you, that | :05:43. | :05:48. | |
meant, I mean look at your portfolio, Bridget Jones, let's go | :05:48. | :05:53. | |
to your first film, you made it very young and you were entrusted | :05:53. | :05:58. | |
by the women at Greenham Common protest in against nuclear weapons. | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
You went along with a friend and made a documentary about a story | :06:02. | :06:07. | |
you felt was not being told. I went along with Amanda Richardson. We | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
both felt a bit like a fish out of water at film school. Many people | :06:12. | :06:17. | |
were so certain about why they were there and they'd seemed so | :06:17. | :06:22. | |
technically proficient. We were relatively young and had not been | :06:22. | :06:29. | |
tutored. We got practice over here. When we got to Greenham Common, two | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
extraordinary things happened. One was that we were in a community of | :06:34. | :06:41. | |
people who were not there, were not connected in a grid for reasons of | :06:41. | :06:46. | |
their birth or accident or getting on with their lives. It was not an | :06:46. | :06:52. | |
educational thing. They had faith and belief in something. It was an | :06:52. | :06:57. | |
extraordinary experience for that reason. Also, they were under | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
attack. They were under considerable attack from the media. | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
We were very young film-makers. We thought "hang on a minute, this is | :07:08. | :07:16. | |
what we see on the news, this is what we read in the papers..." They | :07:16. | :07:22. | |
should say that the image being put across was one off Heery lesbians. | :07:22. | :07:29. | |
-- we should. Isn't it amazing that we have absorbed the fact that at | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
one period the entire British ruling class had white wigs and red | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
marks on their face but these women were being crucified for the colour | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
of their hair, not their politics. There was an intrinsic problem | :07:43. | :07:49. | |
about how the media was approaching this. Also, I think, this was 30 | :07:49. | :07:56. | |
years ago are now, I think there was the birth of something in me as | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
a film-maker and an observer. Someone went "and hang on a minute, | :08:02. | :08:10. | |
let us look at ambivalence. Let us look at the bit that is not binary. | :08:10. | :08:15. | |
Let's start looking at the world as we experience it as human beings, | :08:16. | :08:23. | |
not as a cycle of news and good and bad." I thought that was being done. | :08:23. | :08:28. | |
From the sounds of it, that has fed subsequent programmes continually. | :08:28. | :08:33. | |
Your breakthrough film was a television adaptation of Oranges | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
Are Not the Only Fruit. That is by Jeanette Winterson. You got a BAFTA | :08:38. | :08:44. | |
for that. You were still very young. That was the 1990. It shocked | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
British audiences. It was the first time that there had been an | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
intimate same-sex seen on British television. It was extraordinary. | :08:54. | :09:00. | |
We made it quite quietly in the BBC. We weren't one of the Premier | :09:00. | :09:06. | |
programmes. We were doing nothing. I remember one of the guys some | :09:06. | :09:14. | |
editorial coming in and seeing "it did not look very BBC." and I said | :09:14. | :09:21. | |
"what does BBC look like then?" Somehow the BBC has always had a | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
fantastic tradition about respecting literature and the book | :09:24. | :09:28. | |
had done so well that they respected its quality what those | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
reasons. And they did not look that carefully at what it contained. | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
What happened was, as word got out that there was going to be a love | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
scene between two young girls, there was a louder banging of the | :09:43. | :09:48. | |
drum. There was one of these terrible surveys. 60 % of British | :09:48. | :09:52. | |
people were against the showing of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. | :09:52. | :09:59. | |
After it went out, 60 % a British people were absolutely for the show. | :09:59. | :10:04. | |
I think that it is about the role of drama. It is about the role of | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
stories. It is about how people actually recognise the struggle of | :10:08. | :10:14. | |
that young women to grow up. It was not about, sexuality. It was about | :10:14. | :10:20. | |
her right as a human being. -- not about her sexuality. I think that | :10:20. | :10:27. | |
is important. A here you are, in a sense, it was radical for its time. | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
You had done this series of radical programming. Then there is a | :10:32. | :10:40. | |
certain point in your career, Bridget Jones, you were accused of | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
selling out but you have described it as a radical film, rather | :10:44. | :10:50. | |
strangely for the secret of Bridget Jones to be a radical film. It is a | :10:50. | :10:57. | |
departure from the artist L. -- sequel. Was a deliberate? -- art | :10:57. | :11:04. | |
house style. Was it deliberate? I had made films with Patrick Swayze, | :11:04. | :11:10. | |
Shirley McLaine, I had been out there and done the Hollywood thing. | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
I think there is that. I think going back to your first question, | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
people have to be really careful about how tough they are on women | :11:19. | :11:25. | |
who do make films. If we are not allowed to make all kinds of films, | :11:25. | :11:31. | |
then the glass ceiling is completely intact. I think it is | :11:31. | :11:35. | |
worth saying that Bridget remains in the top ten off all-time best | :11:35. | :11:42. | |
grossing British films. You have to remember that gives you a lot of | :11:42. | :11:49. | |
power as a film director. 4 Bridget itself, before you... Where you | :11:49. | :11:56. | |
saying that you should have been able to do that sooner? What are | :11:56. | :12:02. | |
you saying? Why vilify me for doing it? I was vilified. I was more | :12:02. | :12:09. | |
amused than angry at that. Why do you think that was? Because they | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
thought that we had sold out. was not to do with you being a | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
woman. Or was it? It is about being in a group that is not well | :12:18. | :12:25. | |
represented. I think it is because I am a woman film-maker. That is | :12:25. | :12:31. | |
the mantle that I cold. Any one of those... What people expect from | :12:31. | :12:37. | |
you is that you carry the dreams and aspirations. We don't only | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
carry the dreams and aspirations what we are paid to do, we carry | :12:42. | :12:48. | |
all that is not happening. I think that is where people must be | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
careful, not to pull people down. Don't pull the ones who get a | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
little bit ahead of the game down. It is important that women make big | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
box-office films. You were aware of that. That must be important. I | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
know when you did you first feature film in the UK, a journalist called | :13:07. | :13:13. | |
you up and said "Do you know you are only the third woman ever to | :13:13. | :13:19. | |
make a feature film in the UK?" High fantastic that is. I try to | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
check how many women there were on the Internet and I could not get | :13:23. | :13:28. | |
any because there were so many. So many. You pick the phone down on | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
that journalist because you did not want to be a representative. You | :13:32. | :13:38. | |
wanted to be Beeban Kidron doing a job. If a woman film director makes | :13:38. | :13:43. | |
everybody in this audience think "all well, that will be better than | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
a male film director because she will have an added value through | :13:47. | :13:55. | |
her gender." Then terrific. I want to be a woman film director. If it | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
isn't really a qualification of the role of director of them why would | :13:58. | :14:05. | |
I want that attach to me? I think it is a difficult thing to carry. - | :14:05. | :14:12. | |
- then why. I am hugely proud of being a woman. I am absolutely, | :14:12. | :14:17. | |
politically behind women's emancipation of all kind. Do not | :14:17. | :14:27. | |
:14:27. | :14:30. | ||
You said you were vilified for the lead. The most recent project, | :14:30. | :14:36. | |
Storyville, is about the sacred prostitutes of India. A completely | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
different programme that in a way certainly reminded me of some of | :14:39. | :14:46. | |
the earlier stuff you had done, documentaries about women and women | :14:46. | :14:52. | |
in a particular role. For these women it is extraordinary. | :14:52. | :15:00. | |
Scandalous. That was what was so interesting. I went to India and I | :15:00. | :15:07. | |
could not believe it. I had quite famously made a film about New York | :15:08. | :15:14. | |
prostitutes that was very, very popular on the airwaves. It made a | :15:14. | :15:20. | |
lot of ways, let's say. I thought I had done every possible angle on | :15:21. | :15:25. | |
prostitution. I had dealt with that subject from my personal film- | :15:25. | :15:31. | |
making perspective. And then I heard this thing on Radio 4 which | :15:31. | :15:38. | |
was actually about young girls being dedicated to the goddess in | :15:38. | :15:43. | |
childhood and at puberty being sold for sex. Prostitution in the name | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
of God? You have to be joking! You have to be joking. I was so enraged | :15:49. | :15:53. | |
that I was virtually in India before I had even decided to make a | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
film. I can't really explain what happened to me but I felt like it | :15:57. | :16:02. | |
was a calling. I did not wait for someone to finance the film. I | :16:02. | :16:06. | |
didn't wait to find a camera person. I went to see if it was true. I | :16:06. | :16:11. | |
started making the film. Because they say it does not exist anymore, | :16:11. | :16:20. | |
it was a long-winded thing is find the exact community. -- to find. I | :16:20. | :16:24. | |
proved that it indeed it does happen. As I got closer and closer | :16:24. | :16:29. | |
to the women and girls, for whom it was happening, I understood | :16:29. | :16:35. | |
something else. In this part of the world, in this particular community, | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
where margins are so small, for them the choice was between being | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
Devadasi, and somewhat elevated by their relationship with the goddess, | :16:47. | :16:52. | |
or being trafficked. Arts and actually, in their world, it was | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
better to be a Devadasi. -- and actually. You understand why a | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
mother might sell their daughter as a prostitute? In these | :17:01. | :17:05. | |
circumstances. We don't have time, because it took me 75 minutes to | :17:05. | :17:09. | |
prove the point. I can't prove it here. But I think that there is a | :17:09. | :17:17. | |
huge history to the Devadasi which has been everybody, British, India, | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
the NGOs, the current government's everybody has marginalise this | :17:23. | :17:26. | |
group. All of the good things about it are at a minimum and the bad | :17:27. | :17:32. | |
things are maximum. But what I have to say to you, if any one of those | :17:32. | :17:36. | |
girls could be a film-maker sitting here talking to you, or a Devadasi, | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
they would choose to be me. But before I were sitting in their | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
shoes, I might choose to be a Devadasi. We have to really take | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
account of that when we judge people. The reason, one of the | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
reasons you are here, and being a film-maker, is partly the enforce | :17:55. | :18:04. | |
of your father. He died very recently. He was many things. One | :18:04. | :18:10. | |
of his life's project was to understand and replace -- the place | :18:10. | :18:14. | |
of capitalism. For his 50th birthday he did a remarkable thing | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
for his time. He arranged a private screening of a film for you and | :18:20. | :18:30. | |
your friends. Yes. It was a film called miracle in the land, made in | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
1951. I remember standing next to my dad. He said, I haven't seen | :18:34. | :18:37. | |
this for years. I hope it is what Arona. He said it was a film that | :18:37. | :18:45. | |
had meant so much to him. -- remember. He said that if what -- | :18:45. | :18:51. | |
if we saw it we would understand his Abbott -- aspiration for the | :18:51. | :18:56. | |
world. But we should leave now, as if it was a better place than it -- | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
that it would become. That was his idea. He saw that idea embodied in | :19:01. | :19:08. | |
the film. There were 30 of us. It was an awe-inspiring experience | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
watching that film. All of those people that I am still in touch | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
with, which is about a quarter of them, remember that day as being a | :19:17. | :19:20. | |
very special day, when they understood that you could transcend | :19:20. | :19:26. | |
your own experience. Later on in life when I was rather distressed | :19:26. | :19:30. | |
about what I felt was going on in the education system, I took the | :19:30. | :19:40. | |
:19:40. | :19:41. | ||
idea of that and with another friend we started the film club. | :19:41. | :19:46. | |
It's a film club exists to bring stories to young kids. We run them | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
up and down the country in state schools. We have 250,000 members. | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
It was set up only a few years ago in 25 schools. Now there are 7,000 | :19:57. | :20:03. | |
clubs. The idea is that all children, these 250,000 children, | :20:03. | :20:12. | |
every week, get a chance to watch a film, films like the one you | :20:12. | :20:17. | |
watched when you're young, and to talk about it. What is you belief | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
about what they will get from it? Is it just and escapism? What do | :20:23. | :20:26. | |
you think that it allows them to do something more? It is something | :20:26. | :20:35. | |
much bigger than that. We have 100 years of films, great artists. But | :20:35. | :20:39. | |
what have they have done is they have told stories and parables. | :20:39. | :20:45. | |
What it gives to our membership is the most incredibly broad | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
understanding of the world. They see films that a very old, black | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
and white. But they also see films from all over the world. And so on | :20:56. | :21:02. | |
the one hand, when it was election time in 2010, we ran films about | :21:02. | :21:12. | |
:21:12. | :21:13. | ||
democracy. So they seek cry Freedom. AC Gandhi. And they see Mr Smith | :21:13. | :21:23. | |
:21:23. | :21:24. | ||
Goes to Washington. And some months later, it was Alf keeps -- our | :21:24. | :21:30. | |
children who were able to explain to their parents. It is a broader | :21:30. | :21:35. | |
world. You cannot expect young people to have an imagination about | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
a world that they do not experience for themselves. They know about the | :21:39. | :21:43. | |
House of Lords. You are about to learn an awful lot about the House | :21:43. | :21:52. | |
of Lords. Partly as a result of that film club, a new are about to | :21:52. | :21:58. | |
be a baroness. That means that you have a role in reviving legislation | :21:58. | :22:03. | |
in Britain. I wonder that when your father showed you that film, he | :22:03. | :22:10. | |
said I want to hand you, the next generation, the baton of concern | :22:10. | :22:17. | |
and hope. Do you feel as a result of becoming a baroness, a lady, | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
that you have taken the baton and run with it and doing something he | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
would be proud of? I think he would be immensely proud. I think it is | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
absolutely his instruction of living in the world as if it was | :22:29. | :22:33. | |
slightly better. I think he would be happier if it was an elected | :22:33. | :22:40. | |
House. That would have been his position. But it does mean you will | :22:40. | :22:49. | |
be ousted. I will be very happy, proud that I was appointed. Ironman | :22:49. | :22:55. | |
people's peer and a cross Bencher, as they call it. If it comes to the | :22:55. | :22:59. | |
fact it is rearranged or I have to be re-elected, I would take that on | :22:59. | :23:05. | |
the chin. But in the meantime, I have gone on a path of really | :23:05. | :23:11. | |
understanding Media and new media. I have been involved in the UK Film | :23:11. | :23:16. | |
Council. I am very concerned about where we put creativity at the | :23:16. | :23:22. | |
centre of our public life. And I think that we need that. I am very, | :23:22. | :23:30. | |
very excited to be part of it. know how you will use it. Does that | :23:30. | :23:34. | |
mean you will not be making so many films? There is an understanding | :23:34. | :23:40. | |
that people like me to make films and then also go to the Lords. | :23:40. | :23:44. | |
There is a misunderstanding about film-makers. I have been making | :23:44. | :23:51. |