:00:05. > :00:12.fighting extradition to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. He
:00:12. > :00:19.denies the allegations. It is time for HARDtalk now.
:00:19. > :00:24.Why are there so few women film- makers? Does it matter? The Cannes
:00:24. > :00:28.Film Festival was criticised this year when all 22 films and the
:00:28. > :00:33.competition were directed by men. Hollywood is not much better. A
:00:33. > :00:38.recent study found that less than 10 % of its directors were women.
:00:38. > :00:44.Beeban Kidron is my guest today. She has made the big time. She
:00:44. > :00:49.directed the Bridget Jones May Day, The Edge of Reason. Most of four
:00:49. > :00:55.other films concern more radical material. She made a documentary
:00:55. > :00:59.about anti- nuclear women protesters at Greenham Common and
:00:59. > :01:04.an adaptation of the lesbian novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Her
:01:04. > :01:14.latest documentary is about India's sacred prostitutes. Do women and
:01:14. > :01:24.
:01:24. > :01:30.the choices they make interest to most? Beeban Kidron, welcome to
:01:30. > :01:34.HARDtalk. It does seem odd that we are in the 21st century and there
:01:34. > :01:40.are not more women who have voted through to the big-time. Why do you
:01:40. > :01:45.think that is? I think it is the same everywhere. They are having
:01:45. > :01:50.the same debate in business, politics, the front bench. Look at
:01:50. > :01:56.one thing, Women are primary carers of the young, the old and the
:01:56. > :02:02.domestic. If that is the case, they will not be in difficult places.
:02:02. > :02:12.Men fight to get there, for women it is harder. It does seem that
:02:12. > :02:18.their film making is worse than other areas. Film-making is often
:02:18. > :02:24.about women. You might think women might be more interested in it. 9%
:02:24. > :02:30.of Hollywood directors in 2008 were women. That is the same as 1998. It
:02:30. > :02:35.has not changed. I got an e-mail saying he was solve this problem.
:02:35. > :02:40.The question is, why are there no women over the age of 35? You have
:02:40. > :02:48.to ask yourself, what happens to women beyond that age? The start to
:02:48. > :02:53.have children. Film-making is a 247 occupation. You fight to make your
:02:53. > :02:58.film. Once you have won that fight, it takes months and months and
:02:58. > :03:02.months. It is not so double work for people with others to look
:03:03. > :03:08.after. -- the double. Those of us who started when we were young, we
:03:08. > :03:14.were able to work it out by the time we had children. Then, there
:03:14. > :03:19.are ours with significant partners who can help us. It is a problem.
:03:19. > :03:25.You wrote about the experience of having children and trying to work.
:03:26. > :03:30.You said that with all the marching and agitating that it was difficult
:03:30. > :03:35.to find someone to bring up the children. Who did we think it would
:03:35. > :03:40.be? That is the question that has not been answered. In public life,
:03:40. > :03:47.that needs to be answered. It is impossible for women to get ahead
:03:47. > :03:52.in the business where the hours are monstrous. Absolutely monstrous. It
:03:52. > :03:57.is not unusual if you are making a big feature film to get up at 4am
:03:57. > :04:01.and not get home until midnight six or seven days a week. That is
:04:01. > :04:06.difficult to pull off. That is a side from creativity or any other
:04:06. > :04:11.issues. Then we come to the question of whether it matters.
:04:11. > :04:15.Women are choosing to look after children. We do not have an answer
:04:15. > :04:22.to the question of who would do it instead. Does it matter that women
:04:22. > :04:27.are not making films? Of course it matters. There are women everywhere.
:04:27. > :04:34.To be frank, we are half of the world. We are half of the stories.
:04:34. > :04:42.We are half of the consumers. Unless you recognise that, you will
:04:42. > :04:47.not have the full gamut of shimmied experience. -- human experience. We
:04:47. > :04:53.hold the story of contemporary life and history. Unless you have that
:04:53. > :04:59.new ones to look at it, you will miss out. -- that particular look
:04:59. > :05:04.at it. Are men not telling stories? Of course they are. They are
:05:04. > :05:10.brilliant. That does not mean you should not have the full gaze on a
:05:10. > :05:15.number of sussed -- subject. It is not a choice. It is not something
:05:15. > :05:20.that will be addressed for a long time, if ever, given the nature of
:05:20. > :05:26.the problem at its heart. I think it is something that we must
:05:26. > :05:30.continually address. If you do not do it for us, we must do it for our
:05:30. > :05:36.daughters. If not our daughters, are granddaughters. I think if you
:05:36. > :05:43.want people to be fairly human, they must feel that they can
:05:43. > :05:48.participate in the full spectrum of human experience. For you, that
:05:48. > :05:53.meant, I mean look at your portfolio, Bridget Jones, let's go
:05:53. > :05:58.to your first film, you made it very young and you were entrusted
:05:58. > :06:02.by the women at Greenham Common protest in against nuclear weapons.
:06:02. > :06:07.You went along with a friend and made a documentary about a story
:06:07. > :06:12.you felt was not being told. I went along with Amanda Richardson. We
:06:12. > :06:17.both felt a bit like a fish out of water at film school. Many people
:06:17. > :06:22.were so certain about why they were there and they'd seemed so
:06:22. > :06:29.technically proficient. We were relatively young and had not been
:06:29. > :06:34.tutored. We got practice over here. When we got to Greenham Common, two
:06:34. > :06:41.extraordinary things happened. One was that we were in a community of
:06:41. > :06:46.people who were not there, were not connected in a grid for reasons of
:06:46. > :06:52.their birth or accident or getting on with their lives. It was not an
:06:52. > :06:57.educational thing. They had faith and belief in something. It was an
:06:57. > :07:01.extraordinary experience for that reason. Also, they were under
:07:01. > :07:08.attack. They were under considerable attack from the media.
:07:08. > :07:16.We were very young film-makers. We thought "hang on a minute, this is
:07:16. > :07:22.what we see on the news, this is what we read in the papers..." They
:07:22. > :07:29.should say that the image being put across was one off Heery lesbians.
:07:29. > :07:34.-- we should. Isn't it amazing that we have absorbed the fact that at
:07:34. > :07:37.one period the entire British ruling class had white wigs and red
:07:38. > :07:43.marks on their face but these women were being crucified for the colour
:07:43. > :07:49.of their hair, not their politics. There was an intrinsic problem
:07:49. > :07:56.about how the media was approaching this. Also, I think, this was 30
:07:56. > :08:02.years ago are now, I think there was the birth of something in me as
:08:02. > :08:10.a film-maker and an observer. Someone went "and hang on a minute,
:08:10. > :08:15.let us look at ambivalence. Let us look at the bit that is not binary.
:08:16. > :08:23.Let's start looking at the world as we experience it as human beings,
:08:23. > :08:28.not as a cycle of news and good and bad." I thought that was being done.
:08:28. > :08:33.From the sounds of it, that has fed subsequent programmes continually.
:08:33. > :08:38.Your breakthrough film was a television adaptation of Oranges
:08:38. > :08:44.Are Not the Only Fruit. That is by Jeanette Winterson. You got a BAFTA
:08:44. > :08:49.for that. You were still very young. That was the 1990. It shocked
:08:49. > :08:54.British audiences. It was the first time that there had been an
:08:54. > :09:00.intimate same-sex seen on British television. It was extraordinary.
:09:00. > :09:06.We made it quite quietly in the BBC. We weren't one of the Premier
:09:06. > :09:14.programmes. We were doing nothing. I remember one of the guys some
:09:14. > :09:21.editorial coming in and seeing "it did not look very BBC." and I said
:09:21. > :09:24."what does BBC look like then?" Somehow the BBC has always had a
:09:24. > :09:28.fantastic tradition about respecting literature and the book
:09:28. > :09:34.had done so well that they respected its quality what those
:09:34. > :09:39.reasons. And they did not look that carefully at what it contained.
:09:39. > :09:43.What happened was, as word got out that there was going to be a love
:09:43. > :09:48.scene between two young girls, there was a louder banging of the
:09:48. > :09:52.drum. There was one of these terrible surveys. 60 % of British
:09:52. > :09:59.people were against the showing of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
:09:59. > :10:04.After it went out, 60 % a British people were absolutely for the show.
:10:04. > :10:08.I think that it is about the role of drama. It is about the role of
:10:08. > :10:14.stories. It is about how people actually recognise the struggle of
:10:14. > :10:20.that young women to grow up. It was not about, sexuality. It was about
:10:20. > :10:27.her right as a human being. -- not about her sexuality. I think that
:10:27. > :10:32.is important. A here you are, in a sense, it was radical for its time.
:10:32. > :10:40.You had done this series of radical programming. Then there is a
:10:40. > :10:44.certain point in your career, Bridget Jones, you were accused of
:10:44. > :10:50.selling out but you have described it as a radical film, rather
:10:50. > :10:57.strangely for the secret of Bridget Jones to be a radical film. It is a
:10:57. > :11:04.departure from the artist L. -- sequel. Was a deliberate? -- art
:11:04. > :11:10.house style. Was it deliberate? I had made films with Patrick Swayze,
:11:10. > :11:15.Shirley McLaine, I had been out there and done the Hollywood thing.
:11:15. > :11:19.I think there is that. I think going back to your first question,
:11:19. > :11:25.people have to be really careful about how tough they are on women
:11:25. > :11:31.who do make films. If we are not allowed to make all kinds of films,
:11:31. > :11:35.then the glass ceiling is completely intact. I think it is
:11:35. > :11:42.worth saying that Bridget remains in the top ten off all-time best
:11:42. > :11:49.grossing British films. You have to remember that gives you a lot of
:11:49. > :11:56.power as a film director. 4 Bridget itself, before you... Where you
:11:56. > :12:02.saying that you should have been able to do that sooner? What are
:12:02. > :12:09.you saying? Why vilify me for doing it? I was vilified. I was more
:12:09. > :12:13.amused than angry at that. Why do you think that was? Because they
:12:13. > :12:18.thought that we had sold out. was not to do with you being a
:12:18. > :12:25.woman. Or was it? It is about being in a group that is not well
:12:25. > :12:31.represented. I think it is because I am a woman film-maker. That is
:12:31. > :12:37.the mantle that I cold. Any one of those... What people expect from
:12:37. > :12:42.you is that you carry the dreams and aspirations. We don't only
:12:42. > :12:48.carry the dreams and aspirations what we are paid to do, we carry
:12:48. > :12:52.all that is not happening. I think that is where people must be
:12:52. > :12:57.careful, not to pull people down. Don't pull the ones who get a
:12:57. > :13:03.little bit ahead of the game down. It is important that women make big
:13:03. > :13:07.box-office films. You were aware of that. That must be important. I
:13:07. > :13:13.know when you did you first feature film in the UK, a journalist called
:13:13. > :13:19.you up and said "Do you know you are only the third woman ever to
:13:19. > :13:23.make a feature film in the UK?" High fantastic that is. I try to
:13:23. > :13:28.check how many women there were on the Internet and I could not get
:13:29. > :13:32.any because there were so many. So many. You pick the phone down on
:13:32. > :13:38.that journalist because you did not want to be a representative. You
:13:38. > :13:43.wanted to be Beeban Kidron doing a job. If a woman film director makes
:13:43. > :13:47.everybody in this audience think "all well, that will be better than
:13:47. > :13:55.a male film director because she will have an added value through
:13:55. > :13:58.her gender." Then terrific. I want to be a woman film director. If it
:13:58. > :14:05.isn't really a qualification of the role of director of them why would
:14:05. > :14:12.I want that attach to me? I think it is a difficult thing to carry. -
:14:12. > :14:17.- then why. I am hugely proud of being a woman. I am absolutely,
:14:17. > :14:27.politically behind women's emancipation of all kind. Do not
:14:27. > :14:30.
:14:30. > :14:36.You said you were vilified for the lead. The most recent project,
:14:36. > :14:39.Storyville, is about the sacred prostitutes of India. A completely
:14:39. > :14:46.different programme that in a way certainly reminded me of some of
:14:46. > :14:52.the earlier stuff you had done, documentaries about women and women
:14:52. > :15:00.in a particular role. For these women it is extraordinary.
:15:00. > :15:07.Scandalous. That was what was so interesting. I went to India and I
:15:08. > :15:14.could not believe it. I had quite famously made a film about New York
:15:14. > :15:20.prostitutes that was very, very popular on the airwaves. It made a
:15:21. > :15:25.lot of ways, let's say. I thought I had done every possible angle on
:15:25. > :15:31.prostitution. I had dealt with that subject from my personal film-
:15:31. > :15:38.making perspective. And then I heard this thing on Radio 4 which
:15:38. > :15:43.was actually about young girls being dedicated to the goddess in
:15:43. > :15:49.childhood and at puberty being sold for sex. Prostitution in the name
:15:49. > :15:53.of God? You have to be joking! You have to be joking. I was so enraged
:15:53. > :15:57.that I was virtually in India before I had even decided to make a
:15:57. > :16:02.film. I can't really explain what happened to me but I felt like it
:16:02. > :16:06.was a calling. I did not wait for someone to finance the film. I
:16:06. > :16:11.didn't wait to find a camera person. I went to see if it was true. I
:16:11. > :16:20.started making the film. Because they say it does not exist anymore,
:16:20. > :16:24.it was a long-winded thing is find the exact community. -- to find. I
:16:24. > :16:29.proved that it indeed it does happen. As I got closer and closer
:16:29. > :16:35.to the women and girls, for whom it was happening, I understood
:16:35. > :16:41.something else. In this part of the world, in this particular community,
:16:42. > :16:46.where margins are so small, for them the choice was between being
:16:47. > :16:52.Devadasi, and somewhat elevated by their relationship with the goddess,
:16:52. > :16:57.or being trafficked. Arts and actually, in their world, it was
:16:57. > :17:01.better to be a Devadasi. -- and actually. You understand why a
:17:01. > :17:05.mother might sell their daughter as a prostitute? In these
:17:05. > :17:09.circumstances. We don't have time, because it took me 75 minutes to
:17:09. > :17:17.prove the point. I can't prove it here. But I think that there is a
:17:18. > :17:22.huge history to the Devadasi which has been everybody, British, India,
:17:23. > :17:26.the NGOs, the current government's everybody has marginalise this
:17:27. > :17:32.group. All of the good things about it are at a minimum and the bad
:17:32. > :17:36.things are maximum. But what I have to say to you, if any one of those
:17:36. > :17:41.girls could be a film-maker sitting here talking to you, or a Devadasi,
:17:41. > :17:45.they would choose to be me. But before I were sitting in their
:17:45. > :17:51.shoes, I might choose to be a Devadasi. We have to really take
:17:51. > :17:55.account of that when we judge people. The reason, one of the
:17:55. > :18:04.reasons you are here, and being a film-maker, is partly the enforce
:18:04. > :18:10.of your father. He died very recently. He was many things. One
:18:10. > :18:14.of his life's project was to understand and replace -- the place
:18:14. > :18:20.of capitalism. For his 50th birthday he did a remarkable thing
:18:20. > :18:30.for his time. He arranged a private screening of a film for you and
:18:30. > :18:33.your friends. Yes. It was a film called miracle in the land, made in
:18:34. > :18:37.1951. I remember standing next to my dad. He said, I haven't seen
:18:37. > :18:45.this for years. I hope it is what Arona. He said it was a film that
:18:45. > :18:51.had meant so much to him. -- remember. He said that if what --
:18:51. > :18:56.if we saw it we would understand his Abbott -- aspiration for the
:18:56. > :19:01.world. But we should leave now, as if it was a better place than it --
:19:01. > :19:08.that it would become. That was his idea. He saw that idea embodied in
:19:08. > :19:12.the film. There were 30 of us. It was an awe-inspiring experience
:19:12. > :19:17.watching that film. All of those people that I am still in touch
:19:17. > :19:20.with, which is about a quarter of them, remember that day as being a
:19:20. > :19:26.very special day, when they understood that you could transcend
:19:26. > :19:30.your own experience. Later on in life when I was rather distressed
:19:30. > :19:40.about what I felt was going on in the education system, I took the
:19:40. > :19:41.
:19:41. > :19:46.idea of that and with another friend we started the film club.
:19:46. > :19:52.It's a film club exists to bring stories to young kids. We run them
:19:52. > :19:57.up and down the country in state schools. We have 250,000 members.
:19:57. > :20:03.It was set up only a few years ago in 25 schools. Now there are 7,000
:20:03. > :20:12.clubs. The idea is that all children, these 250,000 children,
:20:12. > :20:17.every week, get a chance to watch a film, films like the one you
:20:17. > :20:22.watched when you're young, and to talk about it. What is you belief
:20:23. > :20:26.about what they will get from it? Is it just and escapism? What do
:20:26. > :20:35.you think that it allows them to do something more? It is something
:20:35. > :20:39.much bigger than that. We have 100 years of films, great artists. But
:20:39. > :20:45.what have they have done is they have told stories and parables.
:20:45. > :20:51.What it gives to our membership is the most incredibly broad
:20:51. > :20:56.understanding of the world. They see films that a very old, black
:20:56. > :21:02.and white. But they also see films from all over the world. And so on
:21:02. > :21:12.the one hand, when it was election time in 2010, we ran films about
:21:12. > :21:13.
:21:13. > :21:23.democracy. So they seek cry Freedom. AC Gandhi. And they see Mr Smith
:21:23. > :21:24.
:21:24. > :21:30.Goes to Washington. And some months later, it was Alf keeps -- our
:21:30. > :21:35.children who were able to explain to their parents. It is a broader
:21:35. > :21:39.world. You cannot expect young people to have an imagination about
:21:39. > :21:43.a world that they do not experience for themselves. They know about the
:21:43. > :21:52.House of Lords. You are about to learn an awful lot about the House
:21:52. > :21:58.of Lords. Partly as a result of that film club, a new are about to
:21:58. > :22:03.be a baroness. That means that you have a role in reviving legislation
:22:03. > :22:10.in Britain. I wonder that when your father showed you that film, he
:22:10. > :22:17.said I want to hand you, the next generation, the baton of concern
:22:17. > :22:20.and hope. Do you feel as a result of becoming a baroness, a lady,
:22:20. > :22:25.that you have taken the baton and run with it and doing something he
:22:25. > :22:29.would be proud of? I think he would be immensely proud. I think it is
:22:29. > :22:33.absolutely his instruction of living in the world as if it was
:22:33. > :22:40.slightly better. I think he would be happier if it was an elected
:22:40. > :22:49.House. That would have been his position. But it does mean you will
:22:49. > :22:55.be ousted. I will be very happy, proud that I was appointed. Ironman
:22:55. > :22:59.people's peer and a cross Bencher, as they call it. If it comes to the
:22:59. > :23:05.fact it is rearranged or I have to be re-elected, I would take that on
:23:05. > :23:11.the chin. But in the meantime, I have gone on a path of really
:23:11. > :23:16.understanding Media and new media. I have been involved in the UK Film
:23:16. > :23:22.Council. I am very concerned about where we put creativity at the
:23:22. > :23:30.centre of our public life. And I think that we need that. I am very,
:23:30. > :23:34.very excited to be part of it. know how you will use it. Does that
:23:34. > :23:40.mean you will not be making so many films? There is an understanding
:23:40. > :23:44.that people like me to make films and then also go to the Lords.
:23:44. > :23:51.There is a misunderstanding about film-makers. I have been making