A recent dip in female-led theatrical releases in the UK - back to 2018 levels of 26% reminds us that our work is far from over; that we cannot be complacent.
Below you can read about the research we conduct into gender representation in film and the wider industry, tracking the release landscape to present an accurate picture of investment in films by filmmakers of marginalised genders.
Here you can also find out about news and opportunities at Reclaim The Frame, along with curated film recommendations, filmmaker interviews, and creative responses.
Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 runs from Monday 10 May to Sunday 16 May 2021.
During this pandemic, millions of us have experienced a mental health problem, or seen a loved one struggle. We’ve also seen that the support we all need just isn’t out there.
For them, for us and for you – we must take this chance to step up the fight for mental health. That means fighting for change, for fairness, for respect and for life-changing support.
The theme for the 2021 Mental Health Awareness Week is nature.
The Birds Eye View Team will be watching a film a day. To mark the last day of #MHAW we will be watching
Directed by Debra Granik
Granik is most known for 2004’s Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010’s Winter’s Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and for which Granik was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and for this film Leave No Trace (2018) based on the book My Abandonment by Peter Rock.
“When the movie opens, the young teenage girl, Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), and her father, Will (Ben Foster), aren’t just living — foraging, surviving, apparently thriving – in the forest, they are existing in a state of willed invisibility”. – Manohla Dargis NY Times
Will and Tom, father and daughter, live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.
In “Leave No Trace,” she [Granik] immediately sets you down in a forest that’s so inviting, so tranquil, that it seems like utopia and all the possibilities that wistful, elusive ideal implies” – Manohla Dargis NY Times
Click HERE for where to watch
Available to watch with closed captioning
On Friday 17 April 2020, as part of our Female Filmmaker Friday strand Eye to Eye, our Director-at-large, Mia Bays was in conversation with writer/director/editor and actor, Lynn Shelton. Mia was a huge fan (as were we all at BEV) after falling in love with her first film HUMPDAY. Their virtual meeting was a reunion of sorts as they had met previously at Sundance.
Their conversation was full of warmth and humour and is one of my all-time favourites. If you missed it the first time, or would like to watch it again, it’s here on our Facebook Live page. Live captioning is available.
Here’s where you can see some of Lynn Shelton’s classics. Click on them to see where to watch. All are available with closed captioning.
Thank you Lynn Shelton for your warmth, humour, humanity, humility and your wonderful films.
Lynn Shelton
27 August 1965 – 16 May 2020
In 1993, the General Assembly decided in a resolution (A/RES/47/237) that 15 May of every year should be observed as The International Day of Families. This day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase the knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting families.
On 25 September 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of 17 goals aiming to eliminate poverty, discrimination, abuse and preventable deaths, address environmental destruction, and usher in an era of development for all people, everywhere. Families and family-oriented policies and programmes are vital for the achievement of many of these goals.
To mark this day, we will be watching Daughters of the Dust (1991) Directed by Julie Dash
Julie Dash’s ground-breaking work follows a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina – former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors’ Yoruba traditions – as they struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore.
The first wide release by a black female filmmaker, Daughters of the Dust was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it initially opened in 1991. Casting a long legacy, Daughters of the Dust still resonates today, most recently as a major influence on Beyonce’s video album Lemonade. Restored (in conjunction with UCLA) for the first time, complete with the correct colour grading overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, audiences will finally see the film exactly as Julie Dash intended.
The story mostly takes place in 1902 and loosely weaves several strands that converge at a pivotal moment for the Peazant clan, a Gullah family (slave descendants whose isolation from the mainland allows them to retain vast portions of African culture). When we arrive, the family is preparing to migrate to the mainland. But it is unknown who all will join this symbolic and literal crossing. The lingering question provides much of the film’s uncertainty. A feast has been set which calls all the children home. Yellow Mary, a wayward prostitute tainted by big city life, and Viola, a Christian missionary who brings a photographer to capture her people’s beauty, arrive from the mainland. Eli and Eula are a young couple expecting a child, but we learn that the baby may well be the product of a rape Eula endured on the mainland.
CLICK HERE FOR WHERE TO WATCH
Closed captions available on BFI Player
