ICA

For immediate release: 29 July 2015 The ICA announces Onwards and Outwards, a unique programme of films made by British women filmmakers

Still from Red Road, directed by Andrea Arnold.

The ICA is delighted to announce Onwards and Outwards, a unique programme of films made by British women filmmakers over the last 50 years. This particular focus aims to highlight women filmmakers who have excelled in making works of independence and originality. Onwards and Outwards is a nationwide programme of screenings, talks, and events, which aims to establish a dialogue around the conditions of production that women face when attempting to use the moving image as a means of expression. The programme at the ICA runs 1 – 10 September 2015 and until end December at nationwide venues.

Calling the Shots: Women and contemporary film culture in the UK, 2000-2015 is an ongoing Arts & Humanities Research Council funded project, led by Dr. Shelley Cobb and Prof. Linda Williams, which investigates women as creative practitioners in contemporary UK cinema. The report identifies that “no research has studied comprehensively the numbers, status and films of women practitioners in the contemporary UK industry.” The British film industry’s understanding of women filmmakers is largely based upon American research that does not reflect the situation within the UK. Onwards and Outwards will draw attention to the lack of knowledge surrounding the conditions for women working in the UK’s film industry, and share research and first-hand accounts from industry figures that demonstrate women to be “a drastically under-utilised resource for the UK film industry.”

Led by the ICA, in partnership with eleven other UK venues in cultural centres throughout the country, the programme will serve as a public platform for productive debates amongst a diverse range of audiences. Screenings will be accompanied by introductions and Q&As from relevant industry professionals and cultural practitioners such as Joanna Hogg, Laura Mulvey, Carol Morley and Campbell X. The events will build upon themes central to the programme, and will be further developed by commissioned texts and online content. Each screening will allow exploration into the independence and originality of those filmmakers who have sought to maintain their creative integrity within a homogenised industry.

“The importance of women directors in the UK today is paramount and continues to demand our attention. When I co-programmed the Edinburgh Film Festival’s Women’s Film event in 1972, we realized that films directed by women were few and far between across the history of cinema. Considerable progress has been made since then, but more support and resources are needed to change the industry’s attitudes towards gender. I hope this season will raise awareness of the strength and variety of work by women directors but also underline the need to overcome gender stereotypes if we want to truly celebrate a rich and vibrant UK film industry.” - Laura Mulvey

Culminating with a round-up discussion, Onwards and Outwards aims to raise the profile of these key issues and move debate into the public domain where it is able to generate thought; to gather information and ideas that may extend beyond the duration of the programme.

The season takes place across a wide reaching UK partnership of 12 organisations comprised of: the ICA and JW3, ; Reading Film Theatre and Minghella Cinema, Reading; Gulbenkian, Kent; Phoenix, Leicester; HOME, ;Watershed, Bristol; Chapter, Cardiff; Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle; Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast and Glasgow Film Theatre.

Onwards & Outwards is made possible with support from the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery

The ICA is a registered charity no. 236848

Press contact: Naomi Crowther / Press Manager ICA / [email protected] / 020 7766 1407

Listings information: Onwards and Outwards 1 – 10 September 2015 at the ICA (See individual venue websites for further programme dates and times) Cinema prices £11 / £8 Concessions / £7 ICA Members. Season Multi-Buy Offer: Attend 2-4 events for £8 per screening Attend 5 or more events for £7 per screening Booking fees for non ICA Members: £1 per ticket or maximum charge per transaction £2.80. Book online at ica.org.uk Call Box Office 020 7930 3647 Textphone 020 7839 0737 ica.org.uk | twitter.com/icalondon | facebook.com/icalondon

ICA programme: 1 Sept The Alcohol Years + discussion 2 Sept Panel & Under The Skin 3 Sept (tbc) Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit 4 Sept I Am Dora event (on conditions of production for UK BAME women filmmakers). 5 Sept Happy Bees & Margaret Tait’s films for children 5 Sept Wasp & Red Road 6 Sept Meshes of the Afternoon & Morvern Callar 8 Sept Random Acts of Intimacy & The Arbor 8 Sept Where I Am Is Here + Orlando 9 Sept Visibility & Legacy: Club des Femmes in conversation with filmmaker / curator Campbell X 10 Sept Place of Work & Exhibition followed by Joanna Hogg in conversation with Lynne Ramsay

Editor’s notes:

About the filmmakers

Andrea Arnold Born in Kent, and leaving school at 16 with dreams of becoming an actress, Arnold finally found work as the host of a children’s television show. Her career continued in this vein for almost ten years, though she admits to having “never felt that comfortable in front of the camera.” During this time Arnold developed her talents as a writer independently, and sought to use the moving image as a means of bringing these stories to life. After studying abroad at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles she returned to London to make short films for television. She has since produced four feature length films, each receiving worldwide critical acclaim. Arnold’s filmmaking confirms her admission that she is “obsessed with why people turn out the way they are,” and her narratives are often driven by this deeply personal interest. Within each film a striking depth of character reveals the impulses that underpin human experience.

Clio Barnard Having grown up in Yorkshire, Barnard went on to study Fine Art and later began working with video during a postgraduate diploma in digital imaging. It is here that her filmmaking came to prominence, when one of her post- graduate videos, Dirt and Science, was selected by to screen internationally as part of the ICA Biennial of Independent Film & Video. Since then, her feature films have gathered awards throughout the world, while she continues to teach filmmaking at the University of Kent. Barnard’s teaching shares the thoughts on cinema that inform her own work, often focusing upon the relationship between fiction and documentary cinema. Her work similarly moves between experimental and more traditional cinematic forms, allowing her films to screen in a variety of contexts, from galleries to cinemas. Barnard’s ability to bring these often oppositional dimensions together demonstrates a degree of understanding and control over her medium that has kept her at the forefront of British cinema.

Maya Deren A major influence upon filmmakers throughout the world, Deren’s unique body of work has led many to pick up cameras, including Britain’s Lynne Ramsay who decided to become a filmmaker after watching Meshes in the Afternoon. While also working across a range of artistic mediums, drawing new connection between their respective theories, Deren worked with the American avant-garde of the 1940s and 1950s with the aim of producing new forms of experience while pioneer of alternative means of funding and distribution. This work led her to explore the extent to which cinematic time and space may be developed beyond mere points in a steadily progressing narrative, discovering a poetic form of filmmaking that continues to inspire those working with the moving image today.

Joanna Hogg While working as a photographer, Hogg began experimenting with filmmaking using a film camera borrowed from after a chance encounter with the artist in a coffee shop. Curiosity led Hogg to explore the artistic capabilities of the medium, producing several short films that won her a place on a directing course at the National Film and Television School. Following several music videos, her artistic background gave way to a career directing soaps television, including episodes of EastEnders and Casualty. In this environment she learnt to work fast, and develop her skills. However, she soon found herself wanting to make films that challenged the rules she had mastered. Since then, Hogg has produced three feature films which have each pushed the boundaries of British cinema, pulling together a wide range of influences and formal approaches to realise her own creative vision.

Beeban Kidron Born in London, Beeban’s early interest in photography began while using a camera during her recovery from a throat operation that left her unable to talk. This choice of expression led to work as a photographer at the age of 16, and place at the National Film and Television School course for cinematography. Graduating as a director, Beeban’s rise to prominence came with her adaptation of 's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, winning three BAFTA awards in 1989. Her career has since both spanned mainstream and arthouse genres for both cinema and television, her artistic vision winning awards across the world despite familiarity with the creative tensions of industrial practice. Beeban maintains active support for film education, founding the educational charity FILMCLUB and position on the UK Film Council. Such contributions to drama and education have led to her appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and seat within the .

Carol Morley Originating from Stockport, Morley’s creativity initially drew her to music, leading her to leave school at the age of sixteen to sing for a series of bands. Deciding to study Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, she graduated with a specialisation in film and video. Morley came to public attention through her feature documentary Dreams of a Life (2011), where she set out to rediscover the life of Joyce Vincent, who died in 2003 and lay undiscovered for 3 years. Moving between documentary and fiction, Morley's subjects often originate for Morley’s own life experiences and news stories that draw attention to the strange aspects of daily life. Taking inspiration from an eclectic range of sources, from Hollywood through to European cinema, Morley’s work continually seeks to challenge cinematic convention, and develop female characters with increasing complexity.

Sally Potter Moving between several mediums and audiences, Potter’s work has received retrospectives across the world, from the to MoMA in New York, as well as recognition on the international festival circuit and appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her service to film. Inspired by an 8mm camera given by her uncle, Potter left school at 16 to teach herself filmmaking. Joining the London Film-Makers' Co-op, Potter found the support needed to create a series of experimental films. But her experience as a performance artist and theatre director has most influenced her filmmaking, where in her words, “it was as a choreographer that I learnt how to direct and it was as a dancer that I learnt how to work." Maintaining a multi- disciplinary practice, her work continues to explore progressive subjects and forms, though avoids the label of ‘feminist’ "not because of a disavowal of the underlying principles that gave birth to that word – the commitment to liberation, dignity, equality – but because it has become a trigger word that stops people's thinking. "

Lynne Ramsay A filmmaker who has always strived to retain creative control of her films, Ramsay began her study in Scotland as a photographer before entering the National Film and Television School to study cinematography and direction. Ratcatcher, Ramsay's debut feature, toured the festival circuit and attracted numerous awards as well as widespread critical approval. Her subsequent feature films, Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin, have established Ramsay as a leading voice within British cinema. As both writer and director of each of her feature-length projects, she has stated her filmmaking process to be different to that of many other directors, developing her projects over long periods of gestation. Having experienced difficulties fulfilling her creative intentions alongside the commercial logic that governs the film industry, Ramsay has continued to share her views, remaining a vocal spokesperson for auteur cinema.

Margaret Tait Qualified in medicine, Tait served in the Far East before studying at The Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia in Rome where the passion for cinema in the city inspired her. She returned to Scotland and ultimately her hometown in Orkney from where she worked for the rest of her life, writing poetry as well as making films. Despite being better known in the world of artists cinema, as a 2009 paper by Sarah Neely (Ploughing A Lonely Furrow) makes clear, Tait was persistent in pursuing commercial opportunities - trying to sell her film Happy Bees to Walt Disney as well as to the Eastern Railway co in East Delhi for exhibition on trains, or asking the Guinness Company to support a film about the hops harvest. Perhaps marginalised due to her personal, intimate narratives or her experimental techniques, she received very little support for her productions. It was only when she was in her 70’s that Tait directed her first and only feature film Blue, Black, Permanent.

Campbell X London based Campbell X is an award-winning filmmaker and curator whose film work spans over 20 years. Campbell’s early career, including B. D. Women (1996) was supported by ’s commitment to platforming a diversity of film and television work in its programming schedule; the broadcaster’s pledge to cater for ‘minorities’, including Black, Asian and gay & lesbian audiences was significant for Campbell together with QPOC filmmakers Pratibha Parma and Isaac Julien. Campbell’s Black British queer identity and politics have informed every aspect of Campbell’s work in filmmaking, curating and writing.

Synopses Exhibition (Hogg, 2013, 104mins) Centring upon two undoubtable middle-class artists as they arrange to move house, Exhibition casts two non- professional actors within the architecture of James Melvin. Hogg’s film strays from conventional notions of British cinema, drawing influences from French and Japanese cinema to employ fixed cameras and long takes that fuse the inner desires of the protagonist to the space she inhabits. A complex and imaginative piece of cinema, Hogg employs cinematic devices to reveal the subjectivities of her characters.

Happy Bees & short films for children (Tait, 1954, 16mins) On the island of Orkney, toddlers play amongst the grass and on the beach as the waves crash on the shore. Tait’s early photographs often focused upon her family, and in Happy Bees her brothers’ children occupy a film poem that conveys the purity of island life. Poetic imagery is punctuated by Tait’s declaration that “the children are not far away, the children live here,” poignantly underlining the intent of Happy Bees to share the serene memories of an early life tied to nature; the personal recollections that fixed Tait to this land.

Meshes Of The Afternoon (Deren; Hammid, 1943, 14mins) Deren and Hammid's experimental investigation of deeply personal psychology, combined with their self- sufficient production ethics, would serve as inspiration for Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar. Using repetitive structures and iconic imagery, they construct a hallucinatory narrative that delves into the intimate subjectivity of its characters.

Morvern Callar (Ramsay, 2002, 97mins) Continuing her distinctive, and personal approach to filmmaking, Ramsay followed Ratcatcher with adaptation based on the novel of the same name written by Alan Warner. The story follows a young woman in Scotland who wakes on Christmas morning to find her boyfriend has committed suicide. Discovering his bank card and the text of his first novel, she decides to take his money and publish the novel under her name. Preceded by Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon. It was because of seeing this influential work of experimental American cinema that Lynne Ramsay moved to study film, from still photography.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit This 1990 BBC Drama series was directed by Beeban Kidron. Jeanette Winterson adapted the screenplay from her novel of the same name- a work she describes ‘as a document of the wilder side of religious enthusiasm, and an exploration of the power of love’. The story of a young girl adopted by fanatical working-class evangelists in the North of in the 1960’s won two BAFTAS, Best Drama and Best Actress (Geraldine McEwen) in 1990, as well as the Prix d’argent at Cannes. In Winterson’s words ‘When the BBC made Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit 20 years ago, we had to run it after the watershed hour of 9pm, even though it had only one very mild sex scene. And there was really nothing on TV, before Oranges that showed gay women as anything but ugly, desperate, confused, lonely, addicted, alcoholic, predatory, or going through a phase.’ As well as being widely known as a breakthrough portrayal of lesbian love on screen, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit has also been lauded for representing the fight of any individual against a rigid and repressive society.

Orlando Based on Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, ORLANDO is the story of someone who lives for four hundred years, changing sex in the course of time. As a young nobleman, Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is granted the Crown deeds to his parents’ ancestral home by the ageing Queen Elizabeth I on one condition: “Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old”. After a failed romance with a Russian Princess Orlando becomes the Ambassador to the Court of Khan. War breaks out and Orlando, facing a terrible challenge for a man - to kill or be killed - changes sex. She returns to the formal salons of eighteenth-century England and discovers that as a woman she has little social status, and worse, no legal rights to either her title or her property. Here she also discovers sex in the arms of an American adventurer and ultimately loses both love and inheritance when she refuses to abandon her own path in order to follow his. Alone, Orlando finally emerges into the twentieth century as an ordinary individual who, in losing everything, has found herself.

Place of Work (Tait, 1976, 31mins) In 1976 the council were soon to take back Margaret Tait’s house and studio, a small building in Buttquoy, Orkney. Place of Work explores Tait’s familiarity with this cherished location, where she aims “to define a place, or the feeling of being in one place, with the sense this gives one, not of restriction but of the infinite variations available.” Her camera moves indiscriminately, simultaneously promoting distanced contemplation and intimate experience.

Random Acts of Intimacy (Barnard, 1998, 15mins) Her first time employing the verbatim technique that would become central to The Arbor, Barnard’s Random Acts of Intimacy tackles its challenging subject with an honest and intelligent form that allows consideration into the brief sexual encounters that may occur between strangers. Surveying the impulsive and intense, often deeply romantic relationships that exist during a fleeting moment, Barnard approaches the topic through a series of interviews. Placing an advert in a newspaper, recording real life experiences and setting this soundtrack to evocative imagery, Barnard constructs a crucial exploration into the most personal of subjects.

Red Road (Arnold, 2006, 113mins) Taking its name from the Red Road residential tower block in Glasgow, the tallest in Europe at the time of their construction, Arnold’s debut feature draws contemporary issues from its setting. Its protagonist works as a CCTV operator, observing the small world that exists on her screens. When she one day recognises an unexpected face on her monitor, she begins an obsessive observation, a voyeuristic mission leading to confront him. Red Road confirmed Arnold’s abilities for which she received a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut.

The Alcohol Years (Morley, 2000, 50mins) In an attempt to recover a lost decade resulting from her alcohol abuse during the 1970s, Morely returns to Manchester and searches for herself within the recollections of past friends. Removing her physical presence from the footage, The Alcohol Years evades egotism by allowing others to freely construct an intimate portrait of the artist during her formative years. An extraordinarily honest film that remains embedded within Manchester’s post-punk music scene. Carol Morley is author of ‘7 Miles Out’, an autobiographical novel.

The Arbor (Barnard, 2010, 94mins) With her feature length debut, Barnard continued to develop her verbatim technique, and work with documentary subjects, assembling an experimental documentary around the life of Bradford born playwright Andrea Dunbar. Extending an unconventional mixture of documentary and fiction devices to meet this longer duration, The Arbor tackles Dunbar’s difficult life and rise to fame in the 1980s. Building upon the British tradition of social-realist filmmaking, Barnard’s portrait attracted worldwide attention and remains honest in its interpretation of teenage female sexuality.

Under The Skin (Adler, 1997, 82mins) Carine Adler was inspired by Dr Estela Weldon’s seminal book ‘Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood’, to write one of cinema’s most complex explorations of loss and female relationships. Under the Skin featured Samantha Morton in one of her first screen roles, as a young woman struggling to come to terms with the unexpected death of her mother. Adler updated established representations of women on screen both in British cinema and abroad where it was met with applause on the festival circuit. Significantly, Under The Skin was funded through a drive to fund more womens’ films from the BFI. Adler never made another film.

Wasp (Arnold, 2003, 26mins) Set within Arnold’s hometown of Dartford, this Academy Award winning short film shares the story of a single mother as she attempts to restore her relationship with an ex-boyfriend despite tensions produced by her four young children. Many parallels have been drawn between this tale and Arnold’s own upbringing, and Arnold suggests that her screenplays stem from her own life experience. As a result, Wasp represents an intimate social observation that commands our attention throughout.

- Press release ends -