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.
BOMBSHELL: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)
Director Alexandra Dean
Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (Ziegfeld Girl, Samson and Delilah) was known as the world’s most beautiful woman – Snow White and Cat Woman were both based on her iconic look. However, her arresting appearance and glamorous life stood in the way of her being given the credit she deserved as an ingenious inventor whose pioneering work helped revolutionize modern communication. An Austrian Jewish emigrant who invented a covert communication system to try to help defeat the Nazis, Lamarr was ignored and told to sell kisses for war bonds instead. It was only toward the very end of her life that tech pioneers discovered that it was her concept that is now used as the basis for secure WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth technologies.
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story explores how Lamarr’s true legacy is that of a technological trailblazer.
Lamarr never publicly talked about her life as an inventor and so her family thought her story died when she did. However, in 2016, director Alexandra Dean and producer Adam Haggiag unearthed four never-before-heard audio tapes of Lamarr speaking on the record about her incredible life, finally giving her the chance to tell her own story. Family, friends and colleagues, including Mel Brooks and the late Robert Osborne, also share their personal memories of Lamarr, explaining the atmosphere that created the disconnect between her brilliance and her beauty. Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story world premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, earned multiple awards at film festivals and was named Best Documentary by the New York Film Critics Online.
With her latest documentary “This is Paris”, and her last one, “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story”, director Alexandra Dean has now made two films that take a look at popular albeit overlooked women, individuals who couldn’t possibly be considered intelligent due to their beauty and public persona. These films prove such perceptions are not only wrong, they’re also damaging. No one likes to be pigeonholed or stereotyped, but it happens all the time, especially to women in the spotlight. If they’re not disregarded, they’re mansplained or they get a label that sticks with them for a while, unfortunately
CLICK HERE FOR WHERE TO WATCH
Closed captions
Mental Health Awareness Week runs from Monday 10 May to Sunday 16 May 2021. This year, join the fight for mental health.
During this pandemic, millions of us have experienced a mental health problem, or seen a loved one struggle. And we’ve 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.
For #MHAW, the Birds Eye View Team will be watching a film a day.
Today’s film, chosen by Anne-Sophie Ohoueu, one of the BEV team, is WILD, the 2014 American biographical adventure drama film based on Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.
SYNOPSIS
A woman with a tragic past decides to start her new life by hiking for one thousand miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Driven to the edge by the loss of her beloved mother (Laura Dern), the dissolution of her marriage and a headlong dive into self-destructive behaviour, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) makes a decision to halt her downward spiral and put her life back together again. With no outdoors experience, a heavy backpack and little else to go on but her own will, Cheryl sets out alone to hike the Pacific Crest Trail — one of the country’s longest and toughest through-trails.
The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 2014. Witherspoon and Dern received nominations at the 87th Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively
English [CC]
To watch the film, click HERE
Twittter: @mentalhealth
Facebook: @mentalhealthfoundation
Instagram: @mentalhealthfoundation
Mental Health Awareness Week runs from today to Sunday 16 May 2021. This year, join the fight for mental health.
During this pandemic, millions of us have experienced a mental health problem, or seen a loved one struggle. And we’ve 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 #MHAW, the Birds Eye View Team will be recommending a film a day.
Today’s film, chosen by our Director-at-large, Mia Bays is one of seminal Scottish filmmaker Margaret Tait’s short poetry films
A film interpretation of the poem ‘The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Margaret Tait speaks the poem throughout the film.
To watch the film, click HERE
Margaret Tait
Born in 1918 in Kirkwall on Orkney, Scotland, Margaret Tait qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University 1941. From 1950 to 1952 she studied film at the Centro Sperimentale di Photographia in Rome.
Returning to Scotland she established Ancona Films in Edinburgh’s Rose Street. In the 1960’s Tait moved back to Orkney where over the following decades she made a series of films inspired by the Orcadian landscape and culture. All but three of her thirty two films were self financed. She wrote poetry and stories and produced several books including three books of poetry.
Screenings include National Film Theatre (London), Berlin Film Festival, Centre for Contemporary Art (Warsaw), Arsenal Kino (Berlin), Pacific Film Archives (San Francisco), Knokke le Zoute, Delhi and Riga. Tait was accorded a retrospective at the 1970 Edinburgh Film Festival and has been the subject of profiles on BBC and Channel Four.
The feature length Blue Black Permanent (1993) opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Her final film Garden Pieces was completed in 1998.
Margaret Tait died in Kirkwall in 1999.
Twittter: @mentalhealth
Facebook: @mentalhealthfoundation
Instagram: @mentalhealthfoundation
