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.
Written response by Rafa Sales Ross
Children have a slippery grip on reality and an even slipperier grip on memory. What a cruel thing, then, that childhood recollections are the invisible hands moulding the sensitive clay on the kiln of adulthood, shaping a coming of age that makes or breaks the person that will come.
Cruel, too, are the muddy waters that envelop the body of young Ryan Quinn, blocking air from pumping through his small lungs. His body is buried in a tiny coffin while mourners battle both tears and the putrid stink of accumulated garbage. It is 1975 and the bin collectors have gone on strike, causing the streets of Glasgow to turn into a sprawling labyrinth of filth and home to the hundreds of rats that name Lynne Ramsay’s 1999 feature debut Ratcatcher.
It is here, in this very particular time and space, that we meet 12-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie), a lanky lad whose hands have pushed the meek Quinn boy into the mud. Ramsay chronicles James’s grappling with the trauma of death and the overbearing burden of guilt with a gentle eye, allowing for brief moments of youthful joy to infiltrate the gruelling reality of a working-class Glaswegian family in the 1970s as the slurry runs through the slabbed pavements.
Much like James, Ramsay was born to a working-class family in late 60s Glasgow. Her childhood would come to inspire all of her work leading to Ratcatcher. Her graduation short, Small Deaths, seesaws through three formative memories of a young girl entering adolescence in a Glasgow housing scheme. Another girl, yet arguably the same Lynne, has her bubble of infantile innocence burst when confronted with the personified truth of her father’s double life in 1998’s Gasman.
Although her following three feature films would all be literary adaptations, Ramsay has yet to step outside of the themes she first explored as a budding filmmaker fresh out of the National Film and Television School. To step into a Lynne Ramsay film is to sign yourself up for a journey through notions of memory, death and childhood within tales beautifully framed by the eye of a filmmaker curious about what lurks underneath the often shallow surface of dialogue.
Ramsay, a photographer and painter before becoming a filmmaker, has a particularly sharp eye for composition and an ingrained understanding of the narrative potential of the frame. A hand holding tightly onto a phone cord, small feet climbing up bus steps, nagging shells plucked out of scrambled eggs. Such details, coupled with the director’s grasp on the emotional pull of sound, round up characters in a sensorial, extradiegetic manner — it’s a tangible, sensuous cinema to which we can return as a memory. It is cinema as a place.
Ramsay was only the second Scottish woman to direct a feature film, with Margaret Tait breaking the glass ceiling with Blue Black Permanent in 1992. Tait’s and Ramsay’s feature debuts share many commonalities: on a broader note, both revolve around poetic notions of grief and the intimacy that can be gathered from quiet observation. Narratively, both films tell the story of someone’s childhood being inextricably connected to death.
Many have labelled Ramsay’s cinema as poetic, commenting on her lulling composition and the breathing space she allows her characters, images, and sounds. This encapsulation of her work allows for yet another parallel with Tait, a poet before a filmmaker, whose many short films were created in tandem with her writing. “Ultimately, there’s only movement. Nothing else,” wrote Tait in her poem “Light,” a passage that could also describe the work of her countrywoman. Be it the frenzied scrubbing of red ink in We Need to Talk About Kevin or a man running through corridors in the haunting grainy security camera sequence of You Were Never Really Here, Ramsay’s expertise in stillness rarely manifests itself as clearly as when she captures movement — the tense quietness that precedes a rush of adrenaline, the paralysing nature of fear, the inability to escape someone or somewhere.
Tait died the year Ratcatcher came out, a, well, poetic passing of the torch. That her fellow Scot would only be allowed to make three more feature films in the two decades since feels a tragedy, but still, somehow, a step forward, considering that Tait only secured funding for her first and only feature in her 70s while Ramsay was still in her 20s when Ratcatcher made waves at the Cannes Film Festival. The same festival would come to catapult yet another Scottish female director to the hungry eyes of international cinephiles, Edinburgh’s very own Charlotte Wells, whose exquisite Aftersun immediately drew comparisons to Ramsay’s earlier work and the director’s curiosity about how grief can affect childhood recollections.
This time, however, it feels less like a passing of the torch and more a discernible proof that stories that feel true to Scotland’s social and cultural fabric can break through the still sturdy glass ceiling Ramsay has been fighting against for so long. And rarely has a film spoken so poignantly to that truth as Ratcatcher.
Rafa Sales Ross is a Brazilian film journalist, critic and programmer currently living in Scotland. She contributes to Variety, BBC Culture, Sight & Sound among others, and can often be seen writing about Latin American Cinema and explorations of death and desire.
#ReclaimTheFrame with Park Circus' new stunning 4k restoration of RATCATCHER, in celebration of the film's 25th anniversary, HERE.
Following our widely circulated open call, we’re excited to announce film curator, writer, and audience development professional Aashna Thakkar (she/her) as our new Head of Audience Engagement.
In addition, the Board of Directors are thrilled to welcome three new Trustees: film programmer and producer Rebecca del Tufo; creative producer, exec producer, consultant and diversity advocate Tolu Stedford; and producer Yaw Basoah.
Stepping into a newly created full time management role that encompasses curation and communications, Aashna Thakkar (she/her) brings her experience in programming and marketing to the position of Head of Audience Engagement.
Originally from Toronto, Aashna was Manager of Programming for Regent Park Film Festival, Toronto’s longest running free community film festival, and Lead Programmer Breakthrough’s Women & Non-binary led Film Festival. Prior to that, Aashna worked in marketing at Toronto Ward Museum, and held outreach and education positions at Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America. Since moving to London, she has worked with Into Film on their UK-wide festival.
Aashna’s speaking, jurying and writing engagements have included Winnipeg Film Group, aluCine Latin Film + Media Arts Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival and Documentary Campus, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, Future of Film Showcase, Hot Docs, Tasveer South Asian Film Festival, and she is a member of the Programmers of Colour Collective.
As an audience-focused and community-minded professional, Aashna’s seven-year career to date demonstrates a commitment to promoting equity in the film industry and platforming stories of marginalized identities.
Rebecca del Tufo, Tolu Stedford and Yaw Basoah announced as new Trustees
As of this month, the charity also welcomes three new Trustees:
Rebecca del Tufo (she/her) is a film producer, programmer and freelancer, whose work covers exhibition, distribution and production. Rebecca co-founded and co-runs ScreenCraft Works, a not-for-profit which supports under-represented production and post-production talent worldwide with cross-border mentoring, talks and networking, and is a trustee of Refugees at Home.
Tolu Stedford (she/her) is co-founder of Story Compound, a creative film, TV and immersive media production company and consultancy with an emphasis on stories of the Global Majority that resonate globally. She is British Screen Forum’s Future Leader and member of the ScreenSkills Film Council.
Yaw Basoah (he/him) established Dark Pictures to produce bold, distinctive, and uncompromising work that explores the dark side of human nature, working across film, television, and the visual arts, with emerging, established, and world-renowned writers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists, predominantly from underrepresented backgrounds.
A fond farewell
Sadly, next month the team bid goodbye to long-standing team members Jo Taylor Hitchinson (freelance Campaigns Lead, who joined in 2018) and Cristina Garcia (Operations Manager since 2019), and to Rōgan Graham (Programme Producer for the past year). The work of all three has been critical to the continued development and impact of our audience building work at Reclaim The Frame, and our recent Girls on Film ‘Activist Impact Award’ is just one example in testament to that. All three will forever be part of the Reclaim The Frame community.
Starting in April, Aashna will be working closely with the Reclaim The Frame team, information on whom can be found here.
While our new Trustees join our five Board directors: producer Fozia O’Dowd, distributor Sophie Doherty, publicist Sophie Glover, barrister Stephanie Hayward, and curator/evaluator Tara Brown.
#ReclaimTheFrame with us
The Board of Trustees are currently recruiting for a Chair of the Board of Trustees – details of which can be found here.
To become an Advocate for the charity’s mission in building audiences for marginalized gender led films, join the #ReclaimTheFrame mailing list here.
The charity’s exhibition work is funded by BFI’s Audience Fund. Information on Reclaim The Frame’s partners and network of 20+ cinemas in 16 cities across the UK can be found here.
In celebration of International Women’s Day 2024, we’re offering a chance to catch up on #ReclaimTheFrame titles from the past couple of years with a curated selection on BFI Player!
This global selection by and about women and non-binary people - behind the camera and centred on the screen - features films set in Newcastle, England to an unnamed city in Brazil, as well as diasporic stories from Guadeloupe, Haiti and the Philippines.
BLUE JEAN (dir Georgia Oakley, UK 2022)
Written and directed by Georgia Oakley, this powerful Thatcher-era drama following a closeted lesbian teaching in a Tyneside school under Section 28 serves as a warning from the past against complacency in the present, around the ongoing struggle for the rights and safety of LGBTQI+ people.
CETTE MAISON (dir Miryam Charles, Canada 2022)
Miryam Charles deftly blurs the boundaries between documentary and imagined realities in this inventive and visually compelling ghost story. Shot on 16mm, ‘This House’ explores the unsolved killing of Charles’ teenage cousin as the family reckon with their loss, and that of their homeland in Haiti.
LINGUA FRANCA (dir Isabel Sandoval, USA 2019)
Isabel Sandoval writes, directs and stars in this intimate and compelling story of Olivia, an undocumented Filipina trans woman living in Brooklyn seeking legal status. Working as a carer, Olivia develops a relationship with her elderly client’s adult grandson. Meanwhile the daily threat of deportation looms over her existence.
MEDUSA (dir Anita Rocha da Silveira, Brazil 2021)
In Anita Rocha da Silveira’s genre-bending horror, Mariana is a member of a repressive patriarchal Christian sect. By day, she and her girlfriends cultivate the image of the perfect woman; at night, they don masks, mercilessly prowling the city for women they deem to be sinners.
RODEO (dir Lola Quivoron, France 2022)
"I was born with a bike between my legs.”
Lola Quivoron’s energetic, exhilarating and Cannes award-winning debut centres on the young Julia and their initiation into a dirt bike gang, navigating an extreme subgroup fuelled by masculinity.
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