BEV celebrates & supports international women filmmakers. The flagship BEV Film Festival runs at London's BFI Southbank and ICA, with exclusive previews, shorts, retrospectives, training and cutting-edge live performances.
Well, this is the funniest of festival years for me. Just as Birds Eye View gears up to what looks to be an outrageously brilliant festival – a true celebration of the scope of women’s creative vision, I gear up to a very different moment of creativity – giving birth for the first time. There’s something rather poetic (and nuts) about the timing for me. Should I go those two “permissable” weeks over the official due date, our baby girl could be coming into the world on opening night. Which means that the festival – my first baby, of sorts, is now safely in the hands of BEV’s most excellent team, allowing me to focus on this momentous and unknown journey ahead. Obviously, should baby decide to come this week, or next, I may shuffle down to share in the joys of closing night delight, but maybe our new little world will be too fresh and fragile – we shall see…
Destiny Ekaragha is a rising star of the British film scene and we are very pleased to be screening the third short film she has written and directed, The Park,as part of our UK shorts programme at the festival.
The film is a coming of age tale which sharply observes teenage relationships with humor and empathy.
Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner has previously toured international film festivals and wowed audiences and critics with her features Lovely Rita (2001) and Hotel (2004). We are excited to be presenting you with her new work at the BEV 2010 Festival; the mysterious and beautifully compelling Lourdes, about a young women with MS who travels to the French site of spiritual healing. The film was nominated for the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion and stars French actor Sylvie Testud (La Vie En Rose).
BEV’s senior programmer Emily Seed spoke to Jessica from her home in Austria.
With apologies for having been a bit secretive about it, we launched the Birds Eye View Film Festival 2010 on Tuesday, at the Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue, London. This was one of those exclusive shin-digs, with press, VIPs, sponsors, partners and all good schmoozable folk joining us as we announced the festival programme with a celebratory tipple.
New Chair Elizabeth Karlsen, Fiona Shaw and Rachel
Fiona Shaw- surely one of the greatest actors working in London today – we find her quite mind-blowing! – gave the opening address, while I introduced our new chair – the amazing producer Elizabeth Karlsen – and revealed the delights of the festival to come.
Fiona Shaw’s speech was typically eloquent – ranging from aboriginal Australian women’s culture to new interractive narrative forms in film. Her final message was clear and passionate: “Just as poetry comes from the silence, so films come from the darkness. Women need to illuminate more of that darkness, for the benefit of both genders…” amen to that! Read the full story
Sally Hawkins, Rachel Millward and Gurinder Chadha at the Opening Night Gala
The 2009 Birds Eye View film festival has been resting peacefully for over a month now. And what a hugely successful festival it was. Festival Director Rachel Millward sums it up.
This was Birds Eye View’s (and therefore my…) fifth festival. It was the first since we won the UK Film Council’s film festivals funding, but also our first since the credit crunch took away sponsors we’d nurtured in the finance sector, so the twelve month run-up was a rollercoaster to say the least!
But the fantastically gratifying fact is that audiences flocked to all events, nearly 11,000 of you altogether. Our box office stats show an average of around 90% capacity – the majority of events through festival week selling out. The average audience rating across all films and events was 4.5 out of 5. And, demonstrating fresh outreach, 83% of the audience were new to Birds Eye View this year, 98% said they would come again. Read the full story
Well here it is, the final video report from me. And of course, ’tis a vid of the Closing Night Party, and what fun was to be had! Dressing up, festival awards, photos, oodles of talent, dancing… Notice my slight nervousness and awe when talking to Sally Philips and Andrea Riseborough, and watch out for Hayley Atwell’s very cute dog. Plus an attempted one take wonder of all the team just before we had our photo taken (cue cheesy pic below…).
