Birds Eye View Film Festival 2009
March 5th -13th 2009
BFI Southbank, ICA, Picturehouse Cinemas
Last year's festival was the biggest and best yet, with an audience of 11,000 giving events an average rating of 4.5 out of 5, and a staggering reception in the press. Read festival director Rachel Millward's blog, highlighting the key successes, here.
Birds Eye View celebrated the best women filmmakers from around the globe with 70 events over 9 days at the BFI Southbank, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Gate (Notting Hill), and Picturehouse Cinemas across the UK.
We kicked off with a special fifth birthday celebration on our Opening Night Gala, introduced by Golden Globe winning actress Sally Hawkins (Happy Go Lucky). and internationally renowned director Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham; Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging).
The programme featured a stellar line-up of fantastic and fascinating cinema, from the top US indie films of '08 including Oscar nominated feature Frozen River and Sundance winning doc American Teen, plus UK premieres of critically acclaimed European arthouse films including The Heart of the Dark Forest from Berlin's coolest Nicolette Krebitz and delicious French comedy Grown Ups. We showcased the latest and hottest short films from emerging women filmmakers, debated new work from Afghan women filmmakers, and welcomed Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima, of the pioneering producers of Nigerian Nollywood.
This year our retrospective, in partnership with the BFI, focused on Screen Seductresses: Vamps, Vixens and Femmes Fatales. Our Vamp programme celebrated cinema's earliest sex symbols, including Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo, together with specially commissioned live musical accompaniment from the likes of Bishi and Natalie Clein.
Special events included a Sex on Screen Debate, a director's masterclass with Mary Harron (American Psycho), a Last Laugh Comedy Event celebrating our recent comedy feature film initiative with Warp X, and of course the Closing Night Awards Party - with an amazing line up of live acts & DJs.
Once again we gave you a glimpse of things to come with our innovation strand, featuring music videos, fashion films and an incredible new dance-meets-motion-capture project: The Imaginarium.
As ever, we did our bit to equip the next generation of Campions, Coppolas and Chadhas by bringing together an unbeatable line-up of the nation's top film training organisations (including BAFTA, Shooting People, and Script Factory), to host a series of workshops.
Birds Eye View film festival 2009 trailer
With thanks to the collaboration between Open Book and Red Banana Productions we present to you our 2009 trailer: