Female Directors - Fergenaprido's iCM Forum List

Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.

She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.

Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.

Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.

Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.

Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.

She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.

Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.

Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.

Though Academy Award®, Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award winning writer and director Susanne Bier's work often plays out against a wide-reaching global backdrop, its focus is intimate, carefully exploring the explosive emotions and complexities of familial bonds. This unique combination is part of the formula that has made her Denmark's leading female filmmaker and a powerhouse worldwide.

Bier's 2010 film In a Better World won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011, as well as an Italian Golden Globe Award® for Best European Film and Best Director at the European Film Awards. She previously helmed the multi-award-winning After the Wedding (2006), which was also an Academy Award® nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, and was remade as an English-language film in 2019 starring Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Billy Crudup.

Bier won an Emmy Award in 2016 for directing the six-part AMC mini-series The Night Manager, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by John le Carré, with stars Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, and Olivia Colman all winning Golden Globes for their work.

Bier followed this with the 2018 Netflix film Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, which went on to become the most-watched film in Netflix history. In 2020, she directed the six-part HBO series The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, the network's first original series to grow its audience each week.

Prior to this, Bier co-wrote and directed the romantic comedy The One and Only (1999), which won Best Film at the Danish Robert Awards and was the most watched domestic film in Denmark in 20 years, with one-fifth of the country's population having seen it at the cinema.

In 2002, she directed Open Hearts, shot in accordance with the Dogme '95 filmmaking aesthetic. The film won numerous awards, including the Audience Award at the Robert Festival (Danish Academy Award) and the International Film Critics' Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bier followed this with Brothers (2004), which won, among others, the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2007, Bier directed the award-winning Things We Lost in the Fire, starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, her first English-language film.

In 2012, Bier made her triumphant return to the genre with the 2013 winner of the European Film Award for Best Comedy, Love Is All You Need, starring Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm. In 2014, Bier directed A Second Chance, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Most recently, Susanne Bier directed the Showtime limited series The First Lady, starring Viola Davis, Michelle Pfieffer, and Gillian Anderson.

Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and Cosima. She was previously married to Spike Jonze.

Céline Sciamma was born on 12 November 1978 in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France. She is a writer and director, known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021) and Tomboy (2011).

Torill Kove was born on 25 May 1958 in Hamar, Norway. She is a director and writer, known for The Danish Poet (2006), My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts (1999) and Me and My Moulton (2014).

Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee made her stage debut at age 4 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, playing the abducted princess in "L'Orocolo". After graduating from high school, she won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner. When she was a teenager Grant established herself as a formidable Broadway talent when she won The Critics' Circle Award for her portrayal of the shoplifter in "Detective Story". She reprised the role in the film version (Detective Story (1951), a performance that garnered her the Cannes Film Festival Citation for Best Actress as well as her first Academy Award Nomination. Immediately following her screen debut, however, Lee became a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklists in which actors, writers, directors, etc., were persecuted for supposedly "Communist" or "progressive" political beliefs, whether they had them or not. Except for an occasional role, she did not work in film or television for 12 years. In 1965 Lee re-started her acting career in the TV series Peyton Place (1964), for which she won an Emmy Award as Stella Chernak, and she later garnered her first Academy Award for Shampoo (1975), also receiving Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). Since 1980 Lee has been concentrating on her directorial career, which began as part of the Women's Project at The Americal Film Institute (AFI); her adaptation of August Strindberg's, "Stronger, The" was consequently selected as one of the 10 best films ever produced for AFI. In 1987 she received an Academy Award for the HBO documentary, Down and Out in America (1985) and directed Nobody's Child (1986) for CBS, for which she received the Directors Guild Award. In 1983 she received the Congressional Arts Caucus Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Independent Filmmaking. Subsequently, Women in Film paid tribute to her in 1989, with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. Both the New York City Council and the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors have recognized Ms. Grant for the contribution her films have made to the fight against domestic violence.

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early 1980s, attending the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. Her other short films include A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983), After Hours (1985) and the tele-feature 2 Friends (1986), all of which won Australian and international awards. She co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie (1989), which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independant Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. She followed this with An Angel at My Table (1990), a dramatization based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame which won some seven prizes, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. It was also awarded prizes at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals, again winning the American Independent Spirit Award, and was voted the most popular film at the 1990 Sydney Film Festival. The Piano (1993) won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.

Cinema came into Mia Hansen-Løve's life when she was seventeen, as Olivier Assayas made her start as an actress in Late August, Early September (1998). Two years later, he gave her the part of "Aline" in his Les Destinées (2000). Their artistic collaboration was coupled by a union in real life, Mia and Olivier becoming life companions. In 2001, Mia Hansen-Løve began studying at the municipal Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris' 10th district but she dropped our after two years to contribute instead to the famous film magazine "Les Cahiers du Cinéma", where Olivier Assayas also wrote. In 2001, she tried her hand at directing and, as of the first day of shooting, discovered that this WAS what she wanted to do. The result was Après mûre réflexion (2004). Since then, although aged only twenty-eight, she has already made two more films, All Is Forgiven (2007) and Father of My Children (2009), both acclaimed by the critics, both showing consistent thematic and stylistic unity.

Deepa Mehta is a transnational artist and a screenwriter, director, and producer whose work has been called "courageous", "provocative" and "breathtaking". Her visually lush and emotionally resonating films have played at every major international film festival; receiving numerous awards and accolades, and have been distributed around the world. Deepa was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi before immigrating to Canada. She began her career making documentaries in India.

In 1991, Deepa's first feature film Sam & Me, which stars Om Puri, won a Special Jury Mention in the Camera D'Or section at the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1992-1994 she directed two episodes of The Young Indiana Jones, produced by George Lucas for ABC. In 1993, Deepa directed her second feature film Camilla, a Canada-UK co-pro starring Jessica Tandy, Bridget Fonda, Elias Koteas, Maury Chaykin, Graham Greene, and Hume Cronyn. Fire, which Deepa wrote and directed, is the first film in her Elemental Trilogy (Fire, Earth, Water). Fire opened Perspective Canada at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was runner-up for the People's Choice Most Popular Film Award. It played at the New York Film Festival and won many awards worldwide, including the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival and Silver Hugo Awards for Best Direction and Best Actress in Chicago.

Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's acclaimed novel about Partition, Cracking India, is the second film in the Elemental Trilogy. It premiered as a Special Presentation at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival, and won the Prix Premiere du Public at the Festival du Film Asiatique de Deauville and the Critics' Award at the Verona Schermi d'Amore International Film Festival. Bollywood/Hollywood was a change of pace. Written and directed by Deepa, it is a lighthearted, affectionate comedy about two mismatched lovers. It opened Perspective Canada at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival and was a tremendous crossover box office success. It remains one of the top 10 grossing English language Canadian movies. In 2003 Deepa co-wrote and directed the Canada-UK co-pro The Republic of Love, based on a Carol Shields novel.

After a disrupted and hazardous production history Deepa's final film in the Elemental Trilogy Water opened the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and was the first Canadian film acquired by US distributor Fox Searchlight. Water is a powerful, hauntingly tragic story, set in Benares (Varanasi) about a child widow who at the age of eight is forced to enter a house of widows where she has to live for the rest of her life. The movie was to have been shot in India in 2000, but Hindu fundamentalists fomented riots, burnt sets, and issued death threats against the director and actors, forcing production to shut down and the filmmakers to leave the country. Water was successfully remounted in Sri Lanka and completed shooting in June 2004, and features many of India's most renowned actors.

Water was an enormous success. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Annual Academy Awards, and has screened at festivals around the world, winning many awards, and remains an audience favourite. The Vancouver Film Critics Circle named Deepa Mehta the Best Canadian Director of 2006. This fall (2015) is the 10th anniversary of Water's launch.

In 2006 Deepa made a documentary about domestic violence in Toronto's immigrant families called Let's Talk About It, which continues to be used in community outreach programs. She then thematically segued into the feature film Heaven On Earth, which explores arranged marriages and isolation. Starring Preity Zinta, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008. It was awarded a Silver Hugo for Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival, and received the Best Screenplay Award at the Dubai International Film Festival. It also won the Youth Jury Award at the Schermi d'Amore Film Festival in Verona and the Audience Award at the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival.

In 2012, Deepa completed her epic cinematic adaptation of Salman Rushdie's famous novel about the history of India in the 20th century, Midnight's Children. A novel that won three Booker prizes. The movie, with 127 speaking parts, and covering five distinct time periods from 1917-1977, was a vast, ambitious undertaking and has screened all over the world, including the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. Midnight's Children was chosen as the Best Feature Film of 2013 at the Directors Guild of Canada's Awards.

Deepa's work as an artist, as a progressive voice about social issues, and her generous mentorship have often been recognized. She has received numerous honorary degrees and many awards and honours, among them: The Life of Distinction Award from the Canadian Centre of Diversity, The Excellence in the Arts Award from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Woman of Distinction, President's Award from the YMCA. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Film. Most recently, in 2013, Deepa was appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, for her work as a "groundbreaking screenwriter, director, and producer." She is also a recipient of the province of Ontario's highest honour, the Order of Ontario.

A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian.

Gillian Armstrong was born on 18 December 1950 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a director and producer, known for My Brilliant Career (1979), Not Fourteen Again (1996) and Little Women (1994). She is married to John Pleffer. They have two children.

Alanis Obomsawin was born on 31 August 1932 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), Waban-aki: People from Where the Sun Rises (2006) and Is the Crown at War with Us? (2002).

Léa Pool was born on 8 September 1950 in Genève, Switzerland. She is a director and writer, known for Set Me Free (1999), The Passion of Augustine (2015) and A Woman in Transit (1984).

Jennifer Yuh Nelson was born on 7 May 1972 in South Korea. She is a director, known for Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Love, Death & Robots (2019) and Kung Fu Panda (2008).

Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades including nominations for Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Best Director.

Zhao was born and raised in Beijing, China, to father and stepmother, Chinese actress Song DanDan. Growing up, she was very rebellious, and drawn to influences from Western pop culture. She attended a boarding school in London before moving to Los Angeles to finish high school. Zhao studied at Mount Holyoke College earning a bachelor's degree in political science. She worked odd jobs as a party promoter, in real estate, and bartending before studying film production at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

In 2010, Zhao's short film Daughters premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and won Best Student Live Action Short at the 2010 Palm Springs International ShortFest and Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.

In 2015, Zhao directed her first feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Filmed on location at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the film depicts the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister. The film premiered as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival. It later played at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director's Fortnight selection. The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 31st Independent Spirit Awards.

In 2017, she directed The Rider, a contemporary western drama which follows a young cowboy's journey to discover himself after a near-fatal accident ends his professional riding career. Similar to her first feature, Zhao utilised a cast of non-actors who lived on the ranch where the film was shot. Zhao's impetus for making the film came when Brady Jandreau - a cowboy whom she met and befriended on the reservation where she shot her first film - suffered a severe head injury when he was thrown off his horse during a rodeo competition. Jandreau later starred in the film playing a fictionalised version of himself as Brady Blackburn. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight selection and won the Art Cinema Award. The film earned her nominations for Best Feature and Best Director at the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards. At the same ceremony, Zhao became the inaugural winner of the Bonnie Award, named after Bonnie Tiburzi, which recognizes a mid-career female director. The film was released on April 13, 2018 by Sony Pictures Classics and was critically acclaimed.

In April 2018, it was announced that Amazon Studios greenlit Zhao's upcoming untitled Bass Reeves biopic, a historical Western about the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal. Zhao is set to direct the film and write the screenplay. In September 2018, Marvel Studios hired her to direct a film based on the Eternals.

Larisa Shepitko was born on 6 January 1938 in Bakhmut, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a director and writer, known for The Ascent (1977), Heat (1963) and You and Me (1971). She was married to Elem Klimov. She died on 2 July 1979 in near Redkino, Kalinin Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR.

Lisa Cholodenko earned an MFA at Columbia University Film School where she made an award-winning short film Dinner Party (1997) Her feature High Art (1998) won the National Society of Film Critics award for Ally Sheedy's performance and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at Sundance. Both "High Art" and Laurel Canyon (2002) premiered at Cannes Director's Fortnight.

A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which included My Mic Sounds Nice (2010) which aired on BET.

DuVernay's first narrative feature film, I Will Follow (2010), secured her the African-American Film Critics Association award for best screenplay. Her follow-up, Middle of Nowhere (2012) won the Best Director Prize at the 2012 Sundance film festival, making her the first African-American woman to receive the award.

Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated director, known for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007).

She was born on December 15, 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Her father, Melvin Lester Taymor, was a gynecologist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was a teacher of political science. Young Taymor was fond of international folklore and mythology, and also developed a passion for theatre. She spent her formative years living in several countries. As a teenager, during the 1960s, she lived in Sri Lanka and India with the Experiment in International Living program, then studied acting in Paris, at the mime school of Jacques Lecoq. From 1969 to 1974, she studied theatre and mythology at Oberlin College, graduating in 1974 with a degree in folklore and mythology.

During the 1970s, Taymor lived in Japan, studying the art of puppetry and Japanese theatre. Then, she spent five years in Indonesia, working as director of international theatre with Asian, European, and American actors. Back in the USA, she worked on and off Broadway. There, she achieved her first success with staging a fairy tale, "The King Stag", and then toured 66 cities across the world, including Los Angeles, Venice, Tokyo, and Moscow.

In the 1990s, Taymor directed several classic operas. Her 1992 production of Igor Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" in Japan earned the Emmy Award. Then, she directed the 1993 production of "The Magic Flute" by 'Wolfgang Mozart', in Florence, with conductor Zubin Mehta, and the acclaimed 1994 production of "Salome" in St. Petersburg, Russia, with conductor Valery Gergiev.

In New York, she continued a stellar theatrical career, directing such productions as William Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" and "Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass" at the Lincoln Center. In 1997, Taymor directed a massive Walt Disney Company's production of "The Lion King" on Broadway, for which she also co-designed over a 100 costumes and masks of animals, and earned two Tony Awards.

Her film, Frida (2002), received six Oscar nominations, and two Oscars, for make-up and for the music score by Elliot Goldenthal. Taymor continued her success with the 2004 production of "The Magic Flute" at the Metropolitan Opera (which is now in repertoires at the Met), and the 2006 staging of "Grendel" at the Los Angeles Opera and, later, at the Linolcn Center Festival. Taymor's experience with cross-genre and cross-cultural productions came to culmination in her latest film, Across the Universe (2007). It is a musical set in the 1960s England, Vietnam, and America, where a love story and social protest are intertwined with over thirty songs by The Beatles.

Outside of her directing profession, Taymor amassed puppets, masks and folk art from around the world. As an artist, she has been involved in making puppets, masks, costumes and stage sets. Since 1980, Julie Taymor has been a long-time collaborator with the Oscar-winning composer, Elliot Goldenthal, and the couple lives in Manhattan.

Evelyn Lambart was born on 23 July 1914 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She was a director, known for Begone Dull Care (1950), Family Tree (1950) and Short and Suite (1959). She died on 3 April 1999.

Amanda Forbis is known for When the Day Breaks (1999), The Flying Sailor (2022) and Wild Life (2011).

Andrea Arnold was born on 5 April 1961 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for American Honey (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Red Road (2006).

Caroline Monnet is an award winning filmmaker and visual artist working in film/video, installation and printmaking. Her work has been exhibited extensively in film festivals and galleries, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand vidéoformes (France), Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery (Winnipeg), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (Winnipeg) and Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid (FR). Monnet is also part of ITWÉ, a trans-disciplinary art collective dedicated to the creation of Aboriginal digital culture. She works and lives in Montréal, Canada.

Alison Snowden was born on 4 April 1958 in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, England, UK. She is a writer and actress, known for Bob's Birthday (1993), Bob and Margaret (1993) and Animal Behaviour (2018). She is married to David Fine.