WUTI Presents: Trailblazing Women of British Cinema
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This remarkable collection brings together some of Britain’s most fearless and formally innovative filmmakers, including Margaret Tait, Maureen Blackwood, and Clio Barnard. Intimate and provocative by turn, their films are shot through with questions around identity formation—from the Asian diaspora youth redefining Britishness in Gurinder Chadha’s documentary "I’m British But..." through to Jane Arden’s implosion of womanhood in her psychosexual freak-out "The Other Side of the Underneath".
Curated by Tabitha Denholm, Founder, Women Under the Influence.
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The Arbor
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Directed by Clio Barnard | 91 mins | 2010
Andrea Dunbar’s first play, "The Arbor"—a grimly autofictional work about a Yorkshire schoolgirl who falls pregnant, named for the council estate where she lived—premiered in London’s West End when she was just 18. By her untimely dea... -
Red Road
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Directed by Andrea Arnold | 123 mins | 2006
Arnold took the Jury Prize at Cannes with her marvelously controlled feature debut, a tense, voyeuristic revenge tale set on a Glasgow housing estate, where a CCTV operator, Jackie (Kate Dickie), develops an obsession with a man who... -
The Alcohol Years
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Directed by Carol Morley | 50 mins | 2000
The opening of the Haçienda in 1982 begat a pop culture boom in Manchester, and Carol Morley, then just 16 years old, quickly became one of the club’s legendary party people. But Morley herself barely remembers those drink-drenched ye... -
The Other Side of the Underneath
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Directed by Jane Arden | 110 mins | 1972
In the chronology of female psychosis on screen, "The Other Side of the Underneath" falls between "Repulsion" (1965) and "Possession" (1981)—but this confronting work of Ken Russell-esque surrealism is hardly concerned with chronologic... -
Blue Black Permanent
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Directed by Margaret Tait | 86 mins | 1992
While making "Aftersun" (2022), Charlotte Wells discovered a kindred spirit in her compatriot Margaret Tait: the sole feature by the medical doctor turned poet and filmmaker, "Blue Black Permanent"—in fact the first by a Scotswoman, ... -
The Heart of the Angel
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Directed by Molly Dineen | 39 mins | 1989
Molly Dineen's acclaimed documentary follows 48 hours in the life of London’s Angel tube station in the days before its refurbishment. -
I'm British But...
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Directed by Gurinder Chadha | 30 mins | 1990
The vivacious, Bhangra-infused debut of "Bend it Like Beckham" (2002) writer-director Gurinder Chadha takes an expansive look at what it means to be British through the eyes of second-generation migrants from Asia. From the partici... -
A Family Called Abrew
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Directed by Maureen Blackwood | 41 mins | 1992
Founding member of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective Maureen Blackwood crafts a poignant multi-generational portrait of a Black family with deep roots in Scotland: early in the 20th century, well before the post-World War II ... -
The Body Beautiful
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Directed by Ngozi Onwurah | 24 mins | 1991
A tale of two women, a mother and a daughter, divided not just by age but by race and conventions of sexual desirability too, with the elder woman having undergone a double mastectomy and the teenager stepping into modeling. Ngozi On... -
The London Story
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Directed by Sally Potter | 16 mins | 1986
A highly choreographed spy spoof involving an investigation into government foreign policy malfeasance which Sally Potter stages in front of London’s most recognizable landmarks.
