The BFI and IWC Schaffhausen have revealed the shortlist of writers and/or directors competing for the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI, and two of the four finalists are women: Alice Lowe and Hope Dickson Leach. According to the BFI, the £50,000 award (about $65,000 USD) is “the most significant bursary of its kind in the UK film industry.”
The Bursary Award “is presented in recognition of outstanding British talent and is designed to support a writer and/or director at the beginning of their career, bringing them the financial stability and time needed to develop their creativity and focus on future projects without the pressure of deadlines or the distraction of taking paid work — a precious and extremely rare opportunity for a filmmaker,” the BFI writes.
The shortlist was determined by a five-person panel that included “Bend It Like Beckham” director Gurinder Chadha, Clare Stewart, Director of the BFI London Film Festival, and Rose Garnett, Head of Development at Film4.
Both Lowe and Dickson Leach are screening films at the BFI London Film Festival, a requirement of the Bursary.
Lowe makes her feature directorial debut with “Prevenge,” which she also wrote and stars in. She plays a pregnant woman on a murdering spree, and was actually pregnant during filming. Lowe’s first screenwriting credit was co-writing Ben Wheatley’s “Sightseers,” which won her Best Screenplay at the British Independent Film Awards and Breakthrough British Filmmaker at the London Critics’ Circle Awards.
“‘Prevenge’ was my deliberate baby-shaped hand grenade that I wanted to throw into the industry,” said Lowe. “I want to make sci-fi, period drama, comedy, art. I don’t see any limits. Too often I feel women become the ‘midwives’ of creativity. I want to birth my own films. And I’ve only just started.”
“The Levelling” is writer-director Dickson Leach’s first feature. The drama centers on a young woman who finds herself back at the family farm following the suicide of her younger brother, a tragedy that her emotionally distant, hot-tempered father insists on identifying as an accident. Dickson Leach’s short film “The Dawn Circus” was screened at festivals around the world including Sundance, Edinburgh, and London. She co-founded Raising Films, which works towards making the film industry more parent-friendly.
“The time between first and second features can be worryingly protracted — especially for female filmmakers,” Dickson Leach rightly observed. “So I want to move faster, while having the luxury of quality, creative time. By supporting my next feature, the Bursary Award would also support emerging filmmakers looking for female role models in feature filmmaking, and audiences hungry for more diverse stories and storytellers.”
Both “Prevenge” and “The Levelling” screened at The Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month. The BFI London Film Festival runs from October 5-16. For more information on the finalists and the bursary, head over to the BFI’s website.
Check out a video featuring interviews with the filmmakers below.
