Woman with a Movie Camera Summit 2024

For this edition of the summit, we will be bringing you a programme reflecting on some of the most talked about topics of the past year, including romcoms, girl memes, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. We will also be shining a light on film composers and forgotten Hollywood screenwriters, while getting into it with some hot topics such as consent on screen, the Lolita in 2024 and unravelling our relationships with our mothers.

Purchasing a summit pass will give you access to a day packed with talks, Q&As and panel discussions with filmmakers, curators and creatives, as well as drop-in workshops. Summit passes allow access to multiple sessions throughout the day, on a first come, first served basis.

Can’t make it to Southbank? A number of talks and panels will be available to watch on the BFI YouTube channel, in addition to Woman with a Movie Camera film collections on BFI Player.

Full programme line-up and schedule will be available later in January.

Tickets £13, concs £10 (non-Members pay £2 more), 25 & Under £5 – on sale Thursday 4 January to BFI Champions and Patrons from 11:30, to BFI Members from 12:30 and on general sale from 16:00.

Woman With a Movie Camera is generously supported by Jane Stanton.

Programme

BFI Filmmaking Fund Presents Funny HaHa
11:20 – 11:50, NFT3

BFI Filmmaking Fund Director Mia Bays hosts a conversation with three comedic powerhouses on writing and performing comedy in film. Susan Wokoma, Joanna Scanlan and Alice Lowe will dive into the creative processes behind their comedic storytelling, how they balance switching between acting, writing and directing, and share tips for crafting comedy on the big screen.

Host: Mia Bays

Panellists: Susan Wokoma, Joanna Scanlan, Alice Lowe

Lolitas in 2024
11:25 - 11:55, NFT2

The trailer for the upcoming Miller’s Girl felt like a throwback to the wave of Hollywood psychosexual teen films in the 90s. In films like Crush and Poison Ivy, not only were teenage girls insatiable for older men, but they held all the life-ruining power to seduce poor male victims. This talk will examine the origins of Lolita, the damaging consequences of the archetype in pop culture and where she belongs in 2024.

Speaker: Kim Sheehan

Radicalising the Canon – Female rebels of the Avant-Garde
11:30 – 12:15, Studio

Experimental cinema has long been a mouthpiece for marginalised voices, especially for women who have utilised the camera to express their physical, sexual and spatial autonomy. Looking specifically to the exceptional work of directors Maya Deren, Barabara Hammer and Chantal Akerman, this talk considers how a low-budget and expressive form of filmmaking conjured an authentic female voice defying the images dictated by traditional cinema and media, how it challenged heteronormative audience spaces and demonstrated that our traditional film canon has the capability to be drastically disrupted and transformed by even the most microscale of filmmaking.

Speaker: Lucy Peters

Screen Deep: a conversation with Ellen E. Jones
11:40 – 12:10, Blue Room

Screen Deep is a book about the immense potential of screen storytelling to defeat an evil both historic and urgently topical: racism. Everyone watches TV and movies. Everyone has an interest in building a more just and equitable world. Screen Deep goes beyond the many film books and anti-racist manuals by demonstrating the connection between these two aspects of modern life.

In Screen Deep, Ellen E. Jones combines her personal experience as a mixed-race woman who cares about racism with her professional expertise as a film and TV journalist of 20 years. We are thrilled to welcome Ellen to the summit for an advance reading and discussion about her book, followed by a signing.

Host: Kieran Yates

The Age of Consent: the evolution of sexual assault on screen
12:15 – 13:00, NFT2

There was a time when a disregard for consent was not only accepted but expected by cinemagoers - those days are gone. An increase in public awareness, the introduction of intimacy coordinators behind the scenes, and a flood of online chatter around depictions of assault have influenced a gradual shift on screen.

2023’s How to have Sex threw open the doors to a discussion beyond the binary, asking audiences to examine blurred lines and miscommunications. Building on this debate, we look at how today’s filmmakers are depicting consent, and what does this mean for audiences? And importantly, what do we have left to learn?

Host: Simran Hans

Panellists: Rachel Thompson, Lucy Brown

Directed by Beyoncé
12:30 – 13:10, Blue Room

A filmmaker for over a decade now, pop diva Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has revitalised the visual album, concert film and idea of popstar as author through projects like Lemonade, Homecoming and most recently Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé. Join writer and pro grammer Rōgan Graham as she takes you through Beyoncé’s complex and often controversial visual exploits and explores what is often missing from the conversation.

Speaker: Rōgan Graham

Jeanie Finlay in conversation
12:45 – 13:30, NFT3

Jeanie Finlay, the artist and filmmaker behind award-winning documentaries Seahouse, Game of Thrones: The Last Watch, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King and The Great Hip Hop Hoax joins us to discuss her craft and career so far, as well as the journey to her latest work, Your Fat Friend, a powerful and moving documentary exploring body image, diet culture and anti-fat bias through the life and work of Aubrey Gordon.

Host: Jelena Milosavljevic

Rianne Pictures presents: Women X Film Festival 2023 award winners
12:40 – 13:50, Studio

Based in the north east of England, Rianne Pictures is an organisation striving to tackle the distinct lack of female voices in the film industry with productions, mentoring and support, and an annual short film festival called Women X. As the festival rolls into its fifth year, get a taste of Women X’s 2023 programme with these award-winning shorts. Taking home trophies last year for Best Northern Film, Best Student Film, Best Documentary, Best Film and Best Director, these selected short films illustrate the breadth of talent that Women X strives to showcase from women and non-binary filmmakers from across the globe. Delve into stories of desire, body confidence, parenting, sex work and the internet... and cannibalism.

Pricks, dir. Toby Kearton

Objects of Desire, dir. Dorothy McCormack

Drowning, dir. Gemma Whitworth

Barricade, dir. Alice Johannessen

All Girls, dir. Anastasia Bruce-Jones

CANDY, dir. Sarah Grant

Taylor Swift: The Main Character of the World
13:15 – 13:55, Blue Room

Taylor Swift. Artistically at the pinnacle of the industry, a billionaire businesswoman and the endless topic of the cultural conversation. So much so that Time magazine named here the “main character of the world”. Professor Kirsty Fairclough will explore Swift’s impact on the industry and her approach to her visual output including the record breaking “Eras Tour” concert film.

Speaker: Professor Kirsty Fairclough

Unravelling Our Mothers
13:20 – 14:00, NFT2

Recent award-winning films The Taste of Mango, Blue Bag Life, Bye Bye Tiberias, and The Wolf Suit mark an intriguing moment in contemporary documentary: a wave in very personal filmmaking, specifically exploring the complicated relationships of real-life mothers and daughters, with the daughters holding the camera. This panel will trace this recent wave of generational storytelling and examine how the medium lends itself to unpacking family relationships, truths, trauma and memories, and why so many of us are compelled to go on an artistic quest to understand and know our parents better.

Host: Isra Al Kassi

Panelists: Leila Latif, Lisa Selby, Sam Firth

Short Film Festivals: What are they looking for?
14:00 – 14:30, NFT3

Caris Rianne, the founder of Rianne Pictures and Women X Film Festival joins us for a conversation exploring festival strategies for short films, common mistakes made with festival submissions and that big burning question: what are short film festivals actually looking for?

Host: Lilia Pavin-Franks

Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and the concert film
14:05 – 14:35, Blue Room

Following two illustrated talks exploring the artistry of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, we will explore and interrogate the two biggest concert films of 2023, the parallels and the contrasts between Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, and how they conquered the box office.

Host: Feyi Adebanjo

Panelists: Rōgan Graham, Professor Kirsty Fairclough

Introduction to Dorothy Arzner
14:15 – 14:55, Studio

Ahead of BFI Southbank’s Dorothy Arzner season in February, season curator Caroline Cassin presents an introduction to the trailblazing director. Arzner worked her way up the ranks of Hollywood: from typist to screenwriter and cutter to editor, finally becoming the only woman directing within the studio system. Cassin will dig into what makes Arzner and her films special, and where to start if you are new to her work.

Speaker: Caroline Cassin

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch in Conversation, presented with the Alliance for Women Film Composers
14:20 – 15:00, NFT2

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch is an Ivor Novello, BIFA nominated, and HMMA-winning composer and artist, living in London. Emilie has scored BAFTA, Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated features including Living, The Forgotten Battle, Rocks, Only You, The Strays and Censor. Most recently, Emilie scored the critically acclaimed All of Us Strangers. She is joined by Loren Sunderland from Spitfire Audio to discuss the art of composition, breaking into the industry and her wonderful body of work.

Host: Loren Sunderland

Girl Memes
14:55 – 15:30, Blue Room

Girl Dinner, Girl Math, Hot Girl Walk, what’s your Roman Empire? 2023 was the year of the gendered memes and also pop culture/the internet’s obsession with girlhood aesthetics. How and why the did the boom in girl trends happen online? And how did it interact with film culture this year? We dive into some of the best (or worst) Girl Memes of the year and attempt to tackle some of the thornier questions laying underneath the resurgence in the girl.

Speaker: Billie Walker

The Mysterious Art of Film Programming: Jane Giles in conversation
15:00 – 15:45, NFT3

The legendary Jane Giles, co-director of SCALA!!!, the delightfully X-rated love letter to London’s infamous, influential Scala cinema, joins us to discuss her personal experiences of programming alternative cinema and festivals, distributing independent films and evolving into a filmmaker.

Host: Kim Sheehan

The Archive: Queer Nigerians + Simisolaoluwa Akande and team in conversation
15:15 – 15:50, Studio

Hot of its Short Film Award win at BFI London Film Festival 2023, we present a special screening of Simisolaoluwa Akande’s poetic documentary tracing five queer Nigerians living in the UK through audio diaries. A testament to the power of the spoken word and the importance of being heard, this film beautifully navigates the intersection of Blackness, African-ness, and Queerness. The director and filmmaking team join us after the screening to discuss bringing this tapestry of stories to life.

Host: Feyi Adebanjo

Speakers: Simisolaoluwa Akande, Maxine Gordon, Bea MacDonald

Triple Threat: Muslim Women with a Movie Camera
15:20 – 16:00, NFT2

Join a panel of Muslim Women Filmmakers bringing subversive stories to your screens as they discuss their experiences of navigating the industry and imposter syndrome. Breakthrough filmmakers share the ups and downs of telling original and authentic stories, the contrived issues of representation and breaking the image of the monolithic Muslim.

Host: Nileema Yesmin

Panelists: Warda Mohamed, Shaheen Baig, Myriam Raja, Sara Harrak

Forgotten Screenwriters of Early Hollywood
16:00 – 16:40, NFT3

Between 1911 and 1929, around 50% of all film outlines and stories were penned by women. With sharp tongues and vivid imaginations, women were the first staff writers in Hollywood, and some of the highest paid of their time. But do you know their names? Th is talk will celebrate some of the colourful characters of the first half of the 20th century, who together contributed to the "tyranny of the woman writer".

Speaker: Ruby McGuigan

Good Wickedry presents Let It Linger
16:10 – 17:10, Studio

Good Wickedry is an online cinema platform driven by carefully considered curation presented by T A P E collective. Cutting through the noise of excessive content by highlighting one great film at a time, and platforming it for two weeks, these bold and invigorating choices can be new or old, from any genre, and any format, with a special focus on shorts - narrative films, docs, art videos, music videos, experimental, animation and more. This variety builds a stronger and more nuanced, but also universal, picture of the make-up of our cinematic world. In a Woman with a Camera Summit special, we present a programme of shorts previously screened on Good Wickedry, that we’re not ready to let go of, where the cinematography, story, performances and sound linger on in our minds and call out for a big-screen encore.

What About Me?, dir. Lois Stevenson

Time and the Seashell, dir. Itandehui Jansen

Born Again, dir. Candice Onyeramera

Narlik Sokak, dir. Florenza Deniz İncirli

Sorry Fi Disturb Yuh, dir. Georgia Goggin

Homeland Trilogy, dir. Asena Nour

2024 going on 2004: the romcom renaissance and its evolution
16:20 – 17:10, NFT2

The noughties saw many romantic comedies hitting the screens, but 2004 is historic in the gems that it produced. Taking the defining factors of the year that birthed a thousand ‘chick flicks’ and comparing them to the romcom offerings of the 2020s, this panel explores the ways in which the much-loved film genre has evolved since 2004, especially with many favourites such as Mean Girls, 13 Going on 30, and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen all reaching their 20th anniversaries this year.

Host: Lilia Pavin-Franks

Panelists: Haaniyah Angus, Jess Bacon

The Big Woman with a Movie Camera Quiz!
16:50 – 18:00, Blue Room

Know your Coppola from your Campion? Your Denis from your Dash? Well round up a team, because we are wrapping up the summit with a good old-fashioned quiz. The rounds will range from easy-peasy to a-little-knowledge-helps but will mainly be about having a good time and celebrating women in film and television. And of course, there will be prizes!

Hosts: Kim Sheehan, Ruby McGuigan

Collage Corner
11:00 – 18:00, Foyer

Looking for a creative yet calming pastime? A craft that’s easy yet experimental? No matter your experience, pull up to our Collage Corner and tear into some magazines, brochures and posters, and create a unique masterpiece to take home.

Vision Board Workshops
11:00 – 18:00, Foyer

As part of Collage Corner, stop by and create a vision board with T A P E Collective! A vision board is a collection of images and words that represent your vision of the future – your hopes, dreams, goals and aspirations for the year ahead. Get crafty while manifesting for 2024!