Beeban Kidron

Early life and education

Kidron was born in North London to Nina and Michael Kidron. Michael's family were South African Jews who emigrated to Israel. Michael left Israel to attend Oxford University, where he became a Marxist. He went on to teach economics, and Beeban spent several years living in Yorkshire while he taught at the University of Hull.

She first took up photography when she was given a camera by landscape photographer Fay Godwin during a period when she was unable to speak following a throat operation. Her photographs were spotted by photographer Eve Arnold, whom she worked for at the age of 16 for two years. Aged 20, Kidron enrolled at the prestigious National Film School as a camera woman. At the end of her three years of film school, Kidron switched to directing and stayed on for another year.

Career

In 1983 Kidron made her first documentary Carry Greenham Home with co-director Amanda Richardson. It was filmed during the year that they spent at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp during the anti nuclear protests. The film was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and, to celebrate Greenham's 25th year anniversary, it was revived through The Guardian-backed website, www.yourgreenham.com.

In 1988, she made her first feature film, Vroom, which starred Clive Owen in his debut film. The following year she came to greater prominence with her adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. This won three Baftas including best drama series/serial. Kidron also won an audience award at the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. In 2010 The Guardian named Oranges the eighth best TV series of all time.

Following the success of Oranges, Kidron continued to work for the BBC, making TV feature film Antonia and Jane, distributed by Miramax in the USA, and a TV film, Itch. In 1992 Kidron moved to Hollywood to make Used People with Shirley MacLaine and Marcello Mastroianni. In 1993, she was hired to direct the feature film Unstrung Heroes, based on the eponymous memoir by Franz Lidz, but dropped out when the studio, Largo, put the film into turnaround. That same year she returned to the UK to pair up with Winterson for the second time for the BBC film Great Moments in Aviation. Later that year she returned to the States to make Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns, a hard hitting documentary about the New York City sex industry.

In 1995, she made To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, a drag queen road movie starring Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze. In 1997, she made Amy Foster (Swept from the Sea), starring Rachel Weisz and Ian McKellen.

Over the next few years Kidron made a number of TV films both at home and abroad, including Cinderella, Texarkana and Murder, for which she was nominated for a second Bafta. In 2004 she directed in the Bridget Jones series, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

In 2007 she made a documentary about neighbor and friend, the sculptor Anthony Gormley. Beeban and her husband, playwright and author of Billy Elliot, Lee Hall, then began work on Hippie Hippie Shake, a film about the OZ magazine trials. The film was shot in 2009 with Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy; however Kidron and Hall left during post production citing artistic differences with the producers.

Kidron spent much of 2010 in Southern India researching and shooting a documentary on the Devadasi. Sex, Death and the Gods premiered on BBC 4 as part of the Storyville series. The documentary, which was supported by the charity EveryChild achieved critical success and high ratings while the plight of the Devadasi was widely publicized by the film. Beeban appeared on many shows including BBC World, Woman's Hour and Radio 5 Live. She also wrote articles and was interviewed by The Guardian, the Spectator and theartsdesk.com.

Filmclub

Beeban Kidron started Filmclub in September 2006 with Lindsey Makie. Filmclub is an educational charity which sets up after-school film clubs in schools in England and Wales. The scheme is free to all state primary and secondary schools. The organisation was founded in September 2006, and after a successful pilot in 2007 launched by then Chancellor Gordon Brown, Filmclub officially launched across the country in June 2009.

Filmclub gives children from participating schools access to thousands of films and organises school visits by professionals from within the film industry. Pupils are encouraged to watch a diverse range of films including blockbusters, classics, black and white movies and foreign language titles, and to review the films they watch on the organisation's website (www.filmclub.org). The clubs are generally run by teachers or a similar education professional, but may also be led by older pupils, often from a school's 6th Form. The organisation is a charity, and is funded by the Department for Education, with the DVD rental service subsidized by LOVEFiLM.

Kidron was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University in 2010 for her contribution to education. She became a board member of the UK Film Council in 2008 with a mandate to provide film education. In March 2015, she was awarded the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative Award under the Social Driver category for her extensive work on Filmclub and the iRights Framework used to empower young people on the use of social media and the internet. This was the first award she had won for her campaigning work.

Personal life

Kidron and her former partner, music producer Spencer Style, have two children together, son Noah (born 1994) and daughter Blaze (born 1997). She married playwright Lee Hall in 2003.

Peerage and honour

Kidron was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama.

On 25 June 2012, Kidron was created a life peer as Baroness Kidron, of Angel in the London Borough of Islington, and was introduced in the House of Lords the following day. She was appointed on the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and sits as a crossbencher.