Birds Eye View Festival includes Lucy Walker masterclass

The line-up for the seventh Birds Eye View Film Festival will feature Susanne Bier’s Golden Globe winner In A Better World [pictured] and Adriana Maggs’ Sundance film Grown Up Movie Star.

Hawa Essuman’s Soul Boy and Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us will also screen at the London festival, which is dedicated to women in film. In the documentary section, there will be a special screening of Countdown To Zero, including a masterclass with director Lucy Walker (Oscar nominated this year for Waste Land). Artist turned film-maker Gillian Wearing will also present her directorial debut Self Made.

The festival will feature a “Bloody Women” retrospective looking at women’s contributions to horror, as well as a new venture at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall with live scores by Imogen Heap and Micachu.

A special lab – She Writes – will offer development advice to eight emerging writers, whilst another lab, Re: Animate, will bring animators and writers together to generate commercial feature ideas.

The festival has previously been funded by the UK Film Council, but that funding will come to an end this year.

Festival director Rachel Millward admitted that the “festival faces critical times. Yet we move forward with hope, and confidence.”