Clio Barnard (born 1 January 1965) is a British director of documentary and . She won widespread critical acclaim and multiple awards for her debut, The Arbor, an experimental documentary about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. In 2013 she was hailed[Nick Roddick "Fairy tale film-maker: Clio Barnard interview", London Evening Standard, 25 October 2013] as a significant new voice in British cinema for her film The Selfish Giant, which premiered in the Director's Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.[Charlotte Higgins "Selfish Giant director becomes toast of Cannes", The Guardian, 17 May 2013]
Early life and education
Barnard grew up in the town of
Otley in Yorkshire. Her father was a university lecturer and her mother was an artist who later became a jazz singer.
[Sean O'Hagan "Clio Barnard: why I'm drawn to outsiders – interview", The Observer, 12 October 2013] She graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic
[Sebastian Doggart "The Brits breaking new ground in New York City", telegraph.co.uk, 21 May 2010] (now Northumbria University), with a First Class B.A. (Hons) with distinction in fine art and received a Postgraduate Diploma in Electronic Imaging at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (University of Dundee). In 1988, her postgrad video work
Dirt and Science featured Jane and Louise Wilson and toured internationally as part of the ICA Biennial of Independent Film & Video, curated by
Tilda Swinton.
[ "Clio Barnard - Reader - Film Studies", School of Arts, University of Kent]
Reception and awards
Critics have likened Barnard's realist yet lyrical work to that of
Ken Loach.
Time Out said of
The Selfish Giant, "this is
Kes revisited in a post-Thatcher northern England."
[Dave Calhoun " The Selfish Giant (15)", Time Out (London), 21 October 2013]
Her debut feature The Arbor (2010) produced by Artangel,
Musical collaborations
"An Acre of Land" is a collaboration between British composer
Harry Escott and
PJ Harvey and is the theme to
Dark River, a film by director Clio Barnard. Escott says: ‘recording PJ Harvey’s vocal on “An Acre of Land”, a song we arranged together for
Dark River, was a spine-tingling experience.’ The film premiered at the 2017 London Film Festival and was released in 2018.
Influences
Barnard participated in the 2022 edition of the
Sight & Sound film polls, which are held every ten years to commemorate the greatest films of all time and rank them in order. Directors and critics both give their ten favourite films of all time for the poll, and Barnard picked
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964),
Rashomon (1950),
(1974),
Andrei Rublev (1966),
L'Atalante (1934),
Road (1987),
Chronicle of a Summer (1961),
Vagabond (1985),
Hunger (2008) and
La Strada (1954).
Filmography
| +Key | | Denotes works that have not yet been released |
Short films
|
|
| 1995 | Hermaphrodite Bikini | | | |
| 2000 | Lambeth Marsh | | | |
| 2002 | Random Acts of Intimacy | | | |
| 2003 | Flood | | | |
| 2006 | Dark Glass | | | |
| 2023 | All the Lights Still Burning | | | |
|
Feature films
|
|
| 2010 | The Arbor | | | |
| 2013 | The Selfish Giant | | | |
| 2017 | Dark River | | | |
| 2021 | Ali & Ava | | | |
| | I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning ' | | | |
|
Television
|
|
| 2022 | The Essex Serpent | | | | Miniseries (6 episodes) |
|
| 2024 | Sherwood | | | | Series 2 (3 episodes) |
|
External links
