Joanna Hogg (born 20 March 1960) is a British film director and screenwriter. She made her directorial and screenwriting feature film debut in 2007 with Unrelated followed by Archipelago (2010), Exhibition (2013), The Souvenir (2019), The Souvenir Part II (2021), and The Eternal Daughter (2022). Two of her films topped the Sight & Sound annual poll for best film in their respective years,
Career
Early TV work
After leaving school in the late 1970s, Hogg worked as a photographer and began to make experimental super-8 films after borrowing a camera from
Derek Jarman, who became an early mentor after a chance meeting in Patisserie Valerie in Soho.
[Nick Roddick "Joanna Hogg is darling of film critics", Evening Standard, 22 September 2008. Retrieved 14 February 2011.] One of these, a film about a kinetic sculpture by artist
Ron Haselden, won her a place to study direction at the National Film and Television School. In 1986, her graduation piece called
Caprice starred
Tilda Swinton.
[Roger Clarke "Talent issue – the film director: Joanna Hogg", The Independent, 29 December 2007. Retrieved 18 August 2010][ Joanna Hogg Revisits Her Past Selves|Current|The Criterion Collection] On graduation, Hogg directed several music videos for artists such as
Alison Moyet, and won her first television commission writing and directing a programme segment for Janet Street-Porter's
Channel Four series
Network 7,
Flesh + Blood. In the 1990s, Hogg directed episodes of
London Bridge,
Casualty and
London's Burning. She also directed the
EastEnders special
EastEnders: Dot's Story (2003).
Film
Hogg has said, "I wanted to make a film doing everything I was told not to do in television".
She shot her first feature,
Unrelated (2007), in
Tuscany. It tells the story of a childless woman, Anna (Kathryn Worth), of around forty who goes on holiday to Italy with her friend Verena (Mary Roscoe) and her teenage family. Over the course of the holiday, tensions emerge as Anna spends less time with the 'grown-ups' and is drawn towards the teenage crowd and the attractions of Verena's teenage nephew (
Tom Hiddleston). The film received critical acclaim, premiering at the London Film Festival in 2007 and winning the
FIPRESCI International Critics Award.
[ "100 best films of the noughties: Nos 11–100", The Guardian, 18 December 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2010.] It also won the Guardian First Film Award in 2008 and the Evening Standard British Film Awards 'Most Promising Newcomer' Award in 2009, as well as being nominated for their Best Film Award and earning Hogg a nomination for the London Film Critics' Circle 'Breakthrough Filmmaker' Award in 2009.
Her second film, Archipelago, shot on the island of Tresco had its UK premiere at the 2010 London Film Festival, where it was nominated in the Best Film category. It was released in the UK on 4 March 2011 by Artificial Eye.[Leo Barraclough "Artificial Eye nabs 'Archipelago'", Variety, 17 September 2010. Retrieved 14 February 2011.] Her third film Exhibition starred musician Viv Albertine and artist Liam Gillick and also featured Hogg's long-time collaborator Tom Hiddleston. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2013. Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian hailed it as 'a masterful cinematic enigma' awarding it the full five stars.[Peter Bradshaw, "Exhibition review – Joanna Hogg creates a masterful cinematic enigma" The Guardian, 24 April 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2016.]
In the A24 podcast episode "A Bigger Canvas", Martin Scorsese has a conversation with Hogg where it is revealed that he saw her film Archipelago and contacted her about collaborating.
The sequel, The Souvenir Part II, had its premier at Cannes Film Festival in July 2021,
Hogg's newest film, The Eternal Daughter, is a mystery-drama film starring Tilda Swinton. The film was premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
Gallery curation
In October 2015 Hogg co-curated the retrospective exhibition of film maker
Chantal Akerman's installation work, "Chantal Akerman NOW", at the Ambika P3 Gallery. This was the culmination of a two-year-long retrospective of Akerman's work she had programmed with Adam Roberts, with whom she founded the cinema collective A Nos Amours in 2011. The collective is "dedicated to programming over-looked, under-exposed or especially potent cinema".
In an interview, Hogg said that "A new generation is growing up who actually don't know the work of directors like Tarkovsky", as a major motivation behind establishing the collective.
Influences and style
Hogg's style is influenced by European and Asian directors such as
Eric Rohmer and Yasujirō Ozu, using extended takes and minimal camera movement.
[Antonio Pasolini "Joanna Hogg", kamera.co.uk salon, 18 September 2008. Retrieved 14 February 2011.] She takes the unusual approach of casting a mixture of actors and non-professional actors in her films, such as the landscape painter Christopher Baker in
Archipelago. Her depiction of unarguably middle-class characters has prompted some commentators to see her work as spearheading a new type of social realism in British film.
[Nick Roddick "A Question of Class", Sight & Sound, March 2011]
Filmography
Feature films
Short films
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Caprice (1986)
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Présages (2023)
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Autobiografia di una Borsetta (2025)
Only producer
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Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) (2025) - Executive producer
Television
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Flesh + Blood (miniseries for Network 7) Channel Four (1988)
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Kersplat (six episodes) Channel Four (1991)
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Dance Eight BBC (1992)
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Going Underground Carlton Television (1992)
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Oasis (10-part drama) Carlton Television (1992)
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London Bridge Carlton Television (16 episodes 1995–1996)
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Staying Alive (two episodes) LWT (1997)
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Casualty BBC (1997–1998)
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London's Burning LWT (1999)
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Reach for the Moon (three episodes) LWT (2000)
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EastEnders: Dot's Story BBC (2003)
Awards and nominations
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| Best Director | |
| Best Screenplay | |
| 2021 | Best British Independent Film | The Souvenir: Part II | | |
| Best Director | |
| Best Screenplay | |
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| 2022 | The Souvenir: Part II | | |
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| 2011 | Best Film | Archipelago | | |
| Best Documentary | |
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| 2019 | Screenwriter of the Year | The Souvenir | | |
| 2021 | Director of the Year | The Souvenir: Part II | | |
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External links
