Words matter. These are the best Beeban Kidron Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The film that changed my life is a 1951 film by Vittorio De Sica, ‘Miracle in Milan.’ It’s a remarkable comment on slums, poverty and aspiration.
There is nothing wrong with Facebook in itself, except that it is not a very good tool to express the quality of your relationships.
Parents cannot be in the same physical space as their children at all times.
We need to work out who is paying for film; in the U.K., it is increasingly difficult to get production funds – and pre-sales demand more and more shot/cut material.
The thing I have come to find astonishing is that people from all political sides routinely say that the Internet has to be the model of free speech and freedom.
What is the point of teaching how to analyse a poem or a piece of Shakespeare but not to analyse the Internet?
We think that there is this terrible idea that the kids are digital natives… and they know what they’re doing, but all the evidence says that they’re hanging around going, ‘Where are you, I’m here, can I post my picture?’ They’re not actually writing wikis; they’re not actually listening to great poets live.
Unfortunately, teatime in London is when people in Los Angeles arrive in their offices and pick up the phone.
We now have powerful technology, which allows us a voice across boundaries, which was unimaginable at the time of the Greenham Protest, a protest that pre-dates the Internet and the mobile phone.
My children know not to shout before Mummy has warmed herself into something human with her coffee.
When I was 13, I had a weekend job at the Photographers Gallery Bookshop in London.
The devadasis have a multilayered story, a story in which poverty, deprivation and injustice against women is central – but what has happened to them is absolutely an outcome of imperialism and the impact of British rule in India.
I had a sort of classic moment when a friend of mine rang up and said she’d just been to a funeral, and in the middle of the eulogy, this kid had taken out the phone and had a whole proper text conversation – while everyone was weeping!
I’ve lost count of the plane tickets I’ve had in my pocket for people’s weddings and other celebrations which I’ve had to tear up because I was making a film. How many things like that can you miss and still be in people’s lives?
I come from the school who thought the Internet could be the great democratising force, that getting rid of the gatekeepers was a positive move.
The Internet has crept up on us, and we need to know what it is and start looking at it. We have to decide which bits we want, which bits we don’t, and how we’re going to use them – and how we’re going to put pressure on the people who deliver these goods to deliver what we really want.
I don’t see such a huge difference between online and ‘in real life’. I think it has now become one and the same.
There’s something about actors – not stars, but actors – if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.
We are increasingly offered a diet in which sensation, not story, is king.
Each January, nearly half a million people visit the small town of Saundatti for ajatre or festival, to be blessed by Yellamma, the Hindu goddess of fertility.
I love being in real life, and in particular, I like being with young people.
In the U.S., it would be so much better if the studios made many more smaller films for niche markets rather than a few tent pole films that swamp cinemas and Hoover up all the funding.
I’ve walked down the street with Madonna, and I’ve walked down the street with Colin Firth, and it was a little bit more… with Madonna they were a little rougher, but they were all there for Colin. It was amazing. Women adore him. They swoon.
Everything serious in the world is well approached by humour. It’s a powerful and often quite subversive tool. I suppose there is an argument that could be made against me for being frivolous, but I do think a laugh is a very generous thing to give.
I absolutely don’t want to suggest that women are unreliable because we’re mothers – on the contrary. But the question of who brings up the kids has a material effect on all women’s careers.
I think it is a great gift to make people laugh, and it shouldn’t be underestimated.
Our children, manipulated to become exemplary consumers, increasingly admit they do not feel ‘in control’ of their own Internet use.
The thing about documentary is that you don’t really choose your subjects: they come and grab you out of your bed.
I think I’ve been very, very lucky in my life, and I do believe in public service.
I think the documentary is something that people are hungry for, that it embodies careful thought, nuance.
I’ve always been interested in exploring difficult subjects for the mainstream.
If Twitter is worth seven billion next month, I’m happy for them to be worth six billion and spend a billion making it safer for people, for example.
During my ‘difficult teens,’ I read about worlds that were mysterious.
In 1982, fellow film student Amanda Richardson and I went to Greenham Common for the day – to see what was going on and to shoot some video. The day turned into a weekend, the weekend into seven months, and the dozens of hours of footage turned into a film – ‘Carry Greenham Home.’
Not many young women of my age have been lucky enough to have had a wonderful mentor in their life.
Arguably, it was the introduction of international non-proliferation treaties in the late ’80s that finally led to the missiles being removed from Greenham Common.
Our politicians don’t say anything anymore: they just refute and assert.
Sometimes you have to put back in the community.
Make films whenever and however you can – don’t take no for an answer.
This is a culture filled with perfect images of women and perfect images of movie actresses, and most people can’t live up to them.
The idea of the Internet as sort of open and democratic and free and with no hierarchy, the libertarian beginnings as it were, with peer-to-peer networks… I’d sort of like for everyone to just admit that we’re beyond that now.
On telly, there’s been a move towards entertainment – with some very high-powered, fast-moving dramas. Then we have the Internet, where we get our information but it’s all in bite-size pieces. I think the documentary, as a form, actually speaks to what’s missing.
Whether in cave paintings or the latest uses of the Internet, human beings have always told their histories and truths through parable and fable. We are inveterate storytellers.
I love text, I love email, I love Skype; I think it’s amazing.