Penny Woolcock | |
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 Woolcock in 2008 | |
| Born | 1 January 1950 Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, film director, opera director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
Penny Woolcock (born 1 January 1950) is an Argentine filmmaker, opera director, and screenwriter. [1] [2] [3]
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(October 2018) |
Penny Woolcock was born in Argentina and raised in a British community. [4] In 1967, she performed in a play called "Liberty and other Intoxications", which was about dictatorship in Argentina; she was briefly arrested as a result. [5] Her parents wanted to send her to Europe for safety; instead she fled to Spain with a man from the theatre group and had a baby in Barcelona.
In 1970, she moved to England as a single mother. She did factory work and other jobs. In her thirties, she enrolled in a filmmakers' workshop, borrowed some film-making equipment and sold the resulting feature to the BBC. She was then hired as a director and editor of a current affairs program in Newcastle and subsequently went on to feature making.
Her first feature as a writer and director was Women in Tropical Places in 1989. Since then she has directed and written numerous documentary and feature films, for television and screen. She adapted and directed Macbeth on the Estate in 1997. As with her earlier film Shakespeare on the Estate (made with Michael Bogdanov), African-Caribbean people living in tower blocks in Ladywood, Birmingham were revealed to have a natural affinity with Shakespearean language and great skill at making Shakespeare relevant to present day inner city life.
Her breakthrough film was Tina Goes Shopping which was a collaborative piece with the real residents of the Gipton estates in Leeds, and which forms part one of what is now known as the Tina Trilogy (along with Tina takes a Break and the feature film Mischief Night). As well as starring in the Tina Trilogy, people from the estate (including Kelli Hollis) went on to appear in other TV and feature films, a social action feature of much of Woolcock's work. She has provided informal support to many people she has encountered whilst making documentaries and has tried to have social impacts over and above the making of her films. In Birmingham she was involved in helping to bring about a gangland truce after the making of the movie 1 Day [6] and the documentary One Mile Away (both of which illustrated gangland "postcode wars"). [7] She is part of a social enterprise with Dylan Duffus, Shabba Thompson and other ex-gang members trying to bring about change in parts of Birmingham affected by gang violence. [8]
In 2013, Woolcock released a new documentary, Storyville: From the Sea to the Land Beyond - Britain's Coast on Film, which was broadcast on the BBC. Based on archive movie footage from early cinematography to recent times it illustrated working-class life in the 20th century.
In 2014, she directed a documentary for Channel 4 called Going to the Dogs, investigating inner city dog fighting in the UK. [9] She is currently the executive director of Ackley Bridge , a television series broadcast on Channel 4.
In 2020, she directed a documentary called Who is Frances Aviva Blane? a profile of the artist in lockdown (camera Leo Regan, editing Alex Fry).
In 2020, she directed a documentary entitled Two Metres Apart, a short film about the artist Frances Aviva Blane featuring psychotherapist and author Susie Orbach, (camera Leo Regan, editing Alex Fry).
Woolcock's operas include a production of John Adams' Doctor Atomic which she directed for the Metropolitan Opera's 2008–2009 season. She had previously filmed Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer as a feature film. In 2014, she staged Bizet's The Pearl Fishers at English National Opera in London (English translation version), then recreated it in a highly acclaimed French version at The Metropolitan Opera in January 2016. [10]
In 2016, she was invited by Streetwise Opera to direct a production of the Bach St Matthew Passion, performed predominantly by homeless people. Sir James MacMillan composed a new finale for the occasion, which was broadcast on BBC4 on Sunday 27 March 2016. [11]
Katherine Lucy Bridget Burke is an English actress and comedian. She appeared in sketch shows such as French and Saunders (1988–1999), played a recurring role as Magda on the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012), and performed frequent collaborations with fellow comedian Harry Enfield. From 1999 to 2001, she starred as Linda La Hughes on the BBC sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme, for which she received a British Comedy Award and two BAFTA nominations.
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Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on how leading figures at Los Alamos dealt with the great stress and anxiety of preparing for the test of the first atomic bomb.
Francis Davidson Fraser, better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was an English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences.
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Halton Moor is a district of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, about three miles east of Leeds city centre close to the A63. It is situated between Killingbeck to the north, Temple Newsam to the south, Osmondthorpe to the west and Halton and Colton to the east.
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Kelli Hollis is an English actress, known for playing Tina Crabtree in the three Channel 4 related films, shop owner Yvonne Karib in Channel 4's popular comedy-drama Shameless and Melanie Say then as Ali Spencer in ITV's long-running soap opera Emmerdale.
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Mischief Night is a 2006 British comedy-drama film. It is the third installment of the Tina Trilogy following on from Tina Goes Shopping (1999) and Tina Takes a Break (2001). However, unlike the previous two Channel 4 films Mischief Night broadens its scope to consider the wider community that Tina lives in and address issues of racial segregation. Kelli Hollis plays Tina in all three films.
1 Day is a 2009 British crime film about gangs and their communities in the urban areas of inner city Birmingham, with the majority of the film being shot in Handsworth, Birmingham and Winson Green. The story follows a young drug dealer, Flash as he attempts to get £100,000 to his boss Angel in less than 24 hours or face certain death. Directed by Penny Woolcock, the film is street-cast and features no professional actors. It stars Dylan Duffus, Duncan Tobias, Yohance Watson, and Ohran Whyte.
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From The Sea to the Land Beyond: Britain's Coast on Film is a documentary feature film directed by Penny Woolcock, with an original soundtrack by British indie-rock band Sea Power. The project was produced by Heather Croall and Mark Atkin of Crossover to premiere at the Sheffield Doc/Fest as part of The Space project from the BBC and the Arts Council England. The film was edited by Alex Fry.
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