Independent Miss Craigie
Synopsis
Some time after her death, film director Jill Craigie (1911- 99), re-opens an old suitcase, prompting memories of the extraordinary life and loves of this forceful, charismatic woman, whose work has been long neglected. Craigie was one of the first women to direct documentaries. Working outside the British Documentary Movement in the 1940s and early 1950s, her films such as To Be Woman (1951), on equal pay, and Out of Chaos (1944), the first film about artists at work, featuring Henry Moore and Paul Nash, tackled new subjects for the cinema through a unique blend of drama, polemic and humour. Independent Miss Craigie uses the directorâs unseen papers, and her films, to reveal her energetic struggles to get her radical projects made and distributed, including her last one, on the Yugoslav conflict, made when she was 83, with her husband, former Labour leader, Michael Foot.
Where to watch
Not currently available to stream in United States.
Top cast
Mimi Haddon
Jill Craigie
Cornelius Clarke
John Davis
Steven Connery
Jeffrey Dell
Paul White
J Arthur Rank
Bryan Hands
Michael Foot
Catherine Humphrys
Sylvia Pankhurst
Gareth Wildig
Welsh Man
Jill Craigie
Herself (Archive Footage)
Julie Hamilton
Herself
Michael Foot
Himself (Archive Footage)
