Bird

British female writer, director and actor Andrea Arnold returns with her latest new movie starring Barry Keoghan as Bug and nrewcomer Nykiya Adams as the the central female character Bailey.

The film is a chaotic social-realist adventure with big, chancy performances, grimly violent episodes, tragedy butting heads with comedy and physical existence facing off with fantasy and imagination. It meditates on identity and belonging, the poignancy of not being valued, not being seen, the transition from childhood to adulthood, girlhood to womanhood, sexism and cruelty.

Bird is set in Gravesend, a few miles away from Arnold's birthplace of Dartford in Kent which is also where she shot her Oscar-winning short Wasp (2003), a story about a poor single mum who bumps into a former flame, starring a young Danny Dyer and Natalie Press.

Andrea Arnold was 45 when she directed her first feature film and she's now named among Britain's top 50 female power players on International Women's Day 2012 by officials from the UK's Women in Film and TV organisation. She grew up as the eldest of four children in a council house in Dartford and is now three times winner of the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009) and American Honey (2016).

Part of our Female Gaze mini-season celebrating International Women's Month with F-rated films that highlight women on screen and behind the camera.

This film is F-Rated. The F-Rating is applied to all films which are directed by women and/or written by women. Find out more about F-Rating.

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