Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Celebrating Women in Film with Vanguard

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

This episode is brought to you with Vanguard, whose Managed ISA service provides a smart way to invest with confidence, giving you a better chance of investment success.    It’s an International Women’s Day special, and we’ll be celebrating women in film by looking back at some of our favourite interviews with women filmmakers who have joined us on the Take. We’ve got Past Lives director Celine Song, editing legend and pioneer Thelma Schoonmaker, megastar actor-turned-director, Kate Winslet, and our live show guest Nia DaCosta on directing 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Plus we’ll hear from our Take guest booker Heather Dempsey about the importance of championing female filmmakers, and what barriers we need to keep pushing.   If you’ve been putting off sorting your ISA, or you’re new to investing and don’t know where to start, Vanguard’s Managed ISA might be a good fit. Essentially, it’s a Stocks and Shares ISA but managed by Vanguard experts. They’llhelp you work out your risk appetite, match you to an investment plan that’s right for you, and then they’ll do the rest. So, you can focus on the things you’d rather be doing… like listening to more of the Take, of course.     You can find out more at:  https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-isa/we-do-it-for-you?cmpgn=DP0126PBAMISA01UKEN0082     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This program is brought to you with Vanguard. Well, that's very nice, but why? Well, they're full of expertise, Mark. Vanguard's managed ISA is a stocks and shares ISA, and Vanguard's experts manage your investments for you. So it feels like we'll be in safe hands doing a show in partnership with them. And for the 60% of women who say that lack of confidence or knowledge stops from investing, the Vanguard managed ISA could be a great starting point to get into investing.

with confidence, no matter how much time or experience you have. I have neither. So dedicating a full show to women in film to mark international Women's Day and explore some of the incredible work done at the moment feels like a very sensible idea. Yeah, okay, so let's crack on. Now, can I... You have some stats here. Yes. So I have mentioned this before, but the good lady professor her indoors was involved in a very important research project, which is called Calling the Shots, women and contemporary film culture in the UK. What they did was they studied films made between 2003 and 2015, I think it was nearly three and a half thousand films. And they were looking at, they were counting the numbers of women in six key production roles. And when they announced their

findings, I mean, everybody knew that women were having a very hard time in the film industry, certainly in, you know, in terms of statistically. But the statistics were worse than any could have imagined. So, for example, 14% of directors and 7% of cinematographers were women. So those are very, very low statistics. Just 1% of all directors and 0.3% of cinematographers were women of colour. Women make up 24% of directors on co-productions with other countries, but just 11% on domestic UK films. They also found that more than half of British films in production in 2015 had just one or no women in any of the six key roles that they were talking about. And what the research was there to do was to demonstrate just how big the gender imbalance was.

In this particular case, looking at the UK film industry in that period. But that has a knock-on effect, which is that it means that the film industry, certainly in that period as described, and there's loads of interviews and statistics. You can look it up. It's called Calling the Shots. It's a really, really great project. is gender imbalanced worse than anyone had imagined? So the question, I guess, would be,

so that was 2003 you said to 2015. Is it any better than 10 years since? The general feeling was that change is happening, but it is happening very slowly. So the imbalance is still very, very big. And what that means is that when you're talking about films and filmmakers, you are more often talking about men than women because there are so many more men in those key creative roles.

And as far as this show is concerned, we do try and book female guests as often as we can, but it is a struggle at times, no matter how hard we search. Now, Heather works on the show. She's a guest booker and assistant producer, and normally turns up with a Scottish accent and also with a rather bizarre American accent.

Are there any other voices that you have, Apart from your own one, Heather, what else is there? Oh, I mean, I try and do a passable Australian occasionally. Oh, that's true, that's true. Do a bit of a Dick Van Dyke sometimes if I can get away with this. All right, okay. So that's how you might know Heather's work. Obviously, you just want to get the best guess,

but if you're specifically trying to find the best women guests, is that difficult, do you think? It can be, it can be. And I think that that tends to be because when I'm booking guests, I'm looking for great guests, great names, you know, people that the listeners want to hear from. And we're looking for films that have got a really wide release so that the most possible people will have a chance to see the films that we cover. So we're looking for things that are, you know, national and international releases. And unfortunately, fewer of those

tend to be made by women and featuring women in prominent roles than men still. So that tends to be the difficulty that I encounter, I think, is that, you know, at that kind of top A-list level, female talent still isn't getting equal exposure to the men, yeah. Is it getting better or no change? I hope so, I think so. I think that, you know, we can actively encourage it by booking female guests wherever we can, whenever they're doing really interesting work that people should be hearing about. one of my first ever jobs as a guest booker was on a feminist film podcast years and years ago

and I do think that that felt like a bit of an outlier thing to be doing then and it's I think it is getting better now but as Mark says it's it's kind of slow progress and it's important to keep really actively pursuing the progress I think can we just flag up that I think that film podcast you're referring to that's the girls on film podcast yeah yes that's the one yeah yeah but recommend it's really really worth listening to even though it's a different podcast. Yeah, I know, but it's possible to listen to more than one podcast, Simon. Why would you do that?

I don't quite follow it. Do you have a favourite guest that you've booked, Heather? I mean, Kate Winslet, who we had on recently at Christmas, was absolutely fantastic and super nice, and, you know, just a multi-talent and a real inspiration. I was personally really, really chuffed to have Maxine Pek on because I love her, and she was really, really nice to me when I first met her when I was just a week.

and starting out in the industry. And everything she does, she really kind of throws herself into. Catherine Bigelow, you know, amazing history-making female director. I wrote some of my university dissertation on her work. So when I booked her, I was pretty chuffed. We've had some great, great names.

Kate Blanchett as well for that weird guy Madden film rumors. And I love that she does what she wants. She does what she wants. Is there someone? who you would love to be able to book, but haven't yet. I'm not sure whether you've had her on before, but before my time, certainly. If so, Lynn Ramsey, I absolutely love. I think she's fantastic.

I know that she can be a bit of a tough interview to bag. I'd love to have her on. I would also, I mean, I love people like Juliette Benosh and things like that, you know, real big sort of big, big names. I'd love to get somebody like her on. Lynn Ramsey made Die My Love, which is my favorite film of 2025. Actually, it's interesting. I'm just looking back over the last 10 years.

Raw, Julia de Cornell, Leave No Trace, St. Maud, Petit Mement, After Sun, Past Lives. There is an extraordinary array of female directors, but still, numerically, they are massively outnumbered by the. I mean. Now, one of the guests Heather mentioned there was Kate Winslet, who obviously was on the show just a few months back. Here's a little clip from the interview. Mark had just asked Kate whether it had been difficult at all, being a first time female director. There's a different language that is used when addressing female directors to male directors. There's a different set of language that is used talking. to actresses who become directors as opposed to male actors who become directors. Strangely with male actors, and this is absolutely no criticism of them at all, because when I think about the brilliant young actors in this country who have been directing

recently, it's incredibly exciting. But they're just sort of allowed to get on with it. It's somehow there's this societal assumption that they will automatically know what they're doing, whereas the same assumption is not made of women. Right. And that's not right. And actually it's not fair. Because what it does mean is that it will be harder for us to get films made,

harder for us to get the kind of budgets that we need to make those films. When you're a woman, you do a huge amount of ringing around and calling in favours. So sometimes with a budget like Good By June, you might be asking people to come and work for less than their weekly rate. I'm talking about department heads and their crew. You know, sometimes people take a little bit of a hit because they want to come and be part of that experience and they want to support you. And we did have that on Good By June.

But there's a, yeah, I mean, I do remember someone in a position of authority and this was another woman saying this to me. A woman in a position of authority early on said after seeing an early cut of the film, which was by no means near to being completed. I think if you could just use a little bit more confidence with some of your choices? That person would not have said that if I was a man.

They simply wouldn't have done. And this person is a really decent human being, and I was able to sit with her and say, we've just got to unlearn this. We've all got to unlearn it. It's in all of us, the men and the women. And it's not, it's really not okay. It was Kate Winslet talking to us just before Christmas.

And that's all. You can watch the whole thing, because we filmed that. interview with our favourite photo shoot, I think, of the year, Mark, as I remember, because it was directed by Kate Winslet. Yeah, she moved the lights around and made sure that it all looked fabulous. Incidentally, Goodbye June is on Netflix. You can watch it there, and during the Christmas period, it was, for a while, their number one streamed title, which is great. So we put a call out on social media to hear from you about the most talented women working in film at the moment. Joe Fairweather went to

Thelma Schoonmaker. So, Mark, talk more about Thelma. I mean, where do you begin? Thelma Schoonmaker is the great, one of the great editors of our time. I mean, she's had this very long-standing collaboration with Martin Scorsese. She's got, I think it's three Oscars, two Bafters. She has cut movies, you know, like Raging Ball, Aviator, Departed, Goodfellers. And she is one of the people who is able to discuss the craft of filmmaking as eloquently as she is able to conduct it. I once sat with film skirmaker, whilst she was editing a Scorsese film, I was doing an interview with her for a television program. And they let me sit in the editing room and watch her work for a few hours. And it is just the most astonishing thing.

Yeah, she is an absolute legend and one of the great editors of our time. And Thelma was on the show not so long back, which is why we started saying Scorsese rather than Scorsese. She told us. Anyway, here's a reminder. My world has always been radio, Thelma. And in radio, there are many, many producers of a certain age who miss the physicality of editing on tape. They would be editing a conversation.

They would take out a breath. They would put the breath around their neck so that they could put it back in and they'd have the china graph and they'd have the splicing tape and they love the physicality. The razor blade and the china graph. Do you miss the physicality of editing celluloid? I did, you know, and when I was being trained by my fellow editor who I was terrible student, I would say, oh, this is ridiculous. I could do this much easier on film right. I was a very bad student. And about two weeks in, I sort of clicked over.

This happened on Casino. And because all the producers were saying at that point, you have to switch to digital, you have to switch to digital. And George Lucas was pushing it very hard. I suddenly clicked in, and now what happens on a film like Killers of the Flower Moon is we are doing things we could never have done on film. I loved editing on film. I loved it. However, now we can create our own visual effects, even before we go to the big visual effect house, which we'll do the big work. So digital has brought incredible tools to us. It doesn't mean that the films are any better. Great masterpieces were made in the silent era where they didn't even have any machines. They would measure the length of a close. up, they would put their arms out, you know, three feet and say, well, this is a good length for a close-up. The only time they saw the movie together was when they projected it. They had no machines at all.

And great masterpieces were made. So we have better tools, but it doesn't mean that the films that were made before are not as good. Thelma Sku-maker. She was a great guest, wasn't she? She was brilliant. And can I just say that that is a perfect example of what I was saying about. She's somebody who not only can do it, but can talk about it.

it as well as they can do. And, you know, like, it's what she's saying, even if you've never done it, you understood everything she said because she's so clear. She's, yeah, she's a genius. Callum Jack says, to my mind, Charlotte Wells Afterson is the best film of the 2020s so far.

Love that film. And I've recently gone down a rabbit hole of Tilda Swinton's incomparable career. Owen Selimir, C.M.R., obviously. Yeah. Captain Hurley says, Alice Lowe, give that woman more funding for directing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Big fans of Alice Lowe here.

If you've somehow missed the beginning of this, you're listening to a special International Women's Day edition of the take with our partners at Vanguard. They're the people whose experts can manage your investments for you and whose Vanguard managed ISA can make a great starting point to investing with confidence. And they're definitely not just our Vanguard Easter subscribers getting ideas above their station and entering the world of finance. No, no. I mean, I love our Vanguard Easter's, obviously, and Patreon Easter's, but I'm not sure I would trust them. with my finances. Vanguard have been taking a stand for investors for more than 50 years with over 50 million clients worldwide who invest with them. Yeah, so they do sell like the better bet. So, right. Messages on socials. Hannah says, loved Celine songs past lives. Okay, let's play some Celine, I think. Even after I shot everything, I was in the editing room,

there are things that I was letting go of just so that the sharpness of the ending would work. So I to me it's like if if you I mean when we were shooting the final three minutes I think there's so much of that was very much like you know me running around set being like it's like if you if we met to mess this up the whole movie is gone we have this right you know just mainly to myself is that what you were doing it's funny because I feel like what I learned in the first film and this to me making the first movie I and I'm sure this is true for most directors but it really was like a self-discovery or a revelation for myself.

It's such a deep and personal thing. In what way? I think it was a discovery that I am a filmmaker and that I just, it feels like I, you have been a playwright. Yeah, I've been a playwright for 10 years. So I think that, I remember a second week into shooting. I remember really going home and feeling like, I think that I love, met the love of my life, you know, and then you're like, I know, I just know what I'm going to be doing when I'm 90.

Celine Song talking about past lives. We just knew, didn't we, that she was going to be a star? It was fantastic because she came back on the show when she made materialists. And I think you were off that week and Sanjiv. Yes, I'm still bitter about that. That's right. Sanjif did the interview. And they had the most brilliant conversation.

But I know that's the thing. But yeah, you go away from a week and Celine Song comes back. Yes, past lives was just, it just did not put a foot wrong. Absolutely. And the ending of past lives is that perfect example. If you're going, don't drop it, don't drop it, don't drop it. And then she doesn't drop it. Yeah, absolute star. Rockin' Chimp says Chloe Zhao and Nia DeCosta, for sure. They hold two positions in my current top three films of 2026 so far.

Let's take a moment with Nia de Costa, talking about some of her early film inspiration. This was when she was on stage with us at the end of last year. Can I just clarify from this timeline? How old were you when you saw 28 days later? Ooh, okay, so that, if that came out in 2001, no, came out in 2002, it was 12. You were 12? Yeah. Yeah, I guess looking back, I'm like, wow, yeah, that was, at the time, I had an 18 rating here.

Now it's a 15, because we've all, you know, we're like, who cares? Yeah, but you were 12. I was 12, yeah. Which is neither 15 nor 18, no. I really love scary stuff when I was younger. Like, I loved scaring myself and being scared, and my grandma, my grandma's a droves witness. and I'm very much not religious at all, actually. And she'd come home, I'd have to hide from her

because I couldn't even watch, like, Lying the Witch and the Wardrobe without her being like, this is demonic. So I don't know if I was being rebellious or what, but I would literally, like, turn off all the lights and watch, like, scary things, and try not to get caught by my grandma. Well, you know that Julia DeCorno, who made Titan, said that one of her formative experiences

was her parents left her in a room with a television that happened to have cable. At the age of five, she watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a good age for that, yeah. And she became a brilliant filmmaker as a result of it. So clearly it doesn't know. Apart from the bit where someone has sex with a car, apart from that bit. It's always bothered you, isn't it?

Yeah. I like the way you say, or you always mention that, as though it's not a bizarre thing, someone having sex with a car, you know. Yeah, but it's just, it's kind of your, it was, it's like your, you know, welcome to New Zealand where it's raining. The interesting thing, because Nia da Costa, who directed a bone, Temple, 28 years later, Bone Temple. At the point that we interviewed her for that Christmas show, I think I'd seen it and you

hadn't. And I remember being so excited about you seeing it because you had that kind of really profound reaction to the end of the previous film. And Nia da Costa had made that brilliant thing, Hedda, which was this kind of updated version of Heda Gabbler. And obviously, you know, she had experience. in the horror genre. I just love the fact that she saw, when she was 12,

it's just great. No, it's not great, is it? I know, it's not great, but it kind of is. I know, I know. So therefore, and Texas changed from Ascotment 5. Yeah, no, that's a bad thing. Yeah, that's a bad thing. But they turn out to be great filmmaker, so there you go.

David Hopkins says, could I add a nomination for the list of the greatest women working in film? I couldn't miss the opportunity to mention the marvelous, Mariel Heller. Yes. If her filmography consisted only of her masterpiece, a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, then that alone would qualify her for a list of the greatest filmmakers, male or female, working today, a film which was poorly marketed as a comfy biopic,

but which is actually an endlessly insightful rumination on the persistence of toxic emotions and a subtle look at gender roles in the home and the workplace. It can't be by accident that the last shot we see of Lloyd is of him finally picking up a bit of the childcare responsibilities. On a personal level, I've seldom identified with a character on film as much as I did with Lloyd, and the film prompted me to address some of my own challenges.

While can you ever forgive me and Nightbitch don't quite scale those dizzy heights, they are still insightful and moving, with terrific roles for both male and female characters. I patiently awake a Shawshank-style rediscovery of A Beautiful Day in the neighbourhood by the viewing public, so that Heller can be offered carte blanche

to make more of the wonderful, films she's already given us. Many thanks, David Hopkins. I remember talking to her about that and I've, in my mind, it's all a part of a COVID blur. COVID blur. Yeah. And she was, we spoke to her and she was at home and she, it was just one of those, I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know if I'm going to make another film. That's right. Who knows, will anyone go back to the cinema? Yeah. It was one of those. But it's a fantastic film. Yeah, no, it really is. And I mean, I was a big fan of Nightbitch. a big fan of can you ever forgive me. But yeah, I had forgotten that that interview was during COVID. It's funny how time kind of contracts like that. But yeah, yeah, and the uncertainty of that period.

Sound and Fury is the name of the person who says Amersanti, for starters. Yay. Love Amra Santee. Yeah, it'd be nice. She needs to have another film soon, that's what I think. Well, there's stuff coming. Excellent. Stephen Blair, preaching to the converted here.

but Lynn Ramsey and Kate Dickey can do no wrong in my book. I would also add Joe Hartley to the mix of, if they're in it, I'm watching it category. Absolutely, absolutely. And the joy of Lynn Ramsey is what for you? Well, look, I have loved all of Lynn Ramsey's features. I remember the first time I ever interviewed Lynn Ramsey was when a rat catcher was playing Edinburgh,

and it was just astonishing film. And I was a huge fan, and I interviewed her, because I was doing quite a lot of stuff with the Edinburgh Film Festival at that point. Her next film, Morven Caller, everyone who saw it in my circle thought it's going to be the next train spotting. The Good Lady Professor, her indoors,

interviewed Lynne Ramsey for a front cover of sight and sound for that film, and then it vanished without trace. Then there was this long period in which she was trying to make lovely bones, which ended up being made very badly by Peter Jackson. But then we need to talk about Kevin, which was actually, I think, the first time she was on our show. I was trying to remember whether she came on for her at catch. I think we need to talk about Kevin.

And every single film that she has made, right up to Die My Love, is imbued with this. She has an aesthetic. She has an aesthetic that is absolutely cinematic. She lives and breathes film. And she makes no compromises. She makes the films the way she wants to make them. And she has a vision. And the film is made to her vision.

And I think she's like the perfect embodiment. of that idea that she's often kind of debunkings. It's not to say she's not a collaborative filmmaker. She absolutely is. But she makes films the way the film needs to be made, and she's not interested in compromising. She had long periods in which she couldn't get features made because she was so dedicated to a vision.

I think she, I mean, I think she's like Kubrick in terms of being laser-focused on making the film the way the film needs to be made. Jace says my two nominations would be Ada Young, producer of some of the best Hammer films from the late 60s and 70s. Good, cool. Hands of the Ripper, for example.

And Anne Coates, the brilliant editor on Lawrence of Arabia. Yes. Through the Medusa Touch, Aaron Brockovich and the Golden Compass. Yeah, yeah. An incredible career. Our old monk friend, brother Jim Hayes, who I'm imagining is a very kind of carefree and liberal monk. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. He's hanging out. I don't think he's an austere silent monkey. No, I don't believe so. Rachel Portman, says Brother Jim Hayes. Yes. Oscar and Emmy Award winning film score composer. Never Let Me Go, Chocolat, Emma Still, Life Bell, to name but a few.

She also wrote the score to Ray Finds, Juliet Benosh, account of the Odysseus Smith, the return. That film has just leapt up some places on my must-see list as a result. Someone who appears to be called Nudnik headache. Okay. I mean, you can help us out a bit if you've got, if that's your, just give us a proper name. You're not called Nudnik headache, are you?

Anyway. Well, maybe they are. Maybe you've now offended them terribly. But, you know, well, I don't know. I haven't got a clue. I'm assuming you're probably right, but I'm just saying, you know,

never make any assumptions. All right, fair enough. Anyway, Nudnik says, Mati Diop is one of the most exciting filmmakers currently for me. Yeah, absolutely. debut film Atlantics. Yes, fantastic. And Graham Hall,

Catherine Bigelow, first woman to win Best Director at the Academy Awards for Hurt Locker, makes near dark, Q Mark's Good Lady Professor, her indoor story, point break,

Strange Days, Zero Dark 30, and the recent House of Dynamite. Yeah. And Pellie Candy says Francis McDormand is just an icon of acting. She is.

Absolutely is. Are there any names that have been missed out? Well, can I just say I was really, really glad that brother Jim brought up a composer because that whole thing about, you know, composers being large, female composers being largely overlooked by the academy. So obviously Rachel Portman, Anne Dudley, Hilda Goodner daughter, and how long of the Oscars been going for? And what are we on 90, whatever it is now? And one of the things I was trying to do with my co-author Jenny Nelson, when I write surround sound, was to write

women composers back into the history of film music because there is so much extraordinary work. I mean, even if you go back to something like Beebe and Louis Barron doing that incredible electronic score for Forbidden Planet, which is just an amazing piece of work. I mean, absolutely amazing. It's 1956, totally groundbreaking electronic score. So thank you very much to Jim Hayes for flagging that. We were talking recently about the work of Emily Levinez Farouche, who I just think is a wonderful composer, Ako Ishiabashi, whose work did so much to boost drive my car. So thank you, Jim, for getting us on the subject of composers because there are so many brilliant women film

composers who are really, really making big waves in the industry. The industry is changing, and that area is changing, I think, faster than some others. So a big thanks to our program partners, Vanguard. If you've been putting off, sorting out your ISA or you're new to investing, Vanguard's management. managed ISER makes it simple. Life is hectic, Mark, and figuring out investments can be overwhelming. But with Vanguard, you don't have to do it alone. They'll help you work out your risk appetite.

What's your risk appetite, Mark, would you say? Low. Yeah. Match you to an investment plan, and then they'll do the rest. Just search Vanguard managed ISA to find out more. And when investing, your capital is at risk. Tax rules apply. You say the strangest things.

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