The inimitable Jane Campion is one of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers, and the only female director to receive the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. At a recent event at Sundance, where she is a juror, the legendary director offered Helen Barlow some fascinating reflections on her life and career.
In Sundance on the World Cinema Dramatic Jury, Jane Campion was joined by French producer Charles Gillibert (Mustang, Personal Shopper) and Ciro Guerra (Birds of Passage and the upcoming Waiting for the Barbarians starring Johnny Depp).
On stage, Campion announced that the section's Grand Jury prize went to British writer-director Joanna Hogg for The Souvenir, starring Tom Burke, Honor-Swinton Byrne and (her mum) Tilda Swinton.
Campion explained her approach to being on a jury and what she thinks of awards in general. The 2014 head of the Cannes jury is also, of course, an Oscar voter.
Campion remains the only female director to receive the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 for The Piano and only the second of five women to be nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards. Campion ultimately won Best Screenplay for The Piano while Holly Hunter scored Best Actress and Anna Paquin claimed Best Supporting Actress. Campion's first short film, Peel, won the Cannes Short Film Palme d'Or in 1986 and her 2013 mini-series Top of the Lake received eight Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.
Speaking to a crowd that included fledgling filmmakers, Campion recalled her early insecurities and how she overcame them.
She acknowledges she wasn't very good as a painter.
She made Super 8 shorts before making Peel, her first 16mm film.
She says she was part of an interesting Australian Film Television and Radio School group that included Alex Proyas, Laurie McInnes, PJ Hogan and Jocelyn Moorhouse.
When it came to making feature films like In The Cut, she wasn't going to abandon her risqué ways.
Campion says its easier adapting projects like 1990's An Angel at My Table, based on the autobiographical books by Janet Frame.
She maintains she doesn't always know what her work means.
It's no coincidence that Campion has been concentrating on television of late.
"I love television because you don't have to do much promotion compared to the cinema. Also, the amount of collaboration I did on the Top of the Lake series with different people was such fun. The BBC really allowed us to do whatever we wanted. They just said, 'Don't be conservative.' In cinema, you get the opposite. In order to get people out to see a movie, it needs to be entertaining, unique and special. So for me what's happened in cinema you have to be very careful, really thoughtful about the project you're doing to have that potential of attraction, that scale to the project.