There’s always something a bit special when our guest has a personal connection to the filmmaker they’re here to discuss. In the case of our guest Kate Hardie, it was particularly fascinating to hear her discuss the works of Antonia Bird given she was both a collaborator and a huge fan of Bird’s work.

Kate and Antonia worked together numerous times, notably on the acclaimed telemovies Safe (1993) and Rehab (2003), and Kate has a unique insight into Antonia’s directorial style and technique. To have such a personal angle on one of cinema’s most underrated filmmakers is roundly fantastic.

But we don’t just stop at Antonia Bird. This month we dip back into our semi-regular mini-Hi4H segment, in which we choose a director who may not have made enough films to qualify them for the main event. This month, it’s acclaimed experimental filmmaker and documentarian Shirley Clarke.

Clarke is one of the true visionaries of modern cinema, with short films such as Dance in the Sun (1953) and the Oscar-nominated Skyscraper (1960), the groundbreaking mockumentary The Connection (1962) and the Oscar-winning documentary Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel With the World (1963). If you’ve never seen any of her films, we flatter ourselves that this is a good place to start.

But before we get into our two filmmaker spotlights, we also take a look at three of this month’s films, including improvised comedy Black Mountain Poets, single-take feature film Victoria, and comedy/drama Our Little Sister.

All this in one single hour of audio. Plus jokes! And you can subscribe via iTunes, download or stream from our website, or use your podcast-listening app of choice. Whatever works best for you.

Further reading:

• If you like hearing Kate and Sophie talk Antonia Bird and will be in London next month, make sure you get along to the British Film Institute’s The Woman Who Kicked Down Doors: The uncompromising films of Antonia Bird. They’ll be discussing Safe on Thursday 12 May. And this will be a great chance to catch some of Bird’s harder-to-find works.
• You can find some of Shirley Clarke’s most notable films on DVD from Milestone Films.
• Check out this 1999 Antonia Bird interview from The AV Club following the release of Ravenous.

Outro music: score from Ravenous (1999), composed by Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman

The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Kate Hardie talking the films of Shirley Clarke and Antonia Bird, can be heard on Stitcher Smart Radio, subscribed to on iTunes, or downloaded/streamed via our website.