WFTV honours Redgrave, Baines, Pike, Hogg

The 24th annual Women in Film and TV Awards, held at the Park Lane Hilton in London yesterday, honoured Vanessa Redgrave with its Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by EON Productions. She is pictured with David Hare, who presented her trophy. “Thank you beyond words,” Redgrave said. “Good luck to everybody who is trying to do good work in film and TV wherever they may be.”

Rosamund Pike was honoured with the MAC Best Performance Award for her role in Gone Girl. The heavily pregnant actress accepted with a charming video message that praised novelist Gillian Flynn and director David Fincher for taking a risk by casting her as Amy. She joked that she could give birth while the lunch was going on, and quipped that “it takes less time to make a human being than it does to make a film.”

Exhibition director Joanna Hogg won the Deluxe Digital Cinema Director Award. She said: “I hope this inspired many more female directors to come out of the shadows.” She dedicated her award to the late BFI Film Fund executive Chris Collins, who she said “made a big mark on British cinema.”

Lucy Kirkwood (The Smoke) won the Creative Skillset Writing Award.

Dan Films’ Julie Baines won the Argonon Contribution To The Medium Award. In her speech, Baines said the industry has “moved on quite a long way [since she got started], but we still have quite a long way to go in the equality stakes.”

Mary Berry presented the NEP Visions PResenter Award to Great British Bake Off duo Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.

The other winners were all3media’s Jane Turton for the Barclays Business Award; Sara Hardy & Blue Ryan for The BBC News and Factual Award; location manager Sue Quinn as the Film Finance Project Management Award; sound editor Kate Hopkins for The Technology Award; Kate Swinden for The ENVY Producer Award; Lyse Doucet for the ITV Studios Achievement Of The Year Award; Daisy Jacobs for the Fremantlemedia UK New Talent Award; and costume designer Consolata Boyle for the Panalux Craft Award.

Broadcaster and presenter Sandi Toksvig hosted the event, sponsored by Sky, for 1,000 of film and TV industry guests.

WFTV CEO Kate Kinninmont said: “Year after year these awards celebrate the talented women in film and television, and this year’s winners are a superb group of creative and outstanding women. We are particularly thrilled to honour Vanessa Redgrave’s remarkable career with The EON Lifetime Achievement award. Our BBC News and Factual Award goes this year to producers Sara Hardy and
Blue Ryan for their documentary The Unspeakable Crime: Rape, which documents the effects of this terrible crime in a way never seen before on British television. This film is so powerful that it’s now being used to train people working with victims of rape and sexual crimes. The calibre of nominees is always very high in every category and we are privileged to recognize each of the winner’s remarkable achievements.”