Beeban Kidron Quotes

Life is really hard for some people.

I hope that every film I make has something to offer in the area of making people feel either vindicated or different in terms of who they are.

I come from the school who thought the Internet could be the great democratising force, that getting rid of the gatekeepers was a positive move.

Sometimes you have to put back in the community.

In the U.S., it would be so much better if the studios made many more smaller films for niche markets rather than a few tent pole films that swamp cinemas and Hoover up all the funding.

Make films whenever and however you can - don't take no for an answer.

Parents cannot be in the same physical space as their children at all times.

I am still cautiously hopeful about the potential of the Internet. But it seems that the greatest revolution in communication has been hijacked by commercial values.

The devices that our kids use are shipped from the factory with every possible audio, visual or vibration alert switched on. Each new app, website, tweet and message adds another layer of intrusion - each intrusion is cynically designed to get a response, and each response creates an appetite for another intrusion.

If we don't record our own history on the Net, it will disappear.

The Greenham women left home for peace: 'Not in our name!' they cried. And in doing so, they spoke for millions.

I had a sort of classic moment when a friend of mine rang up and said she'd just been to a funeral, and in the middle of the eulogy, this kid had taken out the phone and had a whole proper text conversation - while everyone was weeping!

Cinema is arguably the 20th century's most influential art form.

Girls from poor families of the 'untouchable,' or lower, caste are 'married' to Yellamma as young as four. No longer allowed to marry a mortal, they are expected to bestow their entire lives to the service of the goddess.

For me, trying to articulate the world to help people see it in a way they haven't seen it before is hugely important. Sometimes, you have to take something that is completely inexplicable and say, 'Look, here is the beating heart of something you must understand.'

There is nothing wrong with Facebook in itself, except that it is not a very good tool to express the quality of your relationships.

Making a big commercial movie is hard when you think about how many of them flop.

I often go out on the street with my camera and ask questions.

Whether in cave paintings or the latest uses of the Internet, human beings have always told their histories and truths through parable and fable. We are inveterate storytellers.

I'm in the communications business.

When I was 13, I had a weekend job at the Photographers Gallery Bookshop in London.

The thing about documentary is that you don't really choose your subjects: they come and grab you out of your bed.

I don't see such a huge difference between online and 'in real life'. I think it has now become one and the same.

I think I've been very, very lucky in my life, and I do believe in public service.

People have a right to have their lives witnessed; if we coexist with the systems that abuse people, then we have a duty to understand.

From the moment I went to Hollywood for the first time, I was accused by various people of selling out. So I feel I've done my sell-out films already. I've sold everything! I've sold every piece of soul I ever had!

The thing I have come to find astonishing is that people from all political sides routinely say that the Internet has to be the model of free speech and freedom.

I've walked down the street with Madonna, and I've walked down the street with Colin Firth, and it was a little bit more ... with Madonna they were a little rougher, but they were all there for Colin. It was amazing. Women adore him. They swoon.

The idea of the Internet as sort of open and democratic and free and with no hierarchy, the libertarian beginnings as it were, with peer-to-peer networks ... I'd sort of like for everyone to just admit that we're beyond that now.

Not many young women of my age have been lucky enough to have had a wonderful mentor in their life.

I hate it when everybody thinks I'm a ... what's the word, a marauding mother! It's bigger than that.

The previous generation paved the way for my generation to gallop unheeded into jobs previously reserved for men.

Everything serious in the world is well approached by humour. It's a powerful and often quite subversive tool. I suppose there is an argument that could be made against me for being frivolous, but I do think a laugh is a very generous thing to give.

We need to be much more robust consumers.

I think it is a great gift to make people laugh, and it shouldn't be underestimated.

Arguably, it was the introduction of international non-proliferation treaties in the late '80s that finally led to the missiles being removed from Greenham Common.

We are increasingly offered a diet in which sensation, not story, is king.

I've always been interested in exploring difficult subjects for the mainstream.

For most women, Greenham was a place of principle, growth and song. Often joyful, sometimes terrifying, and almost always cold. As it got harder, with constant evictions and mounting violence from a frustrated and humiliated police force, the women got more determined. It was a community with a shared purpose - to live in peace.

Unfortunately, teatime in London is when people in Los Angeles arrive in their offices and pick up the phone.

The Internet has crept up on us, and we need to know what it is and start looking at it. We have to decide which bits we want, which bits we don't, and how we're going to use them - and how we're going to put pressure on the people who deliver these goods to deliver what we really want.

I think that stories, and the telling of stories, are the foundations of human communication and understanding. If children all over the country are watching films, asking questions and telling their stories, then the world will eventually be a better place.

Everything a teenager does, says or looks at, however transitory, contributes to an aggregated virtual self that might one day have consequences for its real-life counterpart. How many of us would keep all our relationships and reputations intact if every transgression, mistake or youthful folly was held in public view?

If you look where kids are spending time on the Net, they may have all the information in the world, but they're not accessing it.

We now have powerful technology, which allows us a voice across boundaries, which was unimaginable at the time of the Greenham Protest, a protest that pre-dates the Internet and the mobile phone.

We need to work out who is paying for film; in the U.K., it is increasingly difficult to get production funds - and pre-sales demand more and more shot/cut material.

I love being in real life, and in particular, I like being with young people.

Our politicians don't say anything anymore: they just refute and assert.

The devadasis have a multilayered story, a story in which poverty, deprivation and injustice against women is central - but what has happened to them is absolutely an outcome of imperialism and the impact of British rule in India.

This idea of the digital native in the bedroom taking down a fascist regime and building a billion-dollar company is a very attractive image, but actually, if you look at the research, young people are on the lowest rung of digital opportunity.

I love text, I love email, I love Skype; I think it's amazing.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.