Penny Woolcock

Penny Woolcock (born January 1, 1950, in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a British filmmaker, opera director, and screenwriter. She was raised in a British community in Montevideo, speaking English and going to English schools. Her father, an accountant, had wanted to be a writer. In 1967, she founded a radical theatre group and was briefly arrested; her parents wanted to send her to Europe for safety. Instead, she fled to Spain with a man from the theater group and had a baby in Barcelona.In 1970 she moved to England as a single mother. She worked in factories and other jobs. In her thirties she enrolled in a filmmakers' workshop, borrowed film-making equipment, and sold the resulting feature to BBC Channel 4. She then was hired as a director and editor of a current-affairs program originating in Newcastle. From there, she went on to feature-making.Her first feature as a writer and director was "Women in Tropical Places" in 1989. Since then she has directed/ written seven films. Current projects include "1 Day," a film scheduled for 2009 release, and a production of the John Adams opera Doctor Atomic, which she is directing for the Metropolitan Opera's 2008-2009 season. She previously filmed Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer as a feature film.

References

* Biography [http://www.nyasaff.org/names/view/113]
* Katrina Ames, "The Surprising Career of Penny Woolcock," "Opera News," Oct. 2008, pp 38-39.

*imdb name|0941085