Andrea Patricia Arnold OBE (born 5 April 1961) is an English filmmaker and former actress. She won an Academy Award for her short film Wasp in 2005. Her feature films include Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009) and American Honey (2016), all of which have won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, while her first documentary feature Cow premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.
Arnold's television work includes directing the second season of the HBO series Big Little Lies, and four episodes each of the Amazon Prime Video series Transparent and I Love Dick.
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Early life and education
Andrea Patricia Arnold was born on 5 April 1961 in Dartford, Kent, the eldest of four children. She was born when her mother was only 16 years old and her father was 17, and they separated when she was very young. Growing up on a council estate, she spent her youth days constantly exploring the "chalk pits, fields, woods and motorways" of Dartford. Her mother had to bring up all four children alone, which is reminiscent of the narrative in Arnold's third short film, Wasp.
As a young girl, she was writing dark stories about human experience. In an interview, Arnold speaks about how when she was 10 years old, she wrote her first play that expressed her "horror" of the slave trade, and a few years later while studying for a dance GCSE, she made a performance piece; "I took quotes from The Diary of Anne Frank and read them aloud as I moved around the room. All the other kids would just bung on some pop music and dance. I remember the examiners sitting there looking at me, perplexed." Arnold left school when she was 16, when she was drawn to becoming an actor. When Arnold was 18 years old she began working as a host and actor for a children's TV show called No. 73. She worked in TV for the next 10 years while continually writing on the side. Arnold realized she could turn her stories into films so she studied at the American Film Institute of Los Angeles, where she gained experience in the film industry. In explaining why she moved from London to study film in the U.S. she states, "I felt my lack of education and accent always held me back in the eyes of the gatekeepers".
After finishing her studies and returning to Britain she had her daughter, Coral, and began making short films for TV.
Career
Early TV work
After leaving school in the late 1970s, Arnold got her first TV jobs as a dancer on shows that included Top of the Pops. She first came to prominence as an actor and television presenter alongside Sandi Toksvig, Nick Staverson and Neil Buchanan in the 1980s children's television show No. 73. This Saturday morning show on ITV, in which she played Dawn Lodge, was part sitcom, part chat show and based at a domestic residence. In addition to these parts, the show had the usual mix of music, competitions and cartoons that was in keeping to the formula of British Saturday morning children's TV of the 1980s. After a couple of years of experience in front of the camera, Arnold realized, "Television was great fun and I went along for the ride, but I never felt that comfortable in front of the camera".
In 1988 No. 73 had morphed into 7T3, with the set being moved from the Maidstone house (in fact in TVS studios in Kent) to that of a theme park. This revamp would only last the season, but Arnold would be seen for another two years in the same timeslot as part of the Motormouth presenting team. In 1990 she presented and wrote for the environmental awareness show for teens, A Beetle Called Derek. This also featured Benjamin Zephaniah and gave exposure to The Yes/No People of Stomp fame.
Directing
After retiring from her career as a television presenter, Arnold studied directing at the AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles and trained in screenwriting at the PAL Labs in Kent. Her early short films included Milk (1998), which premiered at the International Critics' Week Cannes, and Dog (2001). She won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Wasp, in 2004.
She was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow. Also in 2003, she directed an episode of the Channel 4 series Coming Up titled "Bed Bugs", though she is sometimes erroneously credited as "Andrew Arnold" for the work.
Red Road is the first installment of Advance Party, a planned set of three conceptually-related films by different first-time directors. Set on a housing estate in Glasgow, the revenge-themed story centres on a CCTV (security TV cameras) operator who develops an obsession with someone she observes, for reasons that become clear through the progress of the film. The picture has won the British director comparisons with established names such as Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier. Screen International critic Allan Hunter said the film was "likely to emerge as one of the discoveries of this year's Cannes Film Festival (2006)." It went on to win the Jury Prize at Cannes that year.
She won the 2007 BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for directing Red Road. In 2008, Arnold was reported to be directing an adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel Sharp Objects for French production company Pathé, but the project never materialized. In 2011, she was reported to be working on a television project with writer Danny Brocklehurst called Dirty, but this project also failed to materialize.
Her 2009 film Fish Tank premiered at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, where she once again won the Jury Prize. The film also went on to win the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film in 2010. In 2011, she completed shooting an adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, produced by London's Ecosse Films. The film was shown in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September where it won the Golden Osella for Best Cinematography.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the film industry.
Other activities
Arnold has been very active in working with film festivals around the world. She has been described as a "film festival regular even between films". In 2012 she was a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. In 2013 she was named as a member of the jury at the 70th Venice International Film Festival.
In September 2013, Arnold was named the New York Film Festival's inaugural Filmmaker in Residence. As the first Filmmaker in Residence, Arnold was responsible for "creating a template for the programme". Through the programme, Arnold was given the "opportunity to focus on developing or refining new work, and participate in master classes, mentorships or cultural exchange and enrichment film programmes with the Film Society of Lincoln Center members, the film community and the public".
In 2014 Arnold was announced as the chair of the jury for International Critics' Week at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. In 2016, Arnold was chosen to take part in a public conversation about her career as part of the Tribeca Film Festival's "Tribeca Talks" programme. Arnold was a jury member of the 2017 Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Arnold was named as chair of the Les Arcs Film Festival, which ran from 16 to 23 December 2017.
Styles and themes
In general, Arnold's films are characterised by the themes of deprivation and impoverishment; for example, both Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights are dramas featuring teenagers living in the poverty-stricken English edge-lands. American film critic Roger Ebert compared her filmmaking style to that of Ken Loach. English film critic Mark Kermode compared her style to that of Lynne Ramsay, Clio Barnard, and Ingmar Bergman.
Personal life
As of October 2016, Arnold was living in Greenwich, London, with her daughter.
In 2012, Arnold embarked on an impulsive road-trip of the continental United States, which she states partially inspired the premise of her 2016 feature American Honey.
Filmography
Short film
Feature film
Documentary
Cow (2021)