Clio Barnard

• Name — Clio Barnard • Occupation — Film director • Years Active — 2000–present • Born — 1 January 1965

Barnard grew up in the town of Otley in Yorkshire. Her father was a university lecturer and her mother was an artist who later became a jazz singer. She graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University), with a First Class B.A. (Hons) with distinction in fine art and received a Postgraduate Diploma in Electronic Imaging at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (University of Dundee). In 1988, her postgrad video work Dirt and Science featured Jane and Louise Wilson and toured internationally as part of the ICA Biennial of Independent Film & Video, curated by Tilda Swinton.

"An Acre of Land" is a collaboration between British composer Harry Escott and PJ Harvey and is the theme Barnard's film Dark River. Escott says: ‘recording PJ Harvey’s vocal on “An Acre of Land”, a song we arranged together for Dark River, was a spine-tingling experience.’ The film premiered at the 2017 London Film Festival and was released in 2018.

Short film • Year — Title — Director — Writer — Producer • 1995 — Hermaphrodite Bikini • 2000 — Lambeth Marsh • 2002 — Random Acts of Intimacy • 2003 — Flood • 2006 — Dark Glass • 2023 — All the Lights Still Burning — Executive Feature film • Year — Title — Director — Writer — Executive producer • 2010 — The Arbor • 2013 — The Selfish Giant • 2017 — Dark River • 2021 — Ali & Ava • 2026 — I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning Television • Year — Title — Director — Executive producer — Writer — Notes • 2022 — The Essex Serpent — Miniseries • 2024 — Sherwood — Directed 3 episodes (series 2)

Critics have likened Barnard's realist yet lyrical work to that of Ken Loach. Time Out said of The Selfish Giant, "this is Kes revisited in a post-Thatcher northern England." Her debut feature The Arbor (2010) produced by Artangel, won several awards, including Best New Documentary Filmmaker at Tribeca Film Festival New York, Best Newcomer and Sutherland Awards at The London Film Festival, Douglas Hickox Award at British Independent Film Awards, The Guardian First Film Award, Best Screenplay at the London Evening Standard Film Awards, the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival Innovation Award and the Jean Vigo Award for Best Direction at Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival. She was nominated for the BAFTA Outstanding Debut Award in February 2011.

Barnard participated in the 2022 edition of the Sight & Sound film polls, which are held every ten years to commemorate the greatest films of all time and rank them in order. Directors and critics both give their ten favourite films of all time for the poll, and Barnard picked The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), Rashomon (1950), Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Andrei Rublev (1966), L'Atalante (1934), Road (1987), Chronicle of a Summer (1961), Vagabond (1985), Hunger (2008) and La strada (1954).