Penny Woolcock, film director

The writer and film-maker Penny Woolcock can’t be pigeonholed: she’s worked as a director at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and made a film about warring drug gangs on the streets of Birmingham.A passion for storytelling has driven her career, along with a rebellious streak, perhaps because she’s something of an outsider and never went to university or film school. She often uses non-professional actors in her work, including a staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with people who had experienced homelessness. And after completing her movie about rival gangs in Birmingham, she found herself helping to broker a peace deal between two of the actual gang leaders. She has recently written a memoir, The Man Who Gave Me a Biscuit, about growing up in a British enclave in Argentina.Her musical choices include Shostakovich, Britten, Bach and Sibelius.Producer: Katy Hickman