Kate Ogborn
Producer Kate Ogborn has been at the forefront of independent production in the UK for the last decade. Her debut, after being responsible for the BFI's New Directors shorts scheme, was to produce Carin Adler's extraordinary Under The Skin.
Kate Ogborn hard at work in San Sebastian in front of the Kursaal Cinema
Her latest coup has been to shepherd Terence Davies' beautiful The Deep Blue Sea to life and she will be rewarded by seeing the film close the BFI London Film Festival in October 2011.
What’s your connection to the British Council?
I've worked closely with the British Council in the past on programmes of short films, have always valued their relationships with festivals and the work they do behind the scenes to promote British films.
Your current project/s?
My current project is Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea, which I produced with Sean O'Connor. The film has recently premiered at Toronto Film Festival where it was picked up for US distribution, just played in competition at San Sebastian and will be closing the London Film Festival, which is very exciting! My company Fly Film is currently shooting a documentary collaboration between the artist filmmaker Andrew Kotting and the writer Iain Sinclair, which my business partner Lisa Marie Russo is producing and I am executive producing.
What/who originally turned you onto film?
I grew up in a family where books came first and so found film relatively late, really discovering it in my teens with friends and my partner Nick at all nighters at the Scala cinema. Before that it was seeing Grease at the Lewisham Odeon six times!
What has been your career high so far?
Every first day of principal photography and every time the film is finally in front of an audience is a career high. Most recently I have to say that the screening of The Deep Blue Sea in the Kursaal in San Sebastian was truly magical.
What was your first job in the film industry?
I was Assistant to the Head of the Film and Video Library at the BFI, working on the BFI's releases of La Dolce Vita, The American Friend and George Kuchar's short films.
If I knew then what I know now…
..I'd say hold your nerve, be a good listener, play the long game and don't lose your sense of humour!
What is your favourite British film? Why?
Always the impossible question as it changes and I can't choose one. Can I have all of Powell and Pressburger because they never stop impressing, entertaining and moving me. And can I have Distant Voices, Still Lives as seeing Terence's film at BFI Production blew me away and made me realise I was in exactly the right place to learn how to be a producer.
If you could have directed/been involved with any film ever made, which one would it be? Why?
I would have loved to have produced Singing in the Rain. Secretly I would love to be able to dance like Gene Kelly. Pure joy.
What’s your favourite line or scene from a film? Why?
Marlene Dietrich at the end of Touch of Evil - "He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?" I have had a long love affair with film noir and I love the romantic melancholy and cynicism of this line.
Favourite screen kiss? Why?
I'm not going to choose any kisses. Instead I want to choose two other erotically charged moments - Harvey Keitel putting his finger through the hole in Holly Hunter's stockings in The Piano and Rita Hayworth's hair flicking skywards in Gilda.
Who would play you in the film about your life? Why?
My husband says Juliette Binoche and I say Robert Mitchum! I would like to be played by a laconic talent who makes it all look so damn easy.
