British documentary filmmaker
Jill Nicholls is a British filmmaker, best known for her art documentaries on television. Her films over the decades have frequently featured the lives of high-profile figures, including Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Diana Athill, Judith Kerr, Salman Rushdie, Vivian Maier, Louise Bourgeois and Tom Stoppard. Nicholls has won several awards for her films, including from the Royal Television Society, the Grierson Trust and the New Orleans Film Festival. Also a journalist, she worked in the 1970s for women's liberation magazine "Spare Rib", as well writing for other publications.
Background.
Jill Nicholls attended Hemel Hempstead Grammar School and read English at Newnham College, Cambridge (1971–74), gaining a first-class degree. She became involved in the Women's Liberation Movement while at university and helped to found a newsletter called "Redstockings".
After graduating, she drove a delivery van for some months, in the course of which she achieved equal pay for women drivers. She subsequently joined the collective of feminist magazine "Spare Rib", working there as a journalist (editing the news pages) between 1974 and 1980. During this time, Nicholls also taught at a further education college, as well as contributing to more mainstream publications such as "New Society", "Time Out", "The Sunday Times" and "The Guardian".
Beginning in 1979, she and Angela Phillips wrote a column called "Omen" for "The Guardian", giving news from a feminist point of view. Nicholls was also "agony aunt" ("Ask Jill") on such magazines as "Loving", "Woman’s World" and "Honey". After she left "Spare Rib", in 1980 Nicholls helped to set up Sheba Feminist Publishers. Since 1983, she has worked in television, making documentaries.
Her first job in television was with ITV, working as a producer on the documentary series "First Tuesday" for Yorkshire Television, after which she went on to produce and direct films for Channel 4, BBC Two and BBC Four. She has since made many feature-length documentaries on arts and culture, mainly for BBC Music and the BBC One arts series "Imagine" hosted by Alan Yentob. The subjects of some of her award-winning films in the series include Allen Toussaint, Salman Rushdie, and Vivian Maier.
References.
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