Film director Stephen Frears has played a key role in constructing and shaping British identity through film. From his beginnings as a theatre assistant, then as a director at the BBC and finally, as a filmmaker in his own name, Frears dazzled with My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), and gone on to portray themes ranging from class inequalities in Hidden Business (2002) to the pomp and pageantry of the monarchy in The Queen (2006) and Queen Victoria and Abdul (2017). He ventured into comedic, voyeuristic cinema in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and adaptations of contemporary bestsellers such as High Fidelity (2000). He has given us westerns, noir, comedy and thrillers, with his meticulous attention to mise-en-scène, characters, intelligent and ironic dialogue, without forgetting his commitments to social and political issues. Throughout his career, Frears has said he wanted to make "to make the kind of smart mainstream films he grew up with but now seem endangered by the blockbuster.” With a transatlantic career, he has twice been nominated for an Oscar for best director, and has won BAFTA and EMMY awards. Of his films, The Queen won an Oscar, and Dangerous Liaisons won three. He released the TV miniseries The State of the Union in 2019.

Frears will talk about his career with Marta Medina, screenwriter and film critic at El Confidencial and a regular contributor to Historia de nuestro cine on TVE 2.

Presented by Caroline Michel, chair of Hay Festival Foundation.

Event in English with simultaneous translation into Spanish.