Beeban Kidron

Beeban Tania Kidron, born 2 May 1961 in North London, England, is a British film director, producer, campaigner and cross‑bench peer whose career spans more than four decades. Raised by Nina and Michael Kidron, founders of Pluto Press, she grew up amid a family of South‑African Jewish immigrants and academic influences, which fostered an early interest in storytelling and social activism. After attending Camden School for Girls, she worked for photographer Eve Arnold at sixteen, later enrolling at the National Film School where she transitioned from camerawoman to director, completing her studies in the early 1980s. Her first documentary, Carry Greenham Home (1983), captured the spirit of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and screened at the Berlin Film Festival, establishing her reputation for socially engaged cinema. She achieved major fame with the BBC adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990), which won three BAFTAs and was later named by The Guardian among the greatest TV series of all time. Kidron’s versatile filmography includes the cult classic To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), and the documentary InRealLife (2013) that sparked her lifelong advocacy for children’s digital rights. Beyond filmmaking, she co‑founded Filmclub in 2006 (later Into Film), a charity bringing free film education to UK schools, and in 2013 established the 5Rights Foundation to protect children online. Appointed OBE in 2012 and created a life peer as Baroness Kidron the same year, she now sits on the House of Lords’ Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee, shaping legislation such as the Age‑Appropriate Design Code, while serving as honorary president of 5Rights and advisor to Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI. Her personal life includes marriage to playwright Lee Hall (2003) and two children.