Onwards & Outwards: Antonia and Jane

A very rare screening of the first film by director Beeban Kidron after her highly-acclaimed Oranges are not the Only Fruit which screened earlier as part of the Onwards and Outwards programme.

Standing between that revolutionary work and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, directed by Kidron for a large studio, Antonia and Jane addresses the currently topical subject of female friendship.

Antonia (Saskia Reeves) and Jane's (Imelda Staunton) annual reunion dinner is the last remnant of a childhood friendship. As the evening approaches, each woman falls prey to paranoid recollections of the past year: mothers, lovers, careers and neuroses all crowd in as they prepare to measure up to each other once again.

Antonia and Jane, dir. Beeban Kidron, UK 1991, 71 mins.