Ruth Paxton
Directing
Biography
Ruth is a Scottish filmmaker whose award-winning shorts have been exhibited at numerous international events and prominent film festivals. She won Best Woman Director at the 12th London Short Film Festival for her film Pulse and was also nominated as one of Canongate’s 40 Scottish Storytellers of The Future. In 2019, Screen Daily featured her as one of ‘Six emerging Scotland-based Directors you need to know.’ The Scotsman selected her as ‘One to Watch in 2022’. In 2023, Ruth delivered her first feature film: a psychological horror entitled A Banquet. It was selected for the GREAT8 showcase at Cannes Marche and had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2021, ahead of a UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. On the weekend of its launch in the US, the film was selected as a New York Times Critics’ Pick. When it was released a month later in the UK, it received four stars from both The Times and The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw. Ruth graduated in 2007 with an MA in Film and TV from Screen Academy Scotland, having gained her honours degree at Edinburgh College of Art. She has since directed a number of films, in addition to six episodes of the BBC’s River City. Ruth is now a professional mentor with Raindance’s International MA programme, Glasgow Film Festival and Screen Scotland’s Short Circuit, as well as an Associate Lecturer at Cambridge University, Screen Academy Scotland and MetFilm School Brighton. She makes commercial content with Mallinson Television Productions and is represented by Roxana Adle of Lark Management.
Known For
Created from the novels by award winning crime writer Ann Cleeves, Shetland follows DI Jimmy Perez and his team as they investigate crime within the close knit island community. In this isolated and sometimes inhospitable environment, the team have to rely on a uniquely resourceful style of policing.
Shetland
Widowed mother Holly is radically tested when her teenage daughter Betsey experiences a profound enlightenment and insists that her body is no longer her own, but in service to a higher power. Bound to her newfound faith, Betsey refuses to eat but loses no weight. In an agonizing dilemma, torn between love and fear, Holly is forced to confront the boundaries of her own beliefs.
A Banquet
A contemporary interpretation of the art of Baroque, inspired by the Italian painters of the period. Commissioned by Milan's Festival Delle Lettere and based on a letter about beauty, by Italian actor Vittorio Gassman.
Baroque
A psychological portrait of two lovers who have grown to hate one another, who are well beyond breaking point and who must separate. Taking inspiration from aspects of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller's fated marriage, as a springboard for content and style,
Nevada
Greer is a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Like some curious fabled creature she lives in a remote, rundown woodland farmhouse with her Dad, Ivan, a former gamekeeper whose mind has been ravaged by chronic mental illness. Father and daughter are suspected and ostracized by the nearby village. Greer spends her working days tending to elderly, failing residents of the local care-home and the rest of her time looking after her dad. But despite her loving devotion to Ivan, Greer imagines life beyond the narrow confines of her own and is troubled by the heavy burden she bears. Greer romanticises about a life lived in colour. The impossibly glamorous Francoise and Seamus crash into the care-home to visit his mother. Greer is entranced. They seem to epitomize everything she's dreamt of: beauty, success, sophistication and access to the world in all its glory. She attaches herself to them, flattered by their awareness of her and enraptured by the atmosphere of decadence they inhabit.
Paris/Sexy
JIMMY hates musicals. When EUGENIUS – the cosmically charged, all-singing, all-dancing musical Godfather – tap dances into Jimmy’s tedium, Jimmy is swept off to a magical theatre realm and told he is destined to become the Greatest Musical Star of all time! But Jimmy’s aversion to the melodic art runs far deeper than mere dislike. In order to save the world from a tuneless future, Jimmy is forced to confront a buried childhood trauma… MUSICAL STAR! is a charming, entertaining comedy for everyone who ever loved, or hated musicals. A tale of magic, optimism and… childhood trauma, MUSICAL STAR! dares to ask the question, When everything’s so crappy what’s wrong with being happy?
Musical Star
Two adult sisters exist dysfunctionally, each limited by illnesses affecting both body and mind — one physically and the other psychologically.
Be Still My Beating Heart
A girl wakes up, into reality, a nightmare, a memory? Terrified at what she may have done, she runs. Writer / director Ruth Paxton has made a disturbing journey into her own recurring nightmares. An episodic series of states of mind, the film contains realistic, symbolic and surrealistic elements. Her protagonist is fleeing the truth, dreading that she may have revealed her transgressions. Pleasant memories and alcohol temporarily block out the furies, but these fleeting moments of freedom and ease are cut brutally short by the relentless pursuit of her guilty demons. Ruth Paxton has combined narrative and experimentation to produce a film that is both visually stylistic and dramatically compelling, depicting the shredding of a conscience experienced at an intensity that is beyond words.
She Wanted To Be Burnt
Follows two strangers who share a brief, yet profound exchange that evokes sympathy, understanding, recognition and hope. Within our busy lives, within our cosmopolitan cities with their mix of cultures, humanity still connects.
Pulse
A psychological portrait of two lovers who have grown to hate one another, who are well beyond their breaking point and must separate. Taking inspiration from aspects of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller's fated marriage as a springboard for content and style, NEVADA is a contemporary experimental study about humans and how exhausting hatred can be, while also examining themes of identity and guilt.
NEVADA (A Visual Montage)
A multiform project spanning many years, this tale bewitchingly spins the dark yarn of runaway lovers from a memory. Rising from a fetish for a haunted house, it led to a collaborative exchange with folk trio Lau, and later, provided visuals for Martin Green's live gothic spectacular, CROW'S BONES.