Jill Daniels

Who is Jill Daniels?

Jill Daniels is an award winning British independent filmmaker and a Senior Lecturer in Film at The University of East London. She comes from a Jewish family of Romanian and Russian extraction. Leaving school at 16 and home when still a teenager and uncertain of what route her future career should take, she spent some time in Spain, working as a disco dancer and DJ in Madrid and Bilbao, as well as tending bar at the Fat Black Pussy Cat in the Carihuela, Torremolinos. Returning to England she became a single parent and studied fine art at Wimbledon School of Art. She received an M.A. in Film and Television from the Royal College of Art, London. She was a founding member and the London Secretary of the Independent Filmmakers Association.

During the 80s she worked for several years with the single homeless. As a fighter for women’s rights she joined the Working Women’s Charter Campaign and edited the newspaper Women’s Fight, from 1977 to 1981 where only women worked and that she says “gradually turned me into a political journalist.” This was from 1977 to 1981. In 1991 she was a jury member of the Huesca International Film Festival, Spain. She sees herself as an oppositional filmmaker, working outside the system. She teaches film and video at the University of East London.