52 Films by Women Vol 2. 18. EL OLIVO (The Olive Tree) (Director: Icíar Bollain)
Icíar Bollain (born 12 June 1967 in Madrid, Spain) is an actress turned director who came to prominence with her 2003 drama, Take My Eyes (Te doy mis ojos ) about a woman fleeing domestic violence. After appearing in such films as Victor Erice’s El Sur (1982) and Pablo Llorca’s Jardines colgantes (1993), she made the transition to feature film directing with the comedy Hola, estas sola in 1995. Several feature films followed including Flowers from Another World (1999), Mataharis (2007), Even the Rain (2010) and Katmandú, un espejo en el cielo (Katmandu, a mirror in the sky) (2011). Her most recent film is the documentary, En tierra extraña ( Strange Land ), about three unhappy Spanish migrants living in Edinburgh. Not by coincidence, Bollain is married to a Scot, the screenwriter Paul Laverty, who frequently collaborates with Ken Loach. Also not by coincidence, Bollain appeared in Loach’s Tierra y libertad ( Land and Freedom ) in 1995. El Olivo , scripted by Laverty, is...