Quotes from Sarah Gavron

So many women don't have voices in their governments.

I'd made this film called 'This Little Life,' and it went round the fests and won awards and did well.

I would love to see more diversity on all sides, and not just in terms of women; we need people from different walks of life making films.

I'm so aware how often women's bodies are objectified on film.

I suppose I do have an interest in stories that show complexity.

I had a mother who got involved in grassroot politics when I was growing up. I watched her have agency and become political in a very male-dominated world.

Surround yourself with people who support you. Find champions.

I started to have these ideas for films. They were like running images in my head. But I didn't think I could be a director. I just literally didn't think it was a possibility. Then I started to suddenly see films of women.

I think it's great to be talked about as a woman film-maker. It's part of who I am; it affects me daily. I want it to be part of the conversation. I'm for any scheme or initiative that gives women a way in.

With 'Suffragette,' I was emboldened that there were so many women around me. We had a female writer, producers, production and costume designers.

As a teenager, I was really interested in drama and art. I did painting and drawing. I did some acting and loved theater.

It's well proven that if you have equality in society, society flourishes, and if you have inequality, it doesn't. So it's good for everybody.

Women in Film and Television is such an important body.

I was taught nothing about the suffragettes in school. The version I eventually got was mainly about the peaceful campaigning of the constitutional suffragists. Their work was vital, but there was this other, not widely known story of the women who risked everything, who were prepared to break every taboo.

It has to be 'The Piano' by Jane Campion. It inspired me to pursue my dream to direct. It is not just my favorite woman-directed film - it is my favorite film.

The suffragettes were women of action. Their motto was 'Deeds not Words,' and the film reflects that with a number of big set pieces, from the smashing of windows in central London to a riot at the Houses of Parliament.

I remember my grandfather believed women were second-class citizens and told my mother that it was a shame she had brains because she was a girl and shouldn't carry on her education.

Having the vote is just symbolic. There are still many issues on which women don't have any right and, in many countries, where women are given very very few rights.

The suffragettes realized the power of getting arrested and going to prison and harassing politicians and making a nuisance of themselves. It got them a lot of attention. What they never did was set out to endanger human life except for sacrificing themselves.

I've endlessly found myself in rooms of men and had the experience of feeling I wasn't being heard. It's a confidence thing.

It was important to focus on working-class women because we so rarely focus, particularly in period films, on the working people. The suffragettes brought together women of all classes, which was one of the striking things about the movement.

My grandmother - my mother's mother - was a German Jewish refugee, an only child who came here from Berlin in 1936 at the age of 17.

The suffragettes endured 50 years of broken government promises and not being heard. The press never reported on their activities.

We need to have more conversations about representation as well as the imbalance in terms of needing more women behind the camera and in front of the camera, and the diversity factor.