From a working class background in Coventry, actress, writer and director Manjinder Virk was nominated for an Asian Women of Achievement Award in 2008 before coming to prominence with her lead performance in Clio Barnard’s BAFTA-nominated The Arbor. About to appear in the first ever UK performance of the Vagina Monologues, Manjinder is featured in the latest issue of Vanity Fair under the title 'Very Bright Young Things.' 

She talks to IdeasTap about her own short film Forgive, the sexism that exists in the film industry and how the relationships in her life inform her own writing.

Most people recognise you as an actress, but you’ve also worked as a screenwriter and director. What did you learn from those experiences?

I did my own short film, which I directed and wrote. It cost £3,000 for a 15-minute short and was funded by local Coventry talent. I thought it would take a couple of months but it took eight or nine months of my year.

I didn’t act in it – I’m not competent enough as a director yet – but I had brilliant actors. I got such a rush from watching their takes and I worked with them as I would want a director to work with me, so it was very much about giving their performance time to develop. It started off as a theatre piece and is very actor- and character-led, but I realised in films it all happens in an edit.

The Arbor was directed and produced by women and had women in the lead roles. How do you think women are treated in the film industry?

You just have to look around. Look at 10 random films and maybe one of them will be directed by a woman. There have been stronger female roles recently, and Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar [in 2010], albeit for a very masculine film.

I was very proud to work on The Arbor because women were in the leads, a woman directed it and a woman produced it. Clio was up there with Danny Boyle, Tom Hooper and Mike Leigh at the BAFTAs. But yeah, I think generally things need to change.

Do you think things are changing?

Well, I think the talent is out there. I don’t know if they are changing fast enough.

How much of your writing is informed by your own life?

For me, when I write something, it always comes from something personal that I’m trying to understand. I look at something I have written and I can see a through-line, I think. They’re all about the relationships in my life. I think there are similar themes. If I’m researching something that might be completely removed from what I understand to be personal, for me there’s always something personal to find and connect to.

So what themes do you pursue?

Mother and daughter relationships, I think. The Arbor was very much about mother and daughter relationships and now, having a daughter of my own, it takes it to another level of understanding. I suppose it’s the most complex relationship you have, but also the most important one as well.

Your parents are first generation immigrants (to use a horrible phrase). What kind of influence did they have on you growing up?

My mum and my dad, coming from an Asian background, always encouraged my brother and I to go into whatever we wanted to do. At first we were artists, and then we got into performing arts. And they never said no. They allowed us to take that up and pursue it, whereas I know that’s not a traditional thing in Indian families. 

Maybe that’s changed a bit now because there are more role models and you can see more diverse portrayals in the media. But they’ve always encouraged, and continue to encourage, what we do. It’s strange, because they never quite managed to do what they wanted to because they had to work. My father’s a brilliant writer but he had to earn money so he worked in a factory. He’s really proud of us now.