A little-publicized representation record was broken at the BAFTA TV noms this year.
For the first time ever, more women than men are nominated in the Best Director: Fiction category, with talented helmers behind One Day, Baby Reindeer and We Are Lady Parts all recognized. Just one man, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light’s Peter Kosminsky, made the cut.
Along with its big screen sibling, representation in TV directing has been under the microscope for years – a campaign to boost the number of female documentary directors has led some networks and indies to commit to 50/50 gender parity – and a 2023 tweak to the BAFTA longlisting rules also appears to have improved the situation.
Here, the trio of nominated female directors – Molly Manners, Nida Manzoor and Weronika Tofilska – talk stereotypes, “macho” behavior and inspirational women, while detailing their respective experiences getting to the top.
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Molly Manners (One Day): “It all trickles down”
Molly Manners, who is nominated for Netflix’s One Day, recalls a recent conversation she had with Philippa Lowthorpe, a director whose credits include Call the Midwife and Three Girls.
“I met her at a dinner and she told me she was the first woman to ever win a TV [drama] directing BAFTA, and was also the second woman to ever win a TV directing BAFTA five years later,” says Manners.
Lowthorpe won her second in 2018 (the only woman to win since is Michaela Coel) for the BBC’s Three Girls about the Rochdale child sex abuse ring and her success inspired Manners to seek work with female creatives like One Day’s Nicole Taylor. “It all actually does trickle down,” adds Manners. “Historically it’s just been a very male-dominated field and this is slowly changing – I think I’ve felt that even with in my career. So this feels quite monumental in terms of the work that women are doing in the industry right now.”
Manners, whose trophy cabinet already contains a BAFTA for 2021 BBC drama In My Skin, says “strides are being made in the right direction” in terms of gender parity.
The 2023 longlisting tweak helped with “visibility,” Manners adds. Applying to all TV director categories, this light-touch tweak means that at the end of the first round at which point the six most-voted entries automatically progress to the longlisting stage, this six is now mandatorily formed of the three most-voted male and three most-voted female directors. “Hitting a percentage each year is hard but you’d hope things will now start to become equal because historically the stats are not great,” says Manners.
Working with female role models has always been crucial to Manners’ oeuvre. She developed a close relationship with In My Skin creator Kayleigh Llewellyn and “treasured” working with Taylor on One Day. The David Nicholls adaptation, which was made into a 2011 movie starring Anne Hathaway, has been a huge success, landing in Netflix’s top-10 most watched for the first half of 2024, making stars of Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall and securing a trio of BAFTA noms including one for Taylor.
“The [One Day] exec team had all seen In My Skin and they loved the intimacy,” adds Manners. “My vision for it was to try and put you in the room with [leads] Emma and Dexter. Although it was epic and went across lots of different locations, it was always about the smaller moments.”
Nida Manzoor (We Are Lady Parts): “Directing does have this macho element”
As the creator of a TV show about an all-female Muslim punk rock band, Nida Manzoor knows all about smashing glass ceilings.
Manzoor, who created, writes and directs We Are Lady Parts, already has a Comedy Writer BAFTA for its first season and is nominated again this time around in directing.
In the past, she thinks the stereotypically “macho” persona expected from top directors has stymied the potential for representation gains, yet feels this is shifting.
“Directing is a leadership role so there’s this idea that you exhibit certain traits around being loud and aggressive,” she explains. “I have witnessed tyrannical behavior on set before and it’s not just men it can be women, but it does have this macho element to it. I think there is something in directing like you have to be this ‘Billy Big Bollocks’, but hopefully that is changing. I feel able to be myself on set.”
As an up-and-coming director years back, Manzoor, whose family is Pakistani Muslim and who lived in Singapore as a child, felt she had to “go further to prove myself” before establishing what is now a diverse body of work. She credits the streamers – Peacock co-produces Channel 4’s We Are Lady Parts – with creating new opportunities.
“I felt this tangible difference when American shows started shooting [in the UK] and a number of my friends started to feel their careers were shifting,” she adds, citing inspirations like Mahalia Belo, Kate Herron and her fellow 2025 BAFTA nominees. “It felt like the culture was changing and women directors weren’t this rare thing anymore.”
Manzoor’s joy at being recognized for We Are Lady Parts also arises from what she feels is an under-appreciation of the comedy directing craft, which she notes doesn’t have its own BAFTA category. “There’s still a bit of weighting around TV being a writers’ medium and film being a directors’ medium,” she adds. “That being said, when I think about my own work as a director it’s impactful in shaping the tone and world.”
We Are Lady Parts Season 2 takes up the storyline as the band led by Amina (2024 BAFTA-nominee Anjana Vasan) head out on tour.
Manzoor, who is currently working on an “alt Bond” spy movie and an alien sci-fi thriller, says for Season 2 of We Are Lady Parts the team “levelled up as much as we could.”
“After Season 1 you realize how great your cast and crew are,” she says. “I trust them and that’s where the growth comes from. We go deeper into those collaborations whereas maybe in Season 1 I was trying too hard to control everything.”
Weronika Tofilska (Baby Reindeer): “Hopefully this becomes a new normal”
“I think there was a moment when I looked at the nominees and thought, ‘oh wow, that’s interesting’,” says Baby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska. “It feels a sign of things, a sign that gender may not be a barrier anymore. Women deserve so many accolades and acknowledgements and hopefully this becomes a new normal.”
Tofilska’s star is on the rise. She is nommed at a BAFTAs for the second year in a row, having last year been recognized for co-writing Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding movie, and is helming the Duffer Brothers next project. Past credits include Hanna and The Irregulars. “I have worked and lived in the UK for over a decade so having a BAFTA nomination is one of the highest honors,” she says.
As with her fellow nominees, Tofilska credits inspirational industry figures with helping drive change. In the Polish writer-director’s case, it was Baby Reindeer producer Petra Fried, who watched one of Tofilska’s old short films and was suitably impressed. “Petra has championed young and female talent and she remembered me,” says Tofilska. “Women [like Fried] are reaching across gender boundaries.”
Tofilska wasn’t aware of the Baby Reindeer play when she was shown scripts for Richard Gadd’s TV debut but she was taken in by the “intriguing” story and layers of dramedy, which she found “tonally very interesting.”
While Tofilska wasn’t tasked with directing the fifth and most emotionally gruelling ep (she helmed one to four), she nonetheless had to face the challenge of directing a highly personal, sensitive and at times agonizing story.
“It was a very sensitive subject and we were all aware of the stakes,” says Tofilska. “Having that material as a director raises those stakes massively and I’m happy Richard Gadd trusted me.”
What emerged was undoubtedly one of the biggest TV hits of the year and the Emmy-winning show has picked up more BAFTA noms than any other. Tofilska, for one, is delighted that an “idiosyncratic show reached across all the different types of audience and grabbed them.”
“It makes you feel hopeful,” she adds.
The post Women Directors Behind ‘Baby Reindeer’, ‘One Day’ & ‘We Are Lady Parts’ Talk Breaking Records & Smashing Glass Ceilings At The BAFTAs appeared first on Deadline.
