New icons: Bishi and Lianne De Havas

Birds Eye View was set up in 2003 to support female film makers and promote their work. Their annual film festival celebrates the outstanding contribution of women directors to cinema, which unfortunately didn’t happen this year, due to funding issues. They did however hold a gala evening to celebrate International Women’s Day, which featured screenings of  five of the most outstanding short films from around the world and a discussion with Moira Buffini ( who made Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre) and Sally El Hosaini, who previewed clips from her debut feature film, My Brother The Devil, which has taken the Sundance and Berlin festivals by storm.

It was an inspiring evening with some though provoking and entertaining films, but the highlight for me was the amazing immersive performance by singer and instrumentalist Bishi. Helped onto the stage, wearing a sculptural tight fitting white dress, Bishi, performed an 8 minute choral piece exploring loss, fortitude and self-realization. The multi sensorial performance of Dia Ti Maria included a soundtrack of 50 voices all sung by Bishi and immersive video projected onto her dress and a screen behind her. Bishi has been heralded by the New York Times as the “new British diva”. 

Last week was a good week for great performances, as I also went along to the TedxObserver event, where along with some of the most inspiring speakers I have seen in a long time (more of that to come), 22 year old Londoner Lianne De Havas performed two songs from her forthcoming album. Beautiful, charming and talented, Lianne caused a stir when she appeared on Later with Jools Holland on 2011 and is set to become a huge star.

For me, she is the Tracey Thorn of our daughters generation and  I haven’t  stopped playing No Room For Doubt since I saw her. I seem to be developing a huge girl crush!