In honor of Women’s History Month, we got to speak with the women behind Spacewoman, writer/director Hannah Berryman and Colonel Eileen Collins.
Eileen was the first woman to pilot and command an American spacecraft. Born on the other side of the tracks in upstate New York, she smashed many glass ceilings in the US Air Force and at NASA in her career, culminating in four increasingly dramatic and dangerous space shuttle missions. With an incredible set of archival materials, intimate interviews, and a moving score by Marcelo Zarvos, this nail-biting documentary shares the emotional journey experienced by Eileen’s family, and explores what level of risk is acceptable in human endeavor.
Written and directed by Hannah Berryman, Spacewoman features Colonel Eileen Collins, Bridget Youngs, Pat Youngs, Luke Youngs, Charlie Camarda, Cady Coleman, Dr. Mike Foale, Wayne Hale, Paul Hill, Marcia Dunn, and Margy Conklin. The film was produced by: Keith Haviland and Natasha Dack Ojumu.
Hannah Berryman specializes in documentaries that center women. She made an award-nominated feature documentary Coco Chanel: Unbuttoned, about the famous yet enigmatic designer. She also made a BBC documentary on the women that took part in and protested against the 1970 ‘Miss World’ contest, at the start of the feminist movement. Before that, she made the feature documentary Rockfield: The Studio On The Farm about the eccentric Welsh recording studio where Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Oasis and Coldplay recorded. She also made the popular BBC series Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal, about the Queen’s wayward younger sister, filming with the people who knew her best.
Check out our interview with Eileen and Hannah: