Philippa Lowthorpe

Philippa Lowthorpe was born in a village near Doncaster, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England,^[2][3] and grew up in Nettleham, Lincolnshire.^[4]

She attended De Aston School in Market Rasen and then went to St Hilda's College, Oxford to study classics.^[4]

Lowthorpe moved to Bristol to make documentaries for BBC Bristol, including Three Salons at the Seaside and A Skirt Through History, about women's untold stories.^{[citation needed]}

Her award-winning documentaries led her to be invited to write and direct her first drama, Eight Hours from Paris (1997) for George Faber, a film for Screen Two in which real people played themselves, alongside professional actors.^[4] This was followed by The Other Boleyn Girl (2003), adapted from the 2001 novel of the same name by Philippa Gregory, for BBC films, shown on BBC 2.^{[citation needed]} In 2006 she directed Beau Brummell: This Charming Man (2006).^{[citation needed]}

She was lead director on the very first series of Call the Midwife.^{[citation needed]} She also directed the first Call the Midwife Christmas Special (2013), for which she won a British Academy Television Craft Award in 2013.^[5] A 2013 interview with her appears on the BAFTA website.^[6] She also received a British Film Institute award in 2013.^[7] She directed Jamaica Inn in 2014.^{[citation needed]}

Her first feature film, Swallows and Amazons (2016), won Grand Prize Feature at New York International Children's Film Festival, and the Youth Jury Award for Best Films4Families Feature at Seattle International Film Festival in 2017.^[8][9][10]

The BBC mini-series Three Girls (2017), about the Rochdale young child exploitation, reunited her with executive producer Susan Hogg and producer Simon Lewis, with whom she had previously worked on Five Daughters.^{[citation needed]} The series was awarded by BAFTA for best directing in fiction, with writer Nicole Taylor recognised for best writing in a drama series, and Úna Ní Dhonghaíle for best editing in fiction, in 2018. In May 2018 Three Girls was voted Best Mini Series at the BAFTA TV Awards (shared with Nicole Taylor, Susan Hogg, and Simon Lewis).^{[citation needed]} In October 2018 Three Girls a won the Prix Italia (again shared with Nicole Taylor, Susan Hogg and Simon Lewis).^{[citation needed]}

In 2025 Lowthorpe directed the factual drama miniseries based on the imprisonment of a British national in Iran, Prisoner 951.^[11]

Documentary series

TV movies

Miniseries

TV series

Documentary film

• Three Salons at the Seaside^[16] (1994) (Also producer)

Short film

• The Spy Who Caught A Cold (1994)
• The Gorals Do Bristol (1999)

Feature film

• Swallows and Amazons (2016)
• Misbehaviour (2020)
• H Is for Hawk (2025) (Also writer)

Notes

1. ^1a Call the Midwife — with Heidi Thomas (writer), Hugh Warren (producer), and Pippa Harris (executive producer)

... ^1b — with Heidi Thomas (writer) and Pippa Harris (executive producer)

2. ^2a Three Girls — with Nicole Taylor (writer), Simon Lewis (producer), and Susan Hogg (executive producer)

3. ^3a Swallows and Amazons — with Andrea Gibb

4. ^4a Five Daughters — with Stephen Butchard and Simon Lewis