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The 5-Minute Interview: Martha Fiennes, Film director

'I saw more elephants than in your wildest imagination'

Saturday 30 December 2006 01:00 GMT
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Martha Fiennes, 42, director of the acclaimed 'Chromophobia', has created a new short film for Bafta and Orange's 60 Seconds of Fame competition. Open to the public, the winner will attend the Baftas and have their film shown as part of the BBC1 broadcast. Watch Fiennes's film on ww.orange.co.uk/bafta

If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be ...

Watching a cat land on a jellyfish repeatedly. (It's something that I'm editing).

A phrase I use far too often is ...

Brilliant!

I wish people would take more notice of ...

Global emissions and the threat to a glorious planet. Duh.

The most surprising thing that ever happened to me was ...

Going to the elephant trading fair in Bihar, India, with the wonderful Mark Shand. It was a medieval maelstrom of biblical proportions: mass immersion in the Ganges, more elephants per square foot than your wildest imagination - matched only by the mass human fouling all around.

I'm good at ...

Hopscotch.

But I'm very bad at ...

Hockey.

A common misperception of me is ...

That I might ever have had the urge to act. I haven't.

The ideal night out is ...

Whatever is the perfect antidote to the day I've just had.

You know me as a director, but in a truer life I'd have been a ...

Parapsychologist.

The best age to be is ...

No idea. I've never set too much store by age.

In a nutshell, my philosophy is:

Push on, but smile inwardly at the madness.

Sara Newman

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