Sarah Greenwood, production designer & Katie Spence, set decorator have been close collaborators for 25 years. Together they imagined the worlds of critically acclaimed films like Anna Karenina, Atonement and Pride & Prejudice. The duo were recently tapped by Greta Gerwig to bring Barbie Land to life in the record-beating, hottest film of the year, Barbie. The results of their work are truly dazzling.
Join us for a dynamic conversation as the creative duo discuss the collaboration required to pull off a director’s vision and the difference between set design for modern utopias and period pieces, offering us a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes magic.
This talk will be moderated by director and journalist, Chandler Levack (I Like Movies, 2022).
Presented by
Media Partner
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Guests
Sarah Greenwood
Production Designer
Born in England, Sarah began her career designing for the stage. Moving to the screen she went on to work at the BBC, becoming a Senior Designer and establishing the successful series Later with Jools Holland and The Late Show. Here she won a Royal Television Society Award and received a BAFTA TV Award nomination for her production design work on the drama series The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Sarah Greenwood is a six-time Academy Award nominated production designer, earning her most recent acknowledgement for her work on Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour and Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast. Sarah received her previous Oscar nominations for her work with Joe Wright on his acclaimed films Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, for which she won a BAFTA, and Anna Karenina, for which she also won the Art Directors’ Guild Award, The European Film Award, The Evening Standard Award and the Hollywood Production Designer of the Year Award.
Sarah has recently finished working on Barbie with Greta Gerwig and Back to Black with Sam Taylor Johnson. She has worked closely for many years with Katie Spencer, her longtime collaborator and set decorator.
Katie Spencer
Set Decorator
Born in Yorkshire, England Katie studied at Stage Management at Central School of Speech and Drama in London. After several years working in the West End and theatres including the Royal Court, Almeida, and Donmar Warehouse, Katie moved as a freelancer to the BBC, retraining first as a production buyer then as a set decorator on television and film.
At the BBC she met and first worked with production designer Sarah Greenwood, a close collaboration and that has continued for over 20 years. Their work together has ranged from period pieces like Pride and Prejudice and Atonement to the action movies of Sherlock Holmes and Hanna, innovative pieces like Anna Karenina, the musicals Beauty and the Beast and Cyrano, through to their latest collaboration, Barbie.
Katie is a six-time Academy Award nominee and has been nominated for seven BAFTA awards, winning for Atonement. Katie is on the Executive Committee for Production Design at the Academy of Motion Pictures. In May 2024 the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will host an exhibition showcasing the collaboration between Sarah and Katie.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Apocalypse in the Tropics
An Academy Award nominee for Edge of Democracy, Petra Costa returns with a fascinating take on how the Evangelical movement has taken Brazil by storm and worked with the right to undermine the constitutional separation of Church and State.
Ghosts of the Sea
Imagine an especially poetic true crime podcast about a sailor who built his own sailboat and lived on the high seas, but lost not one, but two wives along the way... Now imagine it told from the vantage point of his daughter: Ghosts of the Sea.
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.
In the Heat of the Night
Sidney Poitier in an indelible role a Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs, pulled in as a murder suspect when changing trains in Mississippi. He allies with bigoted local sheriff (Rod Steiger) to solve the case.
Happy Feet
A tap-dancing penguin named Mumble can't sing like the others, but his unique skill may save his colony. Happy Feet is a music-filled adventure that celebrates courage, friendship, staying true to yourself, and is a perfect icy break this summer!