Franny Armstrong

Franny Armstrong (born 3 February 1972) is a British documentary film director working for her own company, Spanner Films, and a former drummer with indie pop group The Band of Holy Joy. She is best known for three films: The Age of Stupid, a reflection from 2055 about climate change, McLibel, about the McDonald's court case and Drowned Out, following the fight against the Narmada Dam Project.

Armstrong pioneered the use of crowdfunding for independent films and developed an innovative form of film distribution known as Indie Screenings. Her most recent project is the carbon reduction campaign 10:10 which she founded in the UK in September 2009 and which is now active in more than 50 countries. On International Women's Day, 8 March 2011, she was named as one of the Guardian newspaper's "Top 100 Women", in a list which included Aung San Suu Kyi, Gareth Pierce, Doris Lessing, Arundhati Roy and Oprah Winfrey. Her father is the pioneering TV producer Peter Armstrong.

Armstrong read zoology at University College, London and her thesis was Is the human species suicidal?

Armstrong's first documentary, McLibel (1997, 2005), is an account of the McDonald's libel trial, the longest-running court action in English legal history. Filmed over ten years with no commission, no budget and a voluntary crew – including Ken Loach, who directed the courtroom reconstructions – it shot to notoriety when lawyers prevented its broadcast, first at BBC1 and then at Channel 4 in 1997. Eight years later - after the 'McLibel Two' had defeated the British government at the European Court of Human Rights – it was finally broadcast on BBC2 at 10.30pm on a Sunday, to an estimated 1 million viewers.

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