During a New Directors preview in New York for her movie A Question of Silence (1982), a handful of men questioned her one-dimensional negative portrayal of men as a whole. As in the movie, they encountered laughter from the women who attended.
With Antonia's Line (1995) became the first woman to direct a movie that won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
Studied Drama at the University of Amsterdam, has an MA in Drama from the University of Birmingham, England.
Member of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2006.