The eco cabal

Four film-makers – Eski Thomas, Lila Morgan, Christina Robert and Lesley Cavendish – get together as Bright Green Pictures with one big idea: to make short environmental consciousness-raising films, "commercials on behalf of the planet".

"Motherhood means you take a break, and you start to think differently, to reprioritise," says Robert. "We all had that, I think. We stopped and we realised: you know what? We could make small films with a big impact. Between us, we've got quite a lot of contacts."

Understatement of the year: not only do all these women have 20-odd years' film experience, they all happen to be married to major power players: Morgan to writer of The Queen Peter Morgan; Thomas to Bertolucci's producer, Jeremy Thomas; Cavendish to the producer of Bridget Jones; while Robert's spouse, Barnaby Thompson, is head of Ealing Studios and produced St Trinian's.

"I see the Trinian's girls quite a lot and Tallulah Riley has told us she is ready to be in her first Bright Green Pictures film," says Robert.

Boy, are these women efficient: "We put our first film together in about three hours in our friend Rebecca Frayn's kitchen," (see www.wecan.uk.com). "We don't have set roles, as such," says Robert, "it just happens. None of us has patience with hierarchical structures any more. We're all mothers and we all appreciate the value of each other's time."

Cavendish, a producer of adverts and mother of triplets aged 11, sees their association as "post-feminist".

"Nobody shouts each other down," she says, "But that's what we're like as individuals. That's nothing to do with gender."