Film-maker

Ashley Avis wrote and directed Black Beauty, starring Kate Winslet, and the documentary Wild Beauty about the eradication of America's wild horses

- Kate Johnson

My path into the world of horses began with Black Beauty. I fell in love with the novel as a little girl, and asked my parents for riding lessons, aged seven, so I went full circle when I got the opportunity to write and direct the film.

I became a screenwriter, with a body of work, and at a meeting with the producer Jeremy Bolt, he asked what inspired me.

I blurted out everything I love about the beach scene of the 1970s film The Black Stallion. It's five minutes, set to music and no dialogue, about the beautiful, mysterious communication and connection you can have with a horse.

He said he'd been wanting to remake Black Beauty for about a decade; 10 days later I sent him a 40-page pitch, reimagining and modernising it, and at the producer's request, making Beauty female.

The first day we arrived in South Africa for filming, we dropped our bags at the hotel and went straight to the stables to meet the four Black Beauties and our liberty trainer, Cody.

Liberty training is based on kindness, and the horse has the liberty to accept or reject what you're asking of them.