Docu-drama, 45 min, 2022
Director: Andrea Oster

For centuries Mary Tudor, the first English queen, has been portrayed as a cruel, despotic ruler. Forever known as “Bloody Mary”, she had more than 300 Protestant “heretics” burned at the stake. However, she actually believed she was helping them by saving their souls from eternal damnation.

Queen Mary I was the first-born child of the legendary Tudor king Henry VIII and the half-sister of the equally renowned Queen Elizabeth I. Even 450 years after her death, her terrible reputation has eclipsed some of her remarkable achievements: Mary Tudor was the first woman on England’s throne and the first dynastic queen. She was also a pioneering, powerful ruler despite the overwhelming misogyny of her age.

Mary’s five years of rule would now, perhaps, be considered a ground-breaking moment in the history of women’s rights and gender equality  – if some of her contemporaries had not done everything in their power to ruin her reputation and destroy her legacy. The most prominent of these adversaries was her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I. She skilfully took advantage of Mary’s missteps and mistakes in order to manipulate public opinion, an early example of propaganda and hate speech that resonates to this day.

The documentary examines the real woman behind the mythical, terrifying “Bloody Mary”. Her story is narrated by the very person who did so much to establish this myth: Queen Elizabeth I, portrayed by the celebrated Austrian actor Marie-Christine Friedrich. Context is provided by some of Britain’s most respected historians, and the film presents a compelling, comprehensive examination of one of the most controversial figures in European history.