Penny Woolcock (born 1 January 1950, in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a British filmmaker, opera director, and screenwriter. She was raised in a British community in Montevideo.In 1967, she founded a radical theatre group and was briefly arrested; her parents wanted to send her to Europe for safety. Instead, she fled to Spain with a man from the theatre group and had a baby in Barcelona.In 1970 she moved to England as a single mother. She did factory work and other jobs.