Gareth Jones (director)
Gareth Jones (born 9 February 1951) is a British film and television director and screenwriter, owner of independent production company Scenario Films.
Background
Gareth Jones was born in London in February 1951, son of BBC Foreign Correspondent Ivor Jones and Jane Ann Sterndale Bennett. He is the grandson of the actress Athene Seyler[1][2] and great-great-grandson of the composer William Sterndale Bennett. He was educated at Westminster School and St. John's College, Cambridge where he read Modern Languages. After graduation in 1973, he trained for a year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama before joining Prospect Theatre Company, where he worked with Kenny McBain, directing Shakespeare, Brecht, Strindberg and Chekhov.
He was Director of Productions at bilingual Welsh/English touring company Theatr yr Ymylon, and between 1977 and 1980 worked as a freelance theatre director for the Royal Court Theatre with Stuart Burge, and Theatr Clwyd where he directed his own plays My People (based on the short stories of Caradoc Evans) and Solidarity[3] During the 1980s he published two novels Lord of Misrule and Noble Savage.
After training as a television director at HTV Wales, he joined Granada Television at the invitation of producer Bill Podmore for whom he directed Coronation Street and comedy drama series Brass[4][5][6] starring Timothy West, Caroline Blakiston and Barbara Ewing, the second series of which he also produced. From 1984-7 he worked as a freelance writer/director for BBC television drama, writing drama series Fighting Back[7][8] starring Hazel O'Connor and 5-part drama Shalom Salaam,[9][10][11] a ground-breaking Jewish-Muslim love story starring Mamta Kaash, Toby Rolt, Ayub Khan-Din and Charlotte Cornwell, which he also directed.
Other television directing credits include The Trial of Klaus Barbie[12][13] (1987) which was based on court transcripts and screened shortly after the verdict, Watch with Mother and Seeing in the Dark for BBC Drama, and Seduction – Tell Me More for Channel 4 for whom he also shot and co-wrote 3-part documentary Born of the One Father (Au Nom du Même Père) in 1980–1.
Jones has worked as a screenwriter in Europe, where his credits include television movies such as Forbidden Zone (Verbotene Zone)[14] and Not Without You (Nicht Ohne Dich)[15] for German broadcaster ZDF, The Gift of Life (Un Cadeau: la Vie) for France 2, Joseph, Mary Magdalen, Thomas and Saul of Tarsus for Mediaset in Italy, and award-winning feature film Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace, starring Ulrich Tukur.[16]
Most recently, Jones has written and directed a trilogy of feature films known collectively as the D-Trilogy, Desire (2009),[17][18][19] Delight (2013) starring Jeanne Balibar,[20][21] and Delirium (2016).[22]
Since 2007 he has run feature film development initiative Babylon,[23] aimed at promoting cultural diversity within the independent film sector in Europe, and to provide an international platform for emerging filmmakers.
In 2011 he was awarded his PhD from Cambridge University[24] for his thesis Rites of Recuperation: Film and the Holocaust in Germany and the Balkans.
Jones lives in London with his spouse and business partner, producer and composer Fiona Howe,[25] and their two children. He has two elder children, both university academics, by an earlier marriage.
Career
Film and Television Credits
| Year(s) | Title | Role | Channel/Distributor | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Crown Court | Writer | Granada Television | 3 x 30 mins |
| 1981 | Coronation Street | Director | Granada Television | 14 x 30 mins |
| 1983 | Brass (Series 1) | Director | Granada Television | 13 x 25 mins |
| 1984 | Brass (Series 2) | Producer/Director | Granada Television | 13 x 25 mins |
| 1985 | Albion Market (Pilot) | Director | Granada Television | 2 x 30 mins |
| 1985-6 | Albion Market | Producer | Granada Television | 70 x 30 mins |
| 1986 | Fighting Back | Writer | BBC Television | 5 x 60 mins |
| 1987 | The Trial of Klaus Barbie | Director | BBC Television | 1 x 90 mins |
| 1988 | Shalom Salaam | Writer/Director | BBC Television | 5 x 60 mins |
| 1988 | Watch with Mother | Director | BBC Television | 1 x 75 mins |
| 1989 | Seeing in the Dark | Director | BBC Television | 1 x 75 mins |
| 1990 | Seduction: Tell Me More | Director | Channel 4 | 1 x 20 mins |
| 1991 | Born of the One Father (Au Nom du Même Père) | Director | Channel 4/TF1 | 3 x 50 mins |
| 1994 | Forbidden Zone (Verbotene Zone) | Co-Writer | ZDF/ARTE | 1 x 90 mins |
| 1995-6 | Open Sundays (Sonntags Geöffnet) | Co-Writer | RTL | 13 x 50 mins |
| 1999 | The Gift of Life (Un Cadeau la Vie) | Co-Writer | France 2 | 1 x 90 mins |
| 1999 | Joseph (Giuseppe) | Writer | Mediaset | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2000 | St Paul (San Paolo) | Writer | Mediaset | 2 x 90 mins |
| 2000 | Mary Magdalene (Maria Maddalena) | Writer | Mediaset | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2000 | Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace (Die letzte Stufe) | Writer | ARD/Theatrical | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2001 | Thomas (Tommaso) | Writer | Mediaset | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2001 | Not Without You (Nicht Ohne Dich) | Co-Writer | ZDF | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2009 | Desire | Writer/Director | Scenario Films/Theatrical | 1 x 90 mins |
| 2013 | Delight | Writer/Director | Scenario Films/Theatrical | 1 x 100 mins |
| 2016 | Delirium | Writer/Director | Scenario Films/Theatrical | 1 x 100 mins |
Awards and Nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Title | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | British Press Guild Award | Best Light Entertainment | Brass | Won |
| 1989 | FIPA, Cannes | Best Actress | Shalom Salaam | Won |
| 1989 | FIPA, Cannes, SACD Award | Best Screenplay | Shalom Salaam | Won |
| 2000 | 40th International TV Festival Monte Carlo | Nymphe d'Or | Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace | Won |
| 2000 | DAG Writer's Award, Germany | Gold Medal, Most Challenging German Film | Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace | Won |
| 2000 | New York Festival | Bronze World Medal | Bonhoeffer - Agent of Grace | Won |
| 2009 | 17th Raindance Film Festival 2009 | Best UK Feature | Desire | Nominated |
| 2013 | German Script Prize 2013 | Best Script | A Slice of Sea | Nominated |
| 2013 | 35th Moscow Film Festival 2013 | Golden St George, Best Film | Delight | Nominated |
Theatre and Radio Credits
| Year | Title | Role | Venue/Broadcaster | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | My People | Writer/Adaptor/Director | Theatr Clwyd/Tour | Theatre Play |
| 1981 | Solidarity | Writer/Director | Theatr Clwyd | Theatre Play |
| 1981 | Solidarity | Writer | BBC Radio 3 | Theatre Play |
| 1981 | Lord of Misrule | Writer/Novel | BBC Radio 4 | 9-part Dramatization |
| 1982 | The Drovers' Roads | Writer/Director/Presenter | BBC Wales | Radio Documentary |
| 1982 | Night Must Fall | Director | Theatr Clwyd | Theatre Play |
Published Works
| Year | Title | Role | Publisher | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Lord of Misrule(aka The Disinherited) | Author | Farrar, Straus & Giroux US/Gollancz/Penguin UK | Novel |
| 1985 | Noble Savage | Author | Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Sphere UK | Novel |
| 2006 | The Optimists | Author | Kinokultura, November 2006, ed Iordanova | Film Criticism/Academic |
| 2006 | Sarajevo - Trauma Revisited | Author | Beyond Camps and Forced Labour, ed Steinert and Weber-Newth (Osnabrück: Secolo, 2007) | Film Criticism/Academic |
| 2007 | The Cinema of the Balkans | Author | Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 27, Issue 2 | Film Criticism/Academic |
| 2007 | An Inner Exodus: The Many Diasporas of Balkan Cinema | Author | Cineaste, Vol XXXII, No 3 | Film Criticism/Academic |
| 2010 | Future Imperfect; European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe ed. Berghahn and Sternberg | Author | Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 | Film Criticism/Academic |
References
- Athene Seyler on Desert Island discs 2 October 1988. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway/books/gareth%2Bjones
- Correspondence between Athene Seyler and J. C. Trewin 6, 9 April 1981, p 18 re G Jones The Disinherited. http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/special-collections/trewin.pdf
- The Guardian, Carol Wilks review, 30 April 1981.
- TV Times Magazine 26 February - 4 March 1983, cover story and article pp16-19
- Arts Guardian 15 March 1983, review by Peter Fiddick
- Guardian Online 24 May 2012 "Your next box set: Brass". https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/may/24/brass-your-next-box-set
- Radio Times 2–8 August 1986, cover article pp 4-5
- Sunday Times review 17 August 1986, Rachel Hepburn
- Radio Times 22–28 April 1989, article pp 10-11
- Sunday Times article 5 February 1989, Amit Roy
- Making Sense of Suburbia Through Popular Culture – Rupa Huq (Bloomsbury, 2013) p164 https://books.google.com/books?id=MoKuVLHEMvUC&dq=shalom+salaam+bbc+1989&source=gbs_navlinks_s
- Sunday Times Review 19 July 1987, Patrick Stoddart, p 58
- The Guardian, Media Page, 13 July 1987, Peter Fiddick, p13
- https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0114832/
- https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0282794/
- https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0250264/
- Johnian News Issue 26 October 2009: Desire - A Film by Gareth Jones starring Oscar Pearce. http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/johnian-news-issue-26
- 17th Raindance Film Festival Nominations Best UK Feature 2009. http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/raindance-film-festival-awards-2009%5B%5D
- Screen Daily Review - Desire 3 March 2011. http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/latest-reviews/desire/5024501.article
- Moscow Times Article 21 June 2013. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/35th-moscow-international-film-festival-takes-off/482001.html
- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/moscow-film-fest-kick-thursday-570884
- http://www.screendaily.com/news/gareth-jones-delirium-begins-shoot/5092217.article
- http://www.screendaily.com/european-partners-start-new-initiative-for-minority-film-makers/4028210.article
- http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2010-11/weekly/6234/6234.pdf p11
- https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0397816/
External links
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