The Filmmakers
From Director Louise Osmond:
I hope people can be swept up by the power of the story. That’s what first drew me to it: the extraordinary twists and turns, the hope and despair, the awful inevitability of a man becoming trapped by circumstances. It seemed such a very human predicament: facing an impossible decision, Crowhurst reluctantly tells a small white lie, but no sooner is it said than the consequences of that lie grow and expand and day by day become ever more complex and irreversible.
And this extraordinary story is set against the very evocative backdrop of the wide ocean; his internal debate takes place in absolute isolation, in the desert of a calm empty sea. It’s the setting of a fable, but it’s a true story, and that’s why it’s so moving and so disturbing.
Her three favorite films:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 21 Grams, Grey Gardens
Her advice for aspiring filmmakers:
I think trying to understand the industry, its people and your place in it is important. What do you do best? What kind of film will play to your talents? Where would your great ideas get the best and most receptive hearing?
But most of all try to find good people—good companies, good mentors, good crew. Work with the best people you can, no matter how opinionated!
Her most inspirational food for making independent film:
This is difficult one. But I would say there is no bad day that can’t be turned into a better day by great amounts of peanut butter.
Bios
|
Louise Osmond
Director
Louise Osmond studied modern history at Oxford and joined ITN’s Editorial Trainee program when she graduated. She worked in the Europe Bureau covering events in Brussels, Paris and Rome and as a foreign desk editor in London before becoming a documentary director.
Her recent work includes three feature-length documentaries: Blitz: London’s Firestorm, short listed for the 2006 Grierson Award for Best Historical Documentary; The Search for the Northwest Passage, for Channel 4/PBS; and Looking for Victoria, for BBC1. Other recent credits include Why We Went to War, The Real Hughie Green, Timewatch: Death of the Battleship and To the Ends of the Earth: Hell on High Water. Osmond also co-founded the production company World’s End Pictures.
Jerry Rothwell
Director
|
Jerry Rothwell is an experienced documentary filmmaker with more than 10 years of broadcast experience. His television directing credits include The Late George Shaw (2004), two short films in Channel 4’s Modern Painters series (2003) and Fact Plus Fiction (2001).
Rothwell played a lead role in developing Hi8us’s award-winning improvised dramas with young people for Channel 4, and in establishing First Light, the Film Council’s program for young filmmakers. He continues to work with Hi8us, most recently developing a Web-based digital storytelling project with Roma communities in Slovakia. His second feature documentary is Heavy Load.
Al Morrow
Producer
Al Morrow brought DEEP WATER to APT Films as an independent producer but has since joined the company as a development executive. Her next project was producing Heavy Load, a feature documentary about a punk band made up of musicians with and without learning disabilities, also directed by Jerry Rothwell. Morrow is the founder of Stir Fried Films with Ben Ridley and Jonathan Banatvala.
Jonny Persey
Producer
Jonny Persey is an independent film producer and managing director of APT Films. He studied psychology at Cambridge University and spent many years as a youth worker and training consultant before producing his first feature film, Everyone’s Child (1996). He then trained at the National Film and Television School, producing a series of acclaimed short films both independently and through the school. In 2004, he produced his second feature, Wondrous Oblivion.
Persey is in production on three micro-budget feature films. He is also the school director of the Metropolitan Film School at Ealing Studios, serves on PACT’S Film Policy Group and is a member of ACE.
John Smithson
Producer
John Smithson is founder and creative director of Darlow Smithson Productions, a multi-award-winning independent TV and film production company based in London. As producer, director and executive producer, Smithson has won more than 20 international awards, including recognition from BAFTA, the RTS and the U.S. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
He produced Touching the Void, the most successful British theatrical documentary in U.K. box office history and the winner of 15 awards. His most recent TV work is as creator and executive producer of Alive, a major docu-drama series for Discovery Channel U.S. and Channel 4.
