Hot 100 2012 DIRECTORS


stylised, Pinter-esque dialogue, genre-defying switches of tone and several breathtaking set pieces, from a tense chase on foot through London’s parks to a drive-by shooting of a motor cyclist in static long shot. Blick was rewarded with a Bafta for this distinctive piece of work – a statement of intent for BBC2’s revived drama slate.


1 Yann Demange Top Boy


At the helm of one of the most startling dramas of the past year, Channel 4’s Top Boy, Yann Demange pulled off the trick of capturing both a gritty rawness and images of quite startling beauty. Determined not to make the Hackney gang drama just “EastEnders with guns”, Demange injected a slick pace and charac- ter-based tonal palettes, and talked Brian Eno into creating an ethereal score – and all this while handling a largely untrained cast in 68 speaking roles. He was Bafta-nominated for his efforts, which built on his earlier striking work on E4’s Dead Set and BBC1’s Criminal Justice. After directing the video for Plan B’s Ill Manors, Demange is now looking to make his feature fi lm debut with 1970s Belfast drama 71. Fingers crossed he’s got time to oversee the com- missioned Top Boy 2.


Top Boy


Dispatches, presented late at night due to some horrifi c images, and stoking the global news agenda with its revelations of crimes against humanity in the country’s civil war – until then, a “war without witnesses”. The fi lm was discussed in parliament and helped infl uence the UN’s resolu- tion for action – all thanks to fi rst-class journalism and a skin thick enough to take on the inevi- table political battles.


a diet of fermented seal intestine. She was shooting in the Arctic when heavily pregnant, enduring backache and self-confessed grumpy moods in a 10-day quest to fi nd and fi lm a polar bear mother (below). One of three female directors on the project, which she also produced, Berlow- itz pioneered the use of the Cine- fl ex zoom lens rig on Planet Earth and is preparing to fi lm grizzly bears in Alaska with hi-tech HD remote cameras.


5 Marc Munden


The Crimson Petal And The White


3 Vanessa Berlowitz Frozen Planet 2 Callum Macrae


Vanessa Berlowitz, a 20-year veteran of the BBC Natural


Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields


Possibly the only director here to have received an Erotic Award (for his 2002 documentary My Body Is Business) and been put forward for a Nobel Peace Prize, Callum Macrae delivered arguably the most infl uential documentary of the past year. Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields – together with its follow- up, War Crimes Unpunished –was an unprecedented edition of


14 | Broadcast | Hot 100


History Unit, was chief director of the landmark series’ aerial


sequences, earning her the nick- name ‘Helicopter Barbie’ among the team. The stun- ning sequences were not without their


challenges, from a hairy moment in which a helicop- ter was almost sucked into a waterfall to surviving on


4 Hugo Blick


After winning acclaim for his bold treatments of The Mark Of Cain and The Devil’s Whore, Marc Munden turned his attention to the 19th-century gothic melo- drama of The Crimson Petal And The White. A book in which no smell or sight went undescribed was a tough translation, but Munden brought it to life with recurring bird imagery, vivid reds and stark whites, and what he described as “elements of docu- mentary observation, sequences that are more classic and formal, and bits that look like pop promos, as well as horror fi lm references”. After putting blood back into Victorian period drama, he’s now moving into more contemporary conspiracy thriller territory with Channel 4’s 6 x 60-minute Utopia.


The Shadow Line


Hugo Blick’s left-turn into noir drama after successes with small- scale comic monologues – the “symphony” to Marion & Geoff’s “chamber piece” – was that rare thing in TV drama: a piece that, love it or hate it, arrived on its own terms and demanded you


saddle up for the ride. Those who stayed beyond its lengthy, slow opening scene were


rewarded with


6 Jezza Neumann


Poor Kids, Kashmir’s Torture Trail


Despite his double-whammy at the Baftas for China’s Stolen Children in 2007 – Best Factual


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28