John Grierson was a Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's Moana. In 1939, Grierson established the all-time Canadian film institutional production and distribution company The National Film Board of Canada controlled by the Government of Canada.
The Carnegie Medal for Writing, established in 1936 as the Carnegie Medal, is an annual British literary award for English-language books for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), who in 2016 called it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing".
Timothy Lancaster West CBE FRSA was an English actor and director with a long and varied career across theatre, film, and television. He began acting in repertory theatres in the 1950s before making his London stage debut in 1959 moving on to three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company during the 1960s. During his life, West played King Lear and Macbeth (twice) along with other notable roles in The Master Builder and Uncle Vanya.
The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annual recognised one fiction book written for children or young adults and published in the United Kingdom. It was conferred upon the author of the book by The Guardian newspaper, which established it in 1965 and inaugurated it in 1967. It was a lifetime award in that previous winners were not eligible. At least from 2000 the prize was £1,500. The prize was apparently discontinued after 2016, though no formal announcement appears to have been made.
The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for a time, was a set of annual awards for British children's books that ran from 1985 to 2007. It was administered by BookTrust, an independent charity that promotes books and reading in the United Kingdom, and sponsored by Nestlé, the manufacturer of Smarties chocolate. It was one of the most respected and prestigious prizes for children's literature.
Timothy Leonard Spall is an English actor. He gained recognition for his character actor roles on stage and screen. He is known for his collaborations with director Mike Leigh, acting in six of his films: Home Sweet Home (1982), Life is Sweet (1990), Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), and Mr. Turner (2014). He was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role in Secrets and Lies, and received the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award for his portrayal of J. M. W. Turner in Mr. Turner. In 2000, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. He won the 2024 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for his performance as Peter Farquhar in The Sixth Commandment.
Tobias Simpson Menzies is an English actor. He is known for playing Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in the third and fourth seasons of the series The Crown, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and British Academy Television Award nominations. Menzies also played Frank and Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall in Starz's Outlander, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination, in addition to his roles as Brutus in Rome and Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones.
Antonia Jane Bird, FRSA was an English producer and director of television drama and feature films.
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. The festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 feature films and 150 short films from more than 70 countries are screened at the festival each year.
Daniel Kaluuya is an English actor and filmmaker. His work encompasses both screen and stage, and his accolades include an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2021, he was named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
Vicky Lee McClure is an English actress, model and presenter. She is known for her roles as Detective Inspector Kate Fleming in the BBC series Line of Duty (2012–2021) and Lol Jenkins in Shane Meadows's film This Is England (2006) and its Channel 4 sequel mini-series This Is England '86 (2010), This Is England '88 (2011), and This Is England '90 (2015). Before This is England, she appeared in another of Meadows' films, A Room for Romeo Brass (1999), where she played Ladine. She won the RTS Award and British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Lol in This is England '86 in 2011.
Josh Appignanesi is a British film director, producer, and screenwriter. Appignanesi is best known for the feature film Song of Songs (2006), starring Natalie Press, which he directed, co-wrote and co-produced. The film won several awards including a special commendation for Best British Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Made on a tiny budget, the film is a dark study of the intense relationship between a brother and highly religious sister in London's Orthodox Jewish community. The film had a small, arthouse UK release but received critical acclaim; The Observer said it "reveals a distinctive and bold new voice in British cinema." He has written and directed several short films, most notably Ex Memoria (2006) which also stars Natalie Press as well as Sara Kestelman in a study of a woman with Alzheimer's disease, funded by the Wellcome Trust; and Nine 1/2 Minutes (2003), a romantic comedy starring David Tennant.
Russell Barnes is a British television producer and director, known primarily for documentaries about science and contemporary history. He was educated at Bedford Modern School and studied history at Christ's College, Cambridge.
John Walsh is an English filmmaker and author. He is the founder of the film company Walsh Bros. Ltd. His film work on subjects such as social mobility and social justice has received two BAFTA nominations.
Morfydd Clark is a Welsh actress. Her appearances include Love & Friendship (2016), Interlude in Prague (2017), and The Personal History of David Copperfield (2019). Also on television, she played Mina Harker in Dracula (2020) and Sister Clara in His Dark Materials (2019).
Matt Shea is a British documentary filmmaker, journalist and presenter.
Heart Valley is a 2022 short documentary film about Welsh shepherd Wilf Davies. Directed and produced by filmmaker Christian Cargill, the film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 9, 2022 where it won the award for Best Documentary Short. It first broadcast in the UK on BBC Two Wales and BBC iPlayer on July 26, 2022 and released online with The New Yorker on December 2, 2022. The documentary won the BAFTA Cymru Award 2023 for Short Film and was nominated for The Grierson Award 2023 for Best Documentary Short. The Hollywood Reporter named Heart Valley as one of their Top 23 Short Documentaries of 2022 and it was one of 98 films to qualify for the 95th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Short.
Jill Nicholls is a British filmmaker, best known for her art documentaries on television. Her films over the decades have frequently featured the lives of high-profile figures, including Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Diana Athill, Judith Kerr, Salman Rushdie, Vivian Maier, Louise Bourgeois and Tom Stoppard. Nicholls has won several awards for her films, including from the Royal Television Society, the Grierson Trust and the New Orleans Film Festival. Also a journalist, she worked in the 1970s for women's liberation magazine Spare Rib, as well writing for other publications.
Gerald Fox is a director, producer and artist. He has directed arts documentary films and programs which were broadcast in the UK, South Africa and the US. His moving image artworks have been showcased in solo and group exhibitions across a variety of galleries and museums, including Zabludowicz 176 Gallery.
The 67th BFI London Film Festival was a film festival that took place from 4–15 October 2023. The competition films were announced on 29 August 2023 while the films for the galas and the strands were revealed on 31 August 2023. The juries for the various sections of the festival were announced on 19 September 2023.
