Martin Desmond Roe | |
---|---|
Nationality | British, American |
Alma mater | University of Southern California (MFA, Cinema-Television, 2008) Somerville College, Oxford (B.A., Classics, 2001) |
Occupation(s) | Film director, film producer, screenwriter |
Years active | 2009–present |
Known for | Buzkashi Boys, Tom vs Time, Breaking2, Kobe Bryant's Muse [1] |
Website | dirtyrobber |
Martin Desmond Roe is a British-American film and television director, writer, and producer. [2] [3] [1] He is best known for Buzkashi Boys (2012), [4] [5] Kobe Bryant's Muse (2015), [6] [3] Breaking2 (2017), [2] [7] [8] Tom vs Time (2018), [9] and We are the Champions (2020). [10] [11] [12] Roe is the founder and Creative Director of Dirty Robber, a Los Angeles–based production company. [3]
Martin Roe's short film Two Distant Strangers was met with critical acclaim; at the 93rd Academy Awards, it received the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. [13] [14]
Born in Bristol, England, [15] Roe studied Latin and Ancient Greek at Somerville College, Oxford, [16] graduating in 2001 with a BA in Classics. He moved to Los Angeles and entered the USC School of Cinematic Arts, earning an MFA in Cinema and Television in 2008. [17] [18]
Roe became interested in filmmaking and storytelling while staging plays during his time at Oxford. After finishing USC film school he founded Dirty Robber, a production company. [16] His first major success came in 2012 when Roe co-wrote the screenplay for Buzkashi Boys, a short film that was directed by Sam French. [5] Written in a week, on location in Kabul, Afghanistan, the film was inspired by the true life story of Fawad Mohammidi, [19] a homeless 14 year old street vendor and explored his friendship with another boy and their love for the traditional horse sport Buzkashi. [5] Buzkashi Boys gained critical acclaim [20] [21] winning numerous film festival awards, [22] [23] [24] and was nominated for the 2013 Best Live Action Short Film at the Academy Awards. [4]
In 2017, after directing a number of commercials for Nike, Inc., [25] Roe was invited as creative lead on Breaking2 sports documentary, a joint project of Nike and National Geographic in association with Dirty Robber. [26] The documentary short followed three world class athletes, Eliud Kipchoge, Lelisa Desisa, and Zersenay Tadese as they attempted to run a marathon in under two hours. [8] [27] Breaking2 won several awards in advertising industry [28] [29] including a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. [30] Roe also took part as an executive producer of 6 episodes for Tom vs Time, a collaborative web television series project directed by Gotham Chopra, which won Emmy Award for Outstanding Serialized Sports Documentary (NBC Sports). [9] In 2020, he co-directed the short film Two Distant Strangers, about police killings in the United States, which stars Joey Bada$$ and Andrew Howard, and which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2021. [31]
In 2023, Roe co-directed alongside Travon Free, BS High a documentary for HBO, revolving around the Bishop Sycamore High School scandal. [32] [33]
Roe is an owner and creative director of Dirty Robber Productions, a Los Angeles-based company with the focus on documentaries, T.V series, shows and sports events. Among Dirty Robber's most notable productions are Religion of Sports, [34] [35] Tom vs Time, [36] Kobe Bryant’s Muse (in collaboration with Kobe Inc.), [37] [38] Why We Fight (ESPN+), Wiz Khalifa: Behind the Cam (DIRECTV), [39] and We are the Champions, a documentary series about various contests and sports traditions. [3] [40]
Year | Title | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | BS High | Co-director | Documentary film |
2020 | Two Distant Strangers | Co-director | Short [41] |
2020 | We are the Champions | Executive producer (6 episodes) Director (2 episodes) | TV documentary series [2] |
2019 | Wiz Khalifa: Behind the Cam | Director (5 episodes) | TV documentary mini-series [2] |
2019 | Why We Fight | Executive producer (15 episodes) | TV documentary series [27] |
2018 | Shut Up and Dribble | Executive producer (3 episodes) | TV documentary series [42] |
2018 | Tom vs Time | Executive producer (6 episodes) | Documentary web television series (Emmy Award Winner) [9] |
2017 | Breaking2 | Director | TV movie documentary Cannes Gold Lions Winner Co-production of National Geographic Studios and Dirty Robber Productions [8] [43] |
2017 | Uninterrupted Presents | Executive producer (2 episodes) | TV series documentary |
2016 | Religion of Sports | Executive producer (18 episodes) Director Writer | TV series documentary [44] [45] |
2015 | Kobe Bryant's Muse | Producer | TV movie documentary [6] |
2012 | Buzkashi Boys | Co-producer Co-writer | Short |
Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan. It is a traditional sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. Similar games are known as kokpar, kupkari, and ulak tartysh in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, Bryant won five NBA championships and was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. He also led the NBA in scoring twice and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
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Ian Dalrymple was a British screenwriter, film director, film editor and film producer.
Cinema was introduced to Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century. Political troubles slowed the industry over the years; however, numerous Pashto and Dari films have been made both inside and outside Afghanistan throughout the 20th century. The cinema of Afghanistan entered a new phase in 2001, but has failed to recover to its popular pre-war status.
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Buzkashi Boys is a 2012 film, co-produced in Afghanistan and the United States. It was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
The Boxing Girls of Kabul is a 2012 Canadian documentary film directed by Ariel Nasr. The film follows young women boxers, under which Sadaf Rahimi, and their coach Sabir Sharifi at Afghanistan’s female boxing academy, as these athletes face harassment and threats in their efforts to represent their country in international competition and attempt to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Travon Free is an American comedian, actor and writer. He has written for Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Daily Show on Comedy Central, and Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons on HBO.
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BS High is an 2023 American documentary film directed by Martin Desmond Roe and Travon Free. It follows the Bishop Sycamore High School scandal. Spencer Paysinger serves as a producer, while Adam McKay and Michael Strahan serve as executive producers.