Michael Winterbottom, the multi-award winning British director whose prolific body of work includes more than 20 directing credits on hit films such as 24 hour Party People, Jude, Welcome to Sarajevo, A Mighty Heart, 9 Songs, The Killer Inside Me and the forthcoming film Face of an Angel, gave an enthralling masterclass students at the NFTS.
Speaking in conversation with NFTS Head of Producing Chris Auty, Winterbottom talked about his passion for documentary and drama film making and the benefits of working with a trusted production team and the same actors including Shirley Henderson, Paul Popplewell, John Simm, Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Raymond Waring and Kieran O'Brien.
Starting his career working in British television in programmes such as the hit crime series Cracker, he moved into making films of which three — Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland and 24 Hour Party People — were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He went on to win many international awards including a Golden Bear, BIFA and BAFTA among others. Following the success of his film Jude in 1996, which brought him wider recognition, the director was offered many Hollywood scripts but chose instead to focus on other projects.
Winterbottom talked about his use of documentary style hand held cameras in films such as the 1999 hit Wonderland with its loose, handheld photography and naturalistic, often improvised dialogue and the film 24 Hour Party People, which documents the anarchic, drug and sex-fueled rise and fall of the influential label Factory Records and the music scene in Manchester from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s.
Recent media interest in his work has focussed on the forthcoming film The Face of an Angel starring Kate Beckinsale, Daniel Brühl and Cara Delevingne written by Paul Viragh, which is inspired partly by the book Angel Face by Barbie Latza Nadeau about the dramatic headline-making trial, conviction and eventual acquittal of American student Amanda Knox for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. However, Winterbottom told students that the drama was not about the actual Knox case, but instead centres on a fictional Italian court case, a filmmaker covering the case, and the case's impact on his family life.
You read about other recent Masterclass at the NFTS with Simon Beaufoy, Justin Chadwick, Mike Figgis, Steven Knight, Paul Webster and Guy Heeley here
