Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland and 24 Hour Party People—have competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He and co-director Mat Whitecross won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival for their work on The Road to Guantanamo. His production company, Revolution Films, has a first look deal with Fremantle. Early life Winterbottom was born in Blackburn, Lancashire. He went to Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, and then studied English at Balliol College, Oxford, before going to film school at Bristol University, where his contemporaries included Marc Evans. Early television career Winterbottom's television directing career began in 1989, with a documentary about Ingmar Bergman and an episode of the children's series Dramarama. He followed this with the 1990 television film Forget About Me, starring Ewen Bremner, which followed two British soldiers who become involved in a love triangle with a young Hungarian hitch-hiker on their way to Budapest for a Simple Minds concert. It was his first collaboration with writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce. They would go on to make six more films together. Shot on 16mm film, it played a few European film festivals. In 1991, he directed episodes of various British TV shows, including the four-part children's series Time Riders and an episode of Boon. In 1992, he directed the television film Under the Sun about a young British woman traveling in Greece, starring Kate Hardie. It was shot on Super 16 film and gained him further attention. In 1993, he directed an episode of the Inspector Alleyn Mysteries; Love Lies Bleeding, a television film written by Ronan Bennett about a convicted IRA member on a 24-hour home leave from prison in Belfast; and The Mad Woman in the Attic, the pilot of Jimmy McGovern's mystery series Cracker. He next directed the 1994 mini-series Family, written by Roddy Doyle, the author of The Commitments. It was a huge success in Ireland and led to a vocal debate there about the depiction of both the working classes and spousal abuse in the media. His final early television project was a 1995 episode of the documentary series Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood, focusing on Scandinavian silent cinema.