Paul Morrison

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Paul Morrison (born December 6, 1944 in London ) is a British documentary filmmaker and director.

Life

Morrison was born in London in 1944. His grandparents were anarchists and emigrated from Russia to Great Britain, where they ran a shop. Morrison's parents formed a reform community in the UK . The father changed the family name of the "Moskovitch" family to "Morrison". Morrison grew up with no deep connection to Jewish culture and did not begin to explore his Jewish roots until the 1970s.

Morrison worked as a documentary filmmaker after finishing his studies. His first work, which also made him famous, was John and Yoko in 1971 with John Lennon, among other things, singing at the piano at home. His documentary Like Other People , created in collaboration with the Spastics Society & Mental Health , won the 1973 Grierson Award. As part of the Newsreel Collective filmmaking community , Morrison created the documentary on racism Divide and Rule - Never! and as part of The Collective ( Joy Chamberlain , Noreen MacDowell , Pasco Macfarlane ) 1982 the feature and documentary True Romance Etc. about teenage sexual experiences. Morrison's other works include the satirical documentary Unstable Elements (1988), which deals with the nuclear industry, and From Bitter Earth (1989), about works of art created in ghettos and concentration camps during the Holocaust . Many of his documentaries were created for the British television station Channel Four .

In 1991, Morrison's book A Sense of Belonging: Dilemmas of British Jewish Identity , co-authored with Howard Cooper, and the documentary of the same name for Channel Four appeared. In the course of researching for documentaries and books, Morrison also discovered the previously unknown story of Jewish life in the Valleys of Wales. At the same time, Morrison's research also served to rediscover his own Jewish identity. When Morrison began to move away from documentaries in the 1990s, feeling that he had already told everything in the genre, he turned to fiction and wrote the screenplay for Salomon and Gaenor . The film, which is about the love of an Orthodox Jew for a simple Welsh working class daughter, was released in 1999 and made Morrison's debut feature film. Salomon and Gaenor was shot in a mix of English, Welsh and Yiddish and was nominated in 2000 for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film .

After Salomon and Gaenor , Morrison made other feature films: David's Wondrous World deals with the friendship of a Jewish boy with new neighbors from the Caribbean, while Morrison in Little Ashes thematizes a love affair between Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca .

In addition to his work in the film field, Morrison also works as a psychotherapist.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1971: John and Yoko (TV)
  • 1973: Like Other People (TV)
  • 1978: Divide and Rule - Never! (TV)
  • 1982: True Romance Etc. (TV)
  • 1988: Unstable Elements (TV)
  • 1989: From Bitter Earth (TV)
  • 1991: A Sense of Belonging (TV)
  • 1993: Degas and Pissarro Fall Out (TV short film)
  • 1994: Without Walls (TV documentary series, two episodes)
  • 1993: Degas and Pissarro Fall Out (TV)
  • 1994: Lucrezia Borgia Reveals All (TV)
  • 1994: A Midsummer Night's Scream (TV)
  • 1999: Salomon and Gaenor (Solomon and Gaenor)
  • 2003: David's Wondrous World (Wondrous Oblivion)
  • 2008: Little Ashes

Awards (selection)

  • 1999: Golden Dolphin, Festróia , for Salomon and Gaenor
  • 2000: Nomination for best film, Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film, for Salomon and Gaenor
  • 2004: Audience Award for Best Feature Film, Boston Jewish Film Festival, for David's Wondrous World
  • 2004: Nomination for the Emden Film Prize, Emden-Norderney International Film Festival , for David's wondrous world

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Morrison on explore.bfi.org.uk
  2. ↑ a b Peter Ephross: British Oscar nominee tells tale of forbidden Jewish-Welsh love . In: Jewish Bulletin of Northern California , accessed on January 18, 2016 ( British Oscar nominee tells tale of forbidden Jewish-Welsh love ( Memento of April 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive )).
  3. ↑ a b Naomi Pfeffermann: A Wales Tale . In: The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles , March 24, 2000 ( A Wales Tale By Naomi Pfefferman, Entertainment Editor ( Memento of May 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive )).
  4. ^ The Director / Writer. Out of the not-knowing, something forms . In: Christopher Hauke: Visible Mind: Movies, Modernity and the Unconscious . Routledge 2013, p. 145.
  5. ↑ Paul Morrison's CV on aptonline.co.uk ( Paul Morrison on aptonline.co.uk ( Memento of 6 May 2004 at the Internet Archive )).
  6. ↑ Overview of the winners on griersontrust.org
  7. ↑ Advertising kit for True Romance Etc. on eastlondonbigflame.org.uk
  8. ^ A b Anthony Kaufman: Interview: Paul Morrison, the Therapist-Director of "Solomon and Gaenor" . indiewire.com, Aug 25, 2000.
  9. ^ Gemma Romain: Connecting Histories . Routledge, 2013, p. 199.
personal data
SURNAME Morrison, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British documentary filmmaker and director
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH London