Kevin Macdonald (director)

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Kevin Macdonald
Macdonald at the Film Festival Cologne 2017
Born
Kevin Glyn Buchanan Macdonald

(1967-10-28) 28 October 1967 (age 56)
Glasgow, Scotland
Occupation(s)Film director, producer, screenwriter
Years active1994–present
Spouse
Tatiana Lund
​
(m. 1999)​
Children3
RelativesAndrew Macdonald (brother)
Emeric Pressburger (grandfather)

Kevin Glyn Buchanan Macdonald

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the climbing documentary Touching the Void (2003), the drama The Last King of Scotland (2006), the political thriller State of Play (2009), the Bob Marley documentary Marley (2012), the post-apocalyptic drama How I Live Now (2013), the thriller Black Sea (2014), the Whitney Houston documentary Whitney (2018), and the legal drama film The Mauritanian
(2021).

Personal life

Macdonald was born in

Jewish filmmaker Emeric Pressburger and English screenwriter and actress Wendy Orme. He was brought up in Gartocharn, Dunbartonshire and attended the local primary school for the first five years of his education,[2] He was educated at Glenalmond College, and St Anne's College, Oxford. His brother Andrew Macdonald
is a film producer.

In 1999, he married Tatiana Lund, with whom he has three sons. He lives in North London.

Career

Macdonald began his career with a biography of his grandfather, The Life and Death of a Screenwriter (1994), which he turned into the documentary The Making of an Englishman (1995).

After making a series of biographical documentaries, Macdonald directed

Best Documentary
.

His next film was

Britain
in 1935.

Next was The Last King of Scotland, for which Forest Whitaker received widespread acclaim and won multiple acting awards including Academy Award for Best Actor.

He has also directed a number of television commercials with RSA Films who represent him for all his TV commercial work worldwide.

Macdonald directed

State of Play, starring Russell Crowe.[3] He then directed The Eagle, an adaptation of the book The Eagle of the Ninth, about a Roman Legion in 2nd century A.D. in Scotland. Bobby Fischer Goes to War, his next project, is a film about the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavík, Iceland, in which Bobby Fischer took on the entire Soviet chess establishment.[4]

Macdonald made the film Life in a Day with producer Ridley Scott. The footage was filmed by thousands of people all around the world about their life in one day and posted on YouTube. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival to a global live audience, on 27 January 2011.

Macdonald worked with the film production team Altitude, who created the commercially and critically acclaimed Amy Winehouse documentary film Amy (2015), on Whitney, a 2018 documentary based on Whitney Houston's life and death. This was the first Whitney Houston documentary to be officially authorized by the estate, and includes never-before-seen footage of Houston, exclusive demo recordings, rare performances and interviews with luminaries like Clive Davis. Macdonald stated, "The story that is never told about Whitney is just how brilliant she was as an artist; by many measures she had the greatest voice of the last 50 years. She changed the way pop music was sung - bringing it back full circle to its blues and gospel roots. She was also completely unique in being a black pop star who transcended her race globally with her work sold in countries where black artists don't sell."[5]

Macdonald in 2010

In 2021, Macdonald released The Mauritanian, a legal drama based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was held for fourteen years (from 2002 to 2016) without charge in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison. The film received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising Macdonald's direction, its cinematography and performances of the cast but criticised its screenplay. At the 78th Golden Globe Awards the film received two nominations; Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (for Rahim), with Foster winning Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. At the 74th British Academy Film Awards the film received five nominations, including Best Film.

His 2023 project George Blake, produced by Femke Wolting, won the development prize at 2024 Series Mania SERIESMAKERS section.[6][7]

Filmography

As director

References

  1. ^ "Kevin Glyn Buchanan Macdonald personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK". Companies House. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
  2. ^ Pfefferman, Naomi (11 September 2012). "Remembering 'One day in September'". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
  3. ^ Michael Fleming (18 December 2007). "Norton exits 'State of Play'". Variety. Retrieved 18 December 2007.
  4. ^ Richard Brunton (31 January 2008). "Kevin Macdonald directs Bobby Fischer". Filmstalker. Retrieved 31 January 2008.
  5. ^ "Whitney Houston's life to be documented on film". BBC News. 28 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  6. ^ Lemercier, Fabien (21 March 2024). "SERIESMAKERS awards Kevin Macdonald, Erik Matti and Barbara Albert". Cineuropa. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  7. ^ Croll, Ben (20 March 2024). "Scotland's Kevin Macdonald, The Philippines' Erik Matti and Austria's Barbara Albert Take Top Seriesmakers Honors". Variety. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  8. ^ "It Takes A Flood…". itv.com/presscentre. Retrieved 31 October 2021.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kevin Macdonald (director).
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