Jon Blair Producer/Director

Jon Blair is a multi award winning film and television producer, director and writer, and is the only producer and director working in the United Kingdom to have won all three of the premiere awards in his field: an Oscar, an Emmy (twice) and a BAFTA, as well as a Grammy. His work spans many genres, from drama and comedy through to serious feature documentary, including short and long films, factual entertainment, ob-doc, docudrama, presenter-led films, history, arts and science. The one unifying characteristic however, is that his work is always focused on the warmth, humour and authenticity of the people who lie at the centre of his stories.

Jon’s documentary work is many and varied. In 2023 he made a highly regarded feature documentary for ITV about the debate in the UK about assisted dying. Before that he completed another feature documentary for ITV, “Falkands: Island of Secrets” which delved into the stories of a missing marine, suspected murder and a scandal that shook the islands to their foundations. In 2021 he produced and directed "Navalny: The Man Putin Couldn't Kill", a 90 minute feature doc for Channel Four which went on to win a Monte-Carlo TV Festival Golden Nymph. It was Pick of the Day in numerous papers, with the Telegraph calling it "an extraordinary and bizarrely entertaining film", while The Times said "it combined meticulous, often jaw-dropping evidence...with a lively sense of humour."

Jon’s best known work is probably "Anne Frank Remembered", which he wrote produced and directed and which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature (“Oscar”), as well as an International Emmy, a CableACE, the International Documentary Association Distinguished Achievement Award, the Audience Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Festival, the Jury Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival and a Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival together with awards for editing and cinematography at the New York Film and Television Festival. The film was distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures.

Jon is the winner of a British Academy Award for Best Documentary for his film, "Schindler", which preceded Steven Spielberg's feature by 10 years and was used extensively by Spielberg as a research resource. "Schindler" was written, produced and directed by Jon and originally narrated by Dirk Bogarde, with a recent new with narration by Sir Ben Kingsley. Jon has also written the biography of one of the Schindler survivors, the famed Polish photographer Ryszard Horowitz.

Jon is the author of "The Biko Inquest", a play based on the inquest in South Africa into the death in prison of the black leader, Steve Biko. The play was originally written for television, and then later adapted for the Royal Shakespeare Company, after which Jon directed it Off Broadway in New York where it received considerable critical acclaim and ran for four months. After successful productions around the world it was produced on the London stage, and also for television, starring Albert Finney. A version of the play with an all black cast was later staged in Nigeria, directed by and starring that country’s most noted writer, poet and playwright, the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka.

Jon was co-founder and co-creator of "Spitting Image", acting as one of the original producers and then Executive Producer until mid 1987. He was also Executive Producer of all Spitting Image Specials for NBC and HBO in the USA. In his time at Spitting Image as Producer or Executive Producer the programme won two Emmy’s, a Banff comedy award and numerous other international awards.

Between 2010 and 2013 Jon served as Commissioning Editor for Major Series, Specials and Discussions for Al Jazeera English, as well as heading up the London programmes department of 50 plus staff. During his time at Al Jazeera Jon commissioned and executive produced a range of one-off documentaries and series as well as talk shows, along with being Sir David Frost’s boss. During this time Jon won a Robert F Kennedy Award for Journalism, a UK Foreign Press Association Feature Story of the Year Award, an Amnesty International Media Award, a George Polk Award for Journalism, a Scripps Howard Award, and the Monte-Carlo TV Festival Golden Nymph, and was nominated for a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society Award. 

Other work, illustrating his diversity, includes “Robson Green and the Pitmen Painters” for ITV in which the actor, himself the son and grandson of Northumberland miners, explored the true story of a group of Northumberland miners in the 1930’s who formed a painting group that for a while became nationally famous and were the subjects of Lee Hall’s National Theatre production “The Pitmen Painters.” 

In addition to the awards mentioned above Jon has won another Emmy, a Grammy, a Broadcasting Press Guild Award, a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals and a Broadcast Award for Best Multi-Channel Programme.

As a war correspondent/feature writer he has contributed to The Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Economist and The New York Times. He has also been a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times.

Jon was awarded a CBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to film. Prior to that he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Stockton University in the United States for his contribution to human rights awareness through his film-making work, and he later spent a semester as a visiting professor at Stockton teaching a special course on researching real world issues to a group of final year cross disciplinary students.

Douglas Engle is a freelance still and video photographer based in Rio de Janeiro. His Clients include The New York Times, the Guardian, Der Spiegel, Al-Jazeera English, Reuters TV and others. An American ex-patriot for 18 years, he has lived 4 years in Mexico, 3 in El Salvador and 11 Brazil – 8 of those years as photojournalist for AP. In 1994 he covered the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, and the American “intervasion” in Haiti; In 1996 covered the Japanese embassy hostage crisis in Peru; in 2003 he reported from Iraq in the aftermath of the US invasion; in 2005 worked in southern Sudan. He is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and his wife is Brazilian. He co-produced the film with Tom Phillips and also was the second camera unit.

Matt Briggs works on both documentary and drama films and has been editing for more than 20 years, starting out on natural history films.

He was Associate Editor on the major drama series Longitude, starring Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon, which was nominated for a British Academy Craft Award for editing, and then the 2002 mini series Shackleton, starring Kenneth Branagh, which was nominated for both an Emmy and a BAFTA for editing 

He first worked with Jon Blair in 2002 on the acclaimed TV series Age Of Terror which won a Broadcast Award for Best Multi Channel Programme as well as being nominated for an International Documentary Association Award. Since then he has been Jon’s editor of choice, cutting among many others, the Emmy Award winning TV series Reporters at War and Ochberg’s Orphans which was short-listed for an Academy Award in the Short Documentary Category.  During the shoot for Dancing with the Devil Matt edited High Defintion images on location in Rio using Avid installed on a Laptop, providing an unusually ‘embedded’ and immediate role for an editor. 

One of the biggest challenges of the project was editing almost entirely in a foreign language which would have been impossible without the help of Tom Philips and Douglas Engle.

Lance Gewer is a director of photography and cinematographer who has been shooting for the big screen and television for 25 years. For cinema Lance has shot Gavin Hood’s Oscar winning film Tsotsi; Beat The Drum, which won over 27 international awards; Master Harold…. And The Boys, starring Freddie Highmore and Vhing Rheimes, to be released in 2009, and STIFF, a new black comedy which is currently shooting. 

For television Lance has shot and directed across genres including; documentary (Dancing with the Devil, Ochberg’s Orphans, Murder most Foul, Mapungubwe, Glow of White Women); docu-drama (for Paramount/CBS, National Geographic, Discovery, Ch 4 and BBC); drama (Noah’s Arc, Across the Line, Wild at Heart); short form (Sacrifice, Come See the Bioscope, Angel, Christmas with Granny); advertising (Nando’s, Nashua, MTN, ABSA, FNB, LoveLife), and music (Hugh Masakela, Don Larka, Arthur, Brothers of Peace) .

The cover and lead feature story of the industry’s leading magazine AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER (March 2006), as well as, KODAK’S “IN CAMERA” (April 2006), were both dedicated to Lance’s work on TSOTSI. Lance was one of only twelve cinematographers selected internationally for the CAMERIMAGE cinematography film festival, in Lodz, Poland, in 2006.

He has a very classical eye, as well as a certain restraint that really allows the performances in the pieces he photographs to shine, and that’s very much what I needed for Tsotsi. I wanted to achieve a beautiful film that you only think about as beautiful after you’ve come out of the story. Gavin Hood – American Cinematographer – March 2006.

Cristiano (Crico) Maciel is one of Brazil's most experienced sound recordists with over 30 years experience in the film industry.

Crico has worked on a number of award-winning films and TV series, among them Mika Kaurismaki's documentary "Brasileirinho" and "City of Men", the television spin-off of Fernando Meirelles' 'City of God'.

In 2009 he worked on Fábio Barreto's "Lula, Son of Brazil" - a forthcoming feature film about the life of Brazil's first working class president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Rio-based funk group Os Apóstolos are one of Brazil's most exciting new bands, mixing the electronic beats of Rio's favela funk music with the sound of a live rock band. The group was formed in 2006, alongside Brazil's most famous funk MC. Mr Catra, and has since played at some of the most prestigious venues in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. They are currently finishing their debut album.

They composed and performed a number of original compositions for Dancing with the Devil which is the first film for which they have provided the musical score. They teamed up with one of Rio’s leading funk MC’s, MC Galo, who wrote and performed the lyrics of his original song for the opening and closing credits of the film, Tô Bolado.