British Academy Television Award for Best Single Documentary
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Sheffield doc fest 2008 molly dineen interview
Molly Dineen (born 7 March 1959 in Toronto, Ontario) is a BAFTA and Royal Television Society award-winning UK television documentary director, cinematographer and producer. Dineen is mostly known for The Lie of the Land (2007), The Lord's Tale (2002), and Geri (1999). Dineen has been married to William Sieghart, who she had three children with.
Molly Dineen is one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary documentary filmmakers, known for her intimate and probing portraits of British individuals and institutions, and recipients of numerous accolades, including BAFTA, Grierson and RTS awards for documentary.
Born in Canada and brought up in Birmingham she originally studied photography at the Bourneville School of Art, then at the London College of Printing but switched to cinematography Photographing people was her major interest, which is what led her into taking film classes at The National Film and Television School. It was there where she first achieved widespread recognition for her 16 mm 1987 Home from the Hill Dineen’s much loved debut follows charismatic Colonel Hilary Hook, an elderly retired soldier, as he returns from Kenya to Britain. This film was picked up by BBC for its 40-minute segments, conflicting with the film's total duration of an hour. The film had to be cut twenty minutes, something that Dineen was not too happy about, as she was rarely allowed to spend any time with the editor in the cutting room. These two different versions are now available on DVD, as they were released in 2011 by the British Film Institute.
Dineen is uniquely known for her portrayal in her documentary films. She will sometimes even leave in her dialogue as she is interviewing her subjects. Dineen is also known for exploring institutions. The first of this institution-exploration films was The Heart of An Angel, centered in the Angel Underground Station in London.
Other notable documentaries include:
Home from the Hill - National Film and Television School - BAFTA nomination; Royal Television Society Prize; Documentary Prize – Uppsala Film Festival Sweden; TV Suisse Rommande Prize – Nyon Doc Festival; First Prize (student category) – Anthropos; Documentary Festival Los Angeles; BFI Grierson Award nomination
My African Farm (1988) - BBC2 - Dineen returns to Kenya and to the home of Sylvia Richardson, building a complex and uncompromising portrait of an unswerving stalwart of British colonialism. BFI – Kodak Newcomers of the Year Award 1988; Prix des Bibliothèques – Lyon Biennale Europeane de Cinema 1989
Operation Raleigh, The Mountain, The Village (1988) - BBC2 - Operation Raleigh was founded by HRH The Prince of Wales to give young people the benefit of war time in peace. Two 30-minute films about an expedition to Southern Chile.
Heart of the Angel (1989) - BBC2 - Capturing life in one of Angel tube station, one of the busiest on the London Underground, this account of staff’s struggles to cope with the great British travelling public is filled with humour and pathos.
an edition of Cutting Edge.
The Pick, the Shovel and the Open Road (1990) - Channel 4 60 minute film about the Irish roadwork company McNicholas.
The Ark (1993) - BBC2 - In this series of four films, Dineen reveals the inner working of London Zoo as the institution is rocked by uncertainty and change. Accompanying the zoo’s keepers, managers, and animal inhabitants during a period of profound crisis, the series is a delightful, candid and moving portrait of the passions and pressures at work within this much loved menagerie. The Ark was BAFTA Award Winner for Best Series (1994); recipient of Prix Europa Special Commendation; Voice of Viewers and Listeners award for Best Television Programme (1993); and Indies Documentaries and Features award (1994).
In the Company of Men (1995) - BBC2 - In this three-part series we join Major Crispin Black and his men in The Prince of Wales Company of the Welsh Guards during a final tour of duty in pre-ceasefire Northern Ireland. Women in Film and Television – Broadcasters contribution to the medium award.
Tony Blair, a short profile of the Prime Minister produced as a party political broadcast and screened on all four channels for the general election campaign in 1997.
Geri (1999) - Channel 4 - Geri Halliwell, the most colourful and outrageous of the Spice Girls, has dramatically left the band. Two days later, Dineen joins her as she dodges the paparazzi and seeks solace with family and friends in a fascinating rollercoaster ride through fame, celebrity and the personality behind that infamous Union Jack dress.
The Lord's Tale (2002) - Channel 4 - About the hereditary lords losing their seats in the Lords due to the House of Lords Act 1999. Dineen follows one of Parliament’s greatest upheavals: the abolition of the hereditary peers. With customary sensitivity, she puts a human face on the constitutional crisis, weaving the strands of the personal and the public to make one of the most astute political documentaries of the New Labour era.
The Lie of the Land (2007) – Channel 4 - On the eve of the fox hunting ban, Dineen uncovers the unpleasant thrust of life in the British countryside, where farmers struggle to survive under the weight of government legislation and national indifference towards rural communities.
Orange Blood (2013) - Aggreko 50th Anniversary documentary film directed by Molly Dineen
Bertha DocHouse Camera Masterclass with Molly Dineen
