Roland Joffé

Roland Joffé (born 17 November 1945) is a British director and producer of film and television, known for the Academy Award-winning films The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television, his early credits including episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada. He gained a reputation for hard-hitting political stories with the series Bill Brand and factual dramas for Play for Today.

Roland Joffé
Joffé during the 5th International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera in Kraków, 2012
Born (1945-11-17) 17 November 1945
London, England, U.K.
OccupationFilm director, producer, screenwriter
Years active1960–present
Spouse(s)
​
(
m. 1974; div. 1980)
ChildrenRowan Joffé
Nathalie Lunghi

Education

Joffé was educated at two independent schools: the Lycée français Charles de Gaulle in London, and Carmel College in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, which was Europe's only Jewish boarding school, until it closed in 1997. He completed his formal education at the University of Manchester.

Career

TV director

After university, Joffé joined Granada Television as a trainee director in 1973, where he directed episodes of Coronation Street,[1][2] Sam,[2] The Stars Look Down,[2] Crown Court,[2] Bill Brand,[2] and Headmaster.[2]

In 1977, producer Tony Garnett was commissioned by the BBC to direct the play The Spongers within BBCs Play for Today series. He informed the BBC drama department that he wanted to hire Roland Joffé as director, but was told that Joffé did not possess BBC clearance and was regarded a "security risk".[3] The reason was that Joffé had attended some Workers' Revolutionary Party meetings in the early 1970s,[4] although he never became a party member. He explained around 1988: "I was very interested in politics at that time. But I was interested in what all the political parties were doing, not just the WRP, and I was never actively involved."[5] Only after Garnett threatened he would "go public", was the veto on Joffé's appointment withdrawn.[5] The Spongers won the prestigious Prix Italia award.

Joffé also directed an episode in BBC's Second City Firsts in 1977[2] and later directed two more plays for Play for Today: The Legion Hall Bombing (1979) and United Kingdom (1981).[2] In 1979, he directed the TV play No, Mama, No by Verity Bargate for the ITV Playhouse series,[2] and in 1980 he made a version of 17th century dramatist John Ford's play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore as a TV film for the BBC.[2]

Film director

Roland Joffé's first two feature films (The Killing Fields, 1984, and The Mission, 1986) each garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Joffé worked closely with producer David Puttnam on each film. The Killing Fields detailed the friendship of two men, an American journalist for The New York Times, and his translator, a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge in Communist Cambodia. It won three Academy Awards (for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing) and was nominated for four more (including Best Picture and Best Director). The Mission was a story of conflict between Jesuit missionaries in South America, who were trying to convert the Guaraní Indians, and the Portuguese and Spanish colonisers, who wanted to enslave the natives. In an interview with Thomas Bird, Joffé says of The Mission, "The Indians are innocent. The film is about what happens in the world . . . what that innocence brings out in us. You would sit in a cinema in New York, or in Tokyo, or Paris, and for that point of time you would be joined with your companions on this planet. You would come out with a real sense of a network.".[6] The film won the Palme d'Or and Technical Grand Jury Prize at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. It achieved six Academy Awards nominations—including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Ennio Morricone's acclaimed Best Original Score—and won one, for Best Cinematography.

Since his initial acclaim, Joffé's film career has been less successful. In 1993, he produced and partially directed a big budget adaptation of the video game Super Mario Bros.. The film struggled to make back its budget. His 1995 adaptation of The Scarlet Letter was a critical and financial disaster, and his 2007 horror film Captivity drew controversy with its advertising billboards, widely regarded as exploitative and misogynistic. He received Razzie Nominations for Worst Director for The Scarlet Letter and Captivity.

His 2011 release, There Be Dragons, garnered press attention as it dealt with the Catholic organisation Opus Dei.[7][8] A movie about faith and forgiveness, There Be Dragons is a project that Joffé says has a message he's proud to say on film. In an interview with CBN.com, he stated, "I have a very deep emotional investment in this film. I feel that I really want to stand behind what it says to us as human beings."[9]

In 2013 Joffé directed the Anglo-Indian historical epic romance time travel adventure film, The Lovers.

Personal life

Joffé is of Jewish descent but has described himself as a "wobbly agnostic".[10] He is not related to the French film director Arthur Joffé, as is often wrongly stated.

Joffé was married to actress Jane Lapotaire; they have a son, screenwriter and director Rowan Joffé (b. 1973). Later, he and actress Cherie Lunghi were in a longterm relationship;[11][12] they have a daughter, actor Nathalie Lunghi (b. 1986).

Joffé is a board member of the nonprofit organization Operation USA. He was the official patron of the 2011 Cambodia Volleyball World Cup held from 23 to 29 July at the National Olympic Stadium Phnom Penh.[13] Roland Joffé lives in the island of Malta and is an active member of the team organising the Valletta Film Festival.

Filmography

Television

Film

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards:

British Academy Film Awards:

Berlin International Film Festival:

  • 1990: Golden Bear (Fat Man and Little Boy, nominated)

Cannes Film Festival:

  • 1986: Golden Palm (The Mission, won)
  • 1986: Technical Grand Prize (The Mission, won)

Golden Globes:

Golden Raspberry Awards:

Prix Italia:

  • 1978: The Spongers[14]
gollark: Because ISPs often do stupid annoying things.
gollark: Or just have them bridgemode it.
gollark: Then get your ISP to give you the config.
gollark: <@163793978964180992> sounds decent.
gollark: You can give them access to a network you create or something.

References
  1. The Independent, 5 October 2007: Roland Joffé: Why the director is a victim of his own success Retrieved 2013-03-06
  2. IMDb: Roland Joffé Filmography Retrieved 2013-03-06
  3. Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylior Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, London: Hogarth Press, 1988, p.97-99. The relevant extract from this book is here.
  4. At that time, the WRP was known as the Socialist Labour League, but Hollingsworth and Norton-Taylor use the later form.
  5. Blacklist, p.98
  6. Bird, Thomas. "Roland Joffé ", BOMB Magazine Winter, 1987. Retrieved 2012-11-26.
  7. Roland Joffé's new film Mission: to uncover secrets of the Opus Dei The Guardian. 8 June 2009
  8. Bringing a Saint’s Life to the Screen The New York Times. 22 August 2009
  9. Director Roland Joffé Explains "There Be Dragons", CBN.com.
  10. Roland Joffé Interview to the National Catholic Register
  11. "Roland Joffé". Findmypast.co.uk.
  12. "Strictly Come Dancing's Cherie Lunghi had sham marriage". Mirror.co.uk. 11 October 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  13. "Roland Joffé Announced as Patron of World Cup". Volleyball World Cup. 16 June 2011. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 12 July 2011.
  14. Prix Italia, Winners 1949 – 2010, RAI Archived 22 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
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