BAFTA winning and Academy Award nominated writer and director Mike Leigh took to the stage today at the Mediterrane Film Festival to deliver an inspiring masterclass, in conversation with Adrian Wooten OBE, CEO of British Film Commission. He is the recipient of this year’s Mediterrane Golden Bee Award for Career Achievement.
The session began with a montage of some of Leigh’s critically acclaimed work, and dived into his path to becoming a filmmaker, growing up in Manchester and his studies including RADA and the London Film School. Starting his career as an actor in the British film Two Left Feet (1965), before working in the theatre and releasing his first feature film and directorial debut Bleak Moments in 1971.
Following this, Leigh focused on his TV work and how it took a further 17 years before his next feature film, comedy drama High Hopes (1988). The pair went on to discuss the major milestones in Leigh’s career including Life is Sweet (1990), award-winning Naked (1993), BAFTA winning Secrets and Lies (1996), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Mr Turner (2014) and Peterloo (2018).
Leigh discussed the importance of collaboration across a crew and in particular, the importance of a strong relationship with between a director and producer as they create the space and support for directors to be creative in their work, mentioning his past long time producer Simon Channing Williams and in recent years Georgina Lowe.
A key piece of advice Leigh gave to the audience throughout the panel is that filmmaking is always a learning curve. He noted it is about taking your box of tools and learning to use them in new ways – as well as constantly creating new tools and adapting to new technologies and techniques to create your art.