Jon Blair

Jon Blair is a multi award winning film and television producer and director and is the only director working in the United Kingdom who has won all three of the premiere awards in his field: an Oscar, an Emmy (twice) and a British Academy Award.

"Anne Frank Remembered", written produced and directed by Jon, is the winner of 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. It has also been featured at the Melbourne, Montreal and Toronto International Film Festivals (all non competitive). The film was distributed theatrically in the UK, North America and Australia.

Jon is the winner of a British Academy Award for Best Documentary for his 1983 film, "Schindler", which preceded Steven Spielberg's feature by 10 years and was used extensively by Spielberg as a research resource. "Schindler" was narrated by Dirk Bogarde and written, produced and directed by Jon.

Jon has just completed post-production on “Dancing with the Devil in the City of God”, a feature documentary filmed on location in Rio de Janeiro. It could best be described as “City of God” meets “Elite Squad”…but all for real, as Jon and his crew had unique access to Rio’s drug trafficking gangsters as well as to the specialist police squads hunting them down. It is the first time ever that top drug lords in Rio have talked openly and without disguises about their lives and their activities.

During 2007/early 2008 Jon made “Ochberg’s Orphans” for Rainmaker Films, about the 1921 expedition of one Isaac Ochberg who saved nearly 200 orphans from the wreckage of post revolutionary Russia. The film was shortlisted for an Oscar for Short Documentary.

In August 2007 Jon completed “Murder Most Foul” a 75 minute feature documentary for More 4 about crime in South Africa with the ex South African Shakespearean actor, Sir Antony Sher.

In 2006 Jon produced and directed a multi episode comedy series for BBC1, “Dawn French’s Girls Who Do: Comedy”. In 2005 Jon made two one hour drama documentaries for Discovery Networks Europe in the “Zero Hour” series, about the Oklahoma bomb and the plot to kill Pope John Paul II. Prior to that he worked as an Executive Producer for Discovery for 8 months.

In 2003/4 he Series Produced a 4 hour series, - of which he produced, wrote and directed 3 hours - "Reporters at War”, a first hand history of war reporting, featuring some of the most famous American and British war reporters through the ages. The Series won an Emmy in the US for Best Historical Programming. His feature length opening programme of the Series won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for best multi-channel programme for 2003 and was nominated for the Broadcast Award for Best Multi-Channel Programme for 2003/4, as well as receiving an Honourable Mention at Banff. The Series also received a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals.

Following a programme on “Bin Laden: the Early Years” for Channel Four after September 11th 2001, in 2002 he was Series Producer, as well as director and writer of two episodes, of the four part series, "The Age of Terror". The Series made by 3BM Television received wide critical acclaim including an International Documentary Association Award nomination and winning the Broadcast Award for Best Multi-Channel Programme for 2002. The Series was also nominated for a Banff Documentary Award.

Also in 2002 Jon produced, wrote, directed and narrated "The Meyssan Conspiracy", about a 9/11 conspiracy theory, for Channel Four Science and then a rapid turn-round special, also for Channel Four, on the Bali bombing. He was also a contributor to The Times Special Supplement on the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedy.

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, originally written for television, and then later adapted for the Royal Shakespeare Company, pioneered the use of drama in current affairs. Jon directed the play Off Broadway in New York, starring Fritz Weaver and Philip Bosco, 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 staged in Nigeria in 1979 directed by and starring that country’s most noted writer, poet and playright, the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka.

As a Producer/Director on "Tonight", "This Week" and "TV Eye" Jon covered domestic and foreign political and economic stories including the first programme about the 1976 Soweto uprising for British television, "There Is No Crisis!", and coverage of wars in the Middle East, Cambodia and Angola. 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 co-founder and co-creator of "Spitting Image", acting as Producer 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 Emmies, a Banff comedy award, and numerous other international awards.

Having created one of the first independent production companies in England with Spitting Image Productions, Jon set up his own company, Jon Blair Films, in 1987. The company's first production was a feature documentary co-produced with BBC1 which Jon produced, directed and wrote, "Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?". It tells the story of a year in the life of the small cow town in Wyoming where the actress Glenn Close's parents now live. The feature length version was narrated by Robert Redford who, before agreeing to work on the film, told Close and Blair that he thought it was "one of the best films about the American West" he had ever seen.

Jon then wrote and produced a drama documentary for Channel Four, "The Kimberley Carlile Inquiry" based on Louis Blom-Cooper’s inquiry into the circumstances surrounding that infamous case of child abuse. The production starred Julie Covington, Brian Cox, Kenneth Cranham, Daniel Day Lewis, Trevor Eve, Alan Howard, Anna Massey, Diana Quick, Zoe Wanamaker and others. His follow-up documentary on child protection in Coventry was later used extensively in training service providers. Another of Jon’s documentaries on medical/social issues, made for ITV on the misuse of the drugs Haldol and Halperidol in prisons and police stations, has been cited as a good example of how to approach complex medical issues in popular television.

Other productions included an early example of a formatted documentary, "Thighs, Lies & Beauty", an investigation of the myths and reality surrounding the beauty business for BBC1; "The Art of Tripping" a 2 hour dramatised documentary for Channel Four on drug taking and the arts starring Bernard Hill; a "Frontline" (Channel Four) current affairs film featuring the story of South African Jann Turner whose father was assassinated in front of her when she was 13, and as an adult returns to South Africa to look at the arguments for revenge versus reconciliation in the new South Africa; "Steven Spielberg on "Schindler's List" and "Tom Hanks & The World According to Gump", both for the BBC; and "Wagner vs Wagner", for Channel Four, featuring Richard Wagner's great grandson on the composer's political and cultural legacy of anti-semitism and race hatred.

In comedy Jon produced "Dunrulin'" for BBC1, a satirical comedy based on his own idea featuring the Thatcher family in retirement starring Angela Thorne and John Wells. He also made "The Stone Age" by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman for BBC1 and starring Trevor Eve. Other comedy productions include "Packing Them In" and "Blue Heaven", both starring Frank Skinner and both for Channel Four. There was also the light hearted dramatised documentary, "Sindy Hits Thirty", with Sandi Toksvig for Channel Four.

In 1991 Jon produced and his company made its first feature, "Monster in a Box", Spalding Gray's sequel to "Swimming to Cambodia”.

In 1994 Jon was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Stockton University in the United States for his contribution to human rights awareness through his film-making work. In 2003 Jon 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.

Jon has two adult children, Tanya and Ben, and lives in London and Suffolk with his wife Yvonne, and twin eight year old sons, Artie and Louis.