Editor

Copenhagen International Film Festival honored Nicolas Roeg as president of this year’s jury.
The Festival runs August 18 (opening with Life is a miracle from Kusturica) to the 28th.

The director, cinematographer, producer and screenwriter Nicolas Roeg was born in London on August 15th 1928. He began his filmmaking career in 1947, when at the age of 19 he got a job at Marylebone Studio serving tea for film crews and assisting in the dubbing of French films.

He moved to MGM’s London studios, where he worked his way up the ranks to become a cameraman, acting as 2nd unit cinematographer on Lawrence of Arabia (1962, Dir: David Lean) before becoming cinematographer on films like The Caretaker (1964, Dir. Clive Donner), Fahrenheit 451 (1967, Dir. Francois Truffaut), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967, Dir. John Schlesinger) and Petulia (1968, Dir. Richard Lester).

In 1968 he co-directed Performance starring James Fox and Mick Jagger with Donald Cammell. The film was seen as so controversial and extreme in its visual experimentation that Warner did not release it until 1970.

The following year Roeg travelled to Australia, where he had his solo directional debut with Walkabout (1971), starring Jenny Agutter. The film received critical acclaim throughout the world, including a nomination for the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

With his most famous film, Don’t look now (1973), starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, he moved into the league of the most influential directors of his time. His exploration of perspective and narrative techniques became the trademark he developed in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) starring David Bowie.

In 1980 he co-directed Bad Timing with his wife Theresa Russell playing the lead, as she did in Eureka (1983) and several of his other films. Since then Roeg’s films have included Insignificance (1985) and Castaway (1986) starring Russell and Oliver Reed, Track 29 (1988) with Gary Oldman and Russell, The Witches (1990) with Anjelica Huston, Heart of Darkness (1994) with Tim Roth and John Malkovich, and Two Deaths (1995) with a cast including Sonia Braga and Michael Gambon. Nicolas Roeg starts filming his next film, the philosophical thriller Adina starring Neve Campbell, in 2006.