John Boorman to receive BFI Fellowship
- A retrospective of veteran director’s work follows honour
Revered filmmaker John Boorman (photo), 80, will receive on March 25 a British Film Institute (BFI) Fellowship, the highest accolade that the UK’s leading organisation for film can award. A major retrospective of Boorman’s work will follow alongside an extended run and nationwide release of Point Blank (1967) and an exhibition of artefacts from Boorman’s personal archive at the BFI Southbank Mezzanine. To complement the season, Me And Me Dad an intimate insight of life in the Boorman family, directed by John’s daughter Katrine Boorman will also be shown.
John Boorman began his career as a documentary director with Citizen 63 (BBC, 1963) and The Newcomers (BBC, 1964), and this season will feature these early works and follow his varied filmmaking career to date. His first feature film, Catch Us If You Can (1965), was a showcase for the Dave Clark Five. Adapted from a Donald Westlake novel, the noir style gangster film Point Blank was Boorman’s breakthrough film in Hollywood.
Boorman won Best Director at Cannes for Leo The Last (1970). The Croisette has been a happy hunting ground for him and he also won Best Artistic Contribution for Excalibur (1981) and another Best Director Award for The General (1998).
Deliverance (1972) scored Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, as did Hope And Glory (1987). Boorman’s recent work includes Country Of My Skull [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2004) and The Tiger’s Tail (2006).
Boorman was accorded a BAFTA Fellowship in 2004 and an IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.
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