STEPHEN CLEARY
About
I have worked in television and film for over 30 years, first as an independent TV producer/director, then a feature film developer and producer.
I was Head of Development at the UK’s national film Agency, British Screen, for five years and have developed over 60 produced feature films including Before the Rain (Milcho Manchevski, Academy Award nominee for best foreign film, winner Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival), Rob Roy (Michael Caton-Jones), Butterfly Kiss (Michael Winterbottom), Love and Death on Long Island (Richard Kwietniowski) and Photographing Fairies (Nick Willing). My most recently developed films include Cast Me If You Can (Atsushi Ogata), The Hunter (Daniel Nettheim) and Buddha’s Little Finger (Tony Pemberton), which I co-wrote. I was also the co-screenwriter of the feature, Alexandria, in 2002.
From 1996 to 2006 I founded and ran Arista, Europe’s largest private film development agency. Arista was declared a “centre of excellence” by the European Commission in 2001. Graduates of Arista’s training programs have written, directed or produced over 250 feature films and thousands of hours of television drama. Films include: The Last King of Scotland; Brick Lane; Totsi; The Flying Scotsman and London to Brighton. I had the honour of being Visiting Professor in Film at Westminster University in London between 2001 and 2005 .
I produced the feature New Years Day (Panorama selection Sundance Film Festival) and co-produced another, Goodbye Charlie Bright. I present workshops and seminars on all aspects of screenwriting and development, most recently in Japan, Australia, France, Poland, and the Faroe Islands. I am a regular guest lecturer at the Danish Film School and at the Film School of the Victoria College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia.
I am the co-author of Nina Simone auto biography, I Put a Spell on You which has been optioned for a feature film project and a musical project.
