Andrew Timothy Birkin (born 9 December 1945) is an English screenwriter and director.

Early life and education

Birkin is the only son of Lieutenant-Commander David Leslie Birkin (grandson of the lace manufacturer and railway director Sir Thomas Birkin, 1st Baronet) and his wife, actress Judy Campbell. One of his sisters was actress and singer

Jane Birkin Jane Mallory Birkin ( ; 14 December 1946 – 16 July 2023) was a British and French actress, singer, and designer. She had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema. A native of London, Birkin began her career as an actress, ...

. Birkin was educated at Elstree School and

Harrow School Harrow School () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English boarding school for boys) in Harrow on the Hill, Greater London, England. The school was founded in 1572 by John Lyon (school founder), John Lyon, a local landowner an ...

. At the former he was remembered by a teacher as being "one of the naughtiest boys ever to have passed through Elstree" and his record at Harrow was no better.

Career

He left school at the age of 17 to work as a mail boy at

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

's London office, graduating to Elstree Studios as a production runner in 1963 on ''Man in the Middle'' and ''The Third Secret''. After hitch-hiking and freight-jumping across America in 1964, he returned to England in 1965 and began work as a runner on

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...

's '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', but soon became Kubrick's location scout.Dan Richter, ''Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space of Odyssey'' (2002) By the summer of 1966, Kubrick had promoted Birkin to Assistant Director on Special Effects;* Birkin later proposed the shooting and colour transposition of aerial footage for the 'Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite' sequence. Kubrick dispatched him to Scotland with cameraman Jack Atcheler and a 65mm Panaflex camera bolted to the floor of an Alouette helicopter; but Atcheler soon quit the enterprise, deeming Birkin to be reckless. Birkin continued alone and shot most of the resulting footage himself.Rolf Thissen, ''Stanley Kubrick: Der Regisseur als Architekt'' (1999) In 1967 Birkin supervised the shooting of 'The Dawn of Man' front projection plates in the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

. After working as First Assistant Director to

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

on '' Magical Mystery Tour'' in 1967, Birkin served as Location Manager on '' Play Dirty'' in Spain before again working for

, this time as his assistant director and location scout on his unmade epic of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

. Following second unit directing work on ''

Melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

'', Birkin began writing scripts for producer

David Puttnam David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, HonFRSA, HonFRPS, MRIA (; born 25 February 1941), is a British-Irish film producer, educator, environmentalist and former member of the House of Lords. His productions include '' Chariots of Fire' ...

, including '' The Pied Piper'' (1971) for director

Jacques Demy Jacques Demy (; 5 June 1931 – 27 October 1990) was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated ...

,Andrew Yule, ''Fast Fade: David Puttnam, Columbia Pictures, and the Battle For Hollywood'' (1989) '' Slade In Flame'' (1974) for the rock band

Slade Slade are a rock band formed in Wolverhampton, England in 1966. They rose to prominence during the glam rock era in the early 1970s, achieving 17 consecutive top 20 hits and six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. The '' British Hit Singl ...

(which won the Vision Award at the 2007 MOJO Awards, and was described as the "Citizen Kane of rock musicals" by BBC film critic Mark Kermode ), and an unmade adaptation of

Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of W ...

's '' Inside the Third Reich'' for Puttnam and

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. **Paramount Picture ...

, which involved a year's consultation with Speer in 1971/72. Having worked on an adaptation of ''

Peter Pan Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical ...

'' for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

in 1975, Birkin conceived and wrote '' The Lost Boys'' (1978), a three-part mini-series for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

about Peter Pan's creator

J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succe ...

, which won him writing awards from the Writers Guild of Great Britain and the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

. The critic Sean Day-Lewis wrote in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 'I doubt if biography has ever been better televised than in this sensitive and beautifully crafted masterpiece, and I am quite sure such excellence is beyond any other television service in the world.' The BBC's Director-General Sir Ian Trethowan called it 'a landmark in television drama'. Birkin has also written a biographical account of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, ''J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys'' (1979; 2nd edition 2003), described by ''

The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature ''The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature'' is a reference work first published in 1984, with its most recent edition in 2015. The Oxford Companions is a book series providing general knowledge within a specific area, in this case, children ...

'' as 'the most candid and perceptive biography to have been written of Barrie'. Birkin also hosts Barrie's official website on behalf of the

Great Ormond Street Hospital Great Ormond Street Hospital (informally GOSH, formerly the Hospital for Sick Children) is a children's hospital located in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, and a part of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS F ...

, to whom he donated his Barrie/Llewelyn Davies/Peter Pan archive in 2004. In 1980, Birkin won a

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

award and an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

nomination for his short film '' Sredni Vashtar'', based on the short story by

Saki Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), popularly known by his pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirise Edwardian society and ...

, which he wrote, produced and directed for 20th Century Fox. In 1984 he wrote the shooting script for ''

The Name of the Rose ''The Name of the Rose'' ( ) is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical fiction, historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, ...

'' (in which he also had a small acting role), and in 1988 he wrote and directed '' Burning Secret'', based on the novel by

Stefan Zweig Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. Zweig was raised in V ...

, which won two awards at the 1989

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

, as well as the Young Jury prize for Best Film at the Brussels Film Festival. In 1993, Birkin wrote and directed '' The Cement Garden'', based on the novel by

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of the ...

, for which he won the

Silver Bear for Best Director The Silver Bear for Best Director () is an award presented annually at the Berlin International Film Festival since 1956. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition ...

at the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, as well as Best Film at several film festivals, including Dinard, Fort Lauderdale, and Birmingham.''Time Out'', 20–27 October 1993 In 1998 he collaborated with

Luc Besson Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French filmmaker. He directed and produced the films '' Subway'' (1985), '' The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Associated with the '' Cinéma du look'' film movement, he h ...

on the script of '' The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'', and in 2004 co-wrote the screenplay for '' Perfume: The Story of a Murderer''. In 2013,

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Tasch ...

published a selection of his photographs and an autobiographical essay in ''Jane & Serge: A Family Album''. In 2017 he wrote an adaptation of

for Radio France.

Personal life

Birkin has four sons and a daughter. David Birkin (born 1977), artist and photographer, is his eldest son, followed by Anno Birkin (1980–2001), poet and musician, and Ned Birkin (born 1985), whom Birkin directed in ''The Cement Garden''. He is married to artist Karen Birkin, with whom he has a daughter, Emily Jane (born December 2008) and a son, Thomas Bernie (born April 2011). Two of his nieces are actresses: Charlotte Gainsbourg, who also appeared in ''The Cement Garden'', and Lou Doillon. He lives on the

Llŷn Peninsula The Llŷn Peninsula ( or , ) is a peninsula in Gwynedd, Wales, with an area of about , and a population of at least 20,000. It extends into the Irish Sea, and its southern coast is the northern boundary of the Tremadog Bay inlet of Cardigan Ba ...

North Wales North Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdon ...

. Birkin is a trustee of the children's arts charity Anno's Africa.

Filmography

*'' The Pied Piper'' (1972) (writer) *'' Slade in Flame'' (1975) (writer, Mojo Vision Award winner, 2007) *''

'' (1976) (co-writer) *'' The Thief of Baghdad'' (1978) (writer) *'' The Lost Boys'' (1978) (writer, won

Award for Best Writer, Writers Guild of Great Britain Award) *'' Omen III: The Final Conflict'' (1981) (writer, associate producer) *'' Sredni Vashtar'' (1981) (writer, producer, director, winner of BAFTA Award for Best Short Film, 1981; nominated for an

for Best Short Film, Live Action) *''

King David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damas ...

'' (1985) (co-writer) *''

'' (1986) (co-writer, actor) *'' Burning Secret'' (1988) (writer, director; winner of Young Jury Prize, Brussels Film Festival, 1989) *'' Salt on Our Skin'' (1992) (co-writer with Bridget Gilbert; director) *'' The Cement Garden'' (1993) (writer, director; winner of Silver Berlin Bear for Best Director, 1993; nominated for Golden Berlin Bear; winner of the Golden Hitchcock at the Dinard Festival of British Cinema; nominated for Best Film at Mystfest) *'' The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' (1999) (co-writer with Luc Besson) *'' Perfume: The Story of a Murderer'' (2006) (co-writer)

Books

* Author, ''J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys'' (Constable, 1979; Revised Edition: Yale University Press, 2003) * Author, ''Jane & Serge: A Family Album'' (Taschen, 2013)

References

External links

*
Andrew Birkin's J M Barrie Website
*
''Daily Telegraph'' "The Boy Who Never Grew Old"

BBC Radio 4: ''The Lost Boy''

''The Lost Boys'' screenplay

''The Cement Garden'' screenplay
{{DEFAULTSORT:Birkin, Andrew 1945 births Living people English male film actors English film directors English screenwriters English male screenwriters People educated at Elstree School People educated at Harrow School BAFTA winners (people) Silver Bear for Best Director recipients Film people from London

Andrew Andrew is the English form of the given name, common in many countries. The word is derived from the , ''Andreas'', itself related to ''aner/andros'', "man" (as opposed to "woman"), thus meaning "manly" and, as consequence, "brave", "strong", "c ...