James Jones is a British director known for making documentary films on social issues for international television and theatrical release.

Career

James Jones' films have been broadcast on 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 ...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, Sky, HBO, Apple TV+ and PBS ''Frontline''. Jones has tackled subjects including suicide in the military and homelessness. He has also made films in North Korea and Saudi Arabia. His film ''Children of the Gaza War'' was broadcast on the BBC in July 2015 on the first anniversary of the 2014 Gaza war. In 2016 he made a feature-length documentary ''Unarmed Black Male'' about the murder trial of a police officer in Portsmouth, Virginia. In 2017 he co-directed ''Mosul'' with Olivier Sarbil. In 2019, he released a feature documentary on the drug war in the Philippines, '' On the President's Orders'', for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

's '' Frontline'',

Arte France Arte (, , ; ' ('), sometimes stylised in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ( EE ...

, BBC's '' Storyville'' and Bertha Doc Society, in which he follows a newly installed police chief of

Caloocan City Caloocan, officially the City of Caloocan (; ), is a highly urbanized city in Metro Manila, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 1,661,584 people making it the fourth-most populous city in the Philippines. Caloo ...

who is a supporter of president

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

's anti-drug campaign. It played at the

Sheffield DocFest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest; abbr.Sheffield International Documentary Festival or SIDF) is an international documentary festival and industry marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The festival revolves aro ...

and Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York. In 2022, his film '' Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes'' was broadcast on

Sky Documentaries Sky Documentaries is a British pay television channel owned and operated by Sky, a division of Comcast, which launched on 27 May 2020. Sky Documentaries broadcasts imported programming from HBO alongside new original and other acquired program ...

. It told the story of the

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

using personal interviews with people who were there and newly discovered, dramatic footage filmed at the nuclear plant. The film was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Documentary and won a BAFTA for Best Editing. In 2023, his series ''Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn'' was released on Apple TV+.

Filmography

References

External links

Jones Films website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, James Living people British documentary filmmakers Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)