Marcus Dillistone

Marcus Dillistone is an award-winning and Royal Premiered British film director. A close friend of Sir John Mills (Oscar winner for Ryan's Daughter), he directed the BBC/Carlton documentary of Sir John's life Sir John Mills' Moving Memories. Dillistone and Sir John first collaborated on Dillistone's cinema film "The Troop", which was first screened at BAFTA in the presence of The Princess Royal. A loan copy of the film was requested by a Royal Equerry for screening to The Queen at Sandringham over Christmas. A 35mm film print was donated by FujiFilm, Technicolor and Glory Film Co.

Dillistone directed Sir John Mills in his last ever screen appearance Lights 2, in which he played a tramp. Shot at Pinewood Studios, Sir John was lit by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff (The African Queen (film), Black Narcissus). The combined age of lead actor and cinematographer was 186 years!

Dillistone was educated at The Skinners' School, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Medway College of Design, and gained an honours degree at Staffordshire University, specialising in film production.

Dillistone set up the company Glory Film Co. to make the cinema documentary film The Troop (35mm Cinemascope) with help from Paul-Anthony Viollet, a former King's Troop RHA officer. Cinematographer on The Troop was Alex Thomson (cinematographer) (Oscar nominee for the John Boorman film Excalibur).

As a result of The Troop, with which Fujifilm collaborated, Marcus was commissioned to make a series of cinema films for Worldwide release to demonstrate Fuji's new motion picture filmstocks. For these technically demanding projects Marcus employed some of the world's leading cinematographers: Oscar-winners Jack Cardiff OBE, BSC, ASC, (The African Queen) and Ronnie Taylor BSC (Gandhi) together with Phedon Papamichael ASC (Walk the Line), John de Borman BSC (The Full Monty), Sue Gibson BSC (Spooks), Thierry Arbogast AFC (The Fifth Element), Ron Stanett CSC (Evel Knievel) and Tony Pierce-Roberts BSC (A Room With a View). The films were shot at Pinewood (LightsII) and Shepperton studios (Lights II, Return of The Shadow), with locations including Hastings in East Sussex (The Glow).

In 2001 Dillistone directed a major British Film Institute tribute event held in the Painted Hall in Greenwich. Hosted by The Lord's Taverners, and the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Nigel Essenhigh; participating artists included Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lord Richard Attenborough, Juliet Mills, Hayley Mills, Richard Stilgoe, Sarah Miles and Dame Kiri te Kanawa.

Experience working on major musical recordings, including work with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, led to Dillistone being employed as Associate Producer Music for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony and closing ceremony.

In December 2007 Dillistone was invited by the Governor of Luxor to screen a trailer of his latest film to the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Prime Minister of Egypt, Ahmed Nazif. This was followed by an Invitation from the Jordanian Minister of Culture to present a film at the 2009 Jordan Festival in Amman.

Marcus recently completed an Ice Suite for the world famous Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi), working 200 km north of the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lappland at temperatures down to –40°C.

Marcus is also involved in social and charitable film making, being particularly known for films dealing with social and medical matters (his films have garnered a number of British Medical Association awards). Marcus has supported organisations such as the Riding for the Disabled Association, the British Brain and Spine Foundation, and the Sarah Lamping Memorial Expedition. In June 2011 he was invited to launch the Spinal Injury Patient Film at The Ludwig Guttmann conference - this film recently garnered a prize at the 2012 Telly Awards.

Marcus has presented papers at the World's two leading broadcast conventions, NAB (USA) and IBC (Europe). He also lectures extensively on film making, including lectures at the American University in Washington DC and Staffordshire University (UK). Topics include documentary films, scientific, medical and technical films, and travel films. Marcus has also hosted master-classes in the USA, Europe and the Caribbean, on filmmaking, imaging and photography.

Marcus has written articles for several professional publications, including Televisual, AV Magazine, Kodak's magazine and Exposure. He is currently researching cinematography in medicine for a lecture at Northumbria University.