ROLAND JOFFÉ
Rarely, if ever, has a director entered the cinematic medium with Oscar nominations for his first two motion pictures, thus making an auspicious beginning for Roland Joffé. Universally praised for his international style of movie-making on The Killing Fields and The Mission, Joffe immediately endeared himself to Hollywood as a filmmaker par excellence in his choice of material. Joffe’s background was grounded in British theater, being the youngest director at the National Theatre before entering the world of television via Granada, Thames and the BBC. Successful shows such as Coronation Street and The Stars Look Down gave him the opportunity to hone his craft and at the same time, allowed him to write many of the shows he directed. His initial success with a series of dramatic documentaries laid the groundwork for his first motion picture, The Killing Fields, a frighteningly realistic depiction of a country (Cambodia) torn apart by war and terrorism. With unanimous raves from domestic and international critics alike, the memoirs of New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg gave movie going audiences a reality seldom seen on the screen. The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, & Sciences acknowledged Joffe with his first of two nominations, and his directing future was assured. Nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press for its coveted Golden Globes, plus BAFTA and the Critic Circle Film Section, bear testimony to his outstanding contribution to this film. His second feature, The Mission, hails as a sweeping, cinematically beautiful, historical drama about an 18th century Jesuit mission in the Brazilian jungle, was the recipient of seven Oscar nominations, including director Joffe. It was also awarded the coveted Palme d’Or as best motion picture at the Cannes Film Festival and won Italy’s Michelangelo Prize. For Dominique LaPierre’s book City of Joy, Joffe set off to film in India the tale of a disillusioned American heart surgeon who flees to Calcutta after losing a patient. There he is beaten and robbed, and befriended by a farmer who takes him to a clinic in the poorest part of the city, where he undergoes a life-changing transformation. Again, Joffe had taken a personal story which affects the lives of those around his protagonist, and analyzes the drama in which it is placed. No two of his films have a sameness and he can never be accused of duplicating himself. Controversy regarding his approach to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter- a film the Boston Globe praised for its passion, sweep and grandeur - made for headlines by various reviewers in this tale of a repressed Puritan society in early America. Innovation has always been Joffe’s credo, and his independent spirit continues to rise above the popular conceptions of our society with his unique new motion picture YOU AND I.