D i r e c t o r

Margaret Williams has made many award winning arts and music drama films for television as well as the cinema short GOING GOING for BFI/Film Four. Her respected and internationally successful films have always taken a new and original approach, creativity always being at the heart of her films.

Most recently the film ONE MAN WALKING, introduced by Jonzi D, was broadcast on Channel 4. ONE MAN WALKING explores some of the intensity and challenges of life in the metropolis, using Krump – an expressive and highly energetic dance movement combined with the soaring excitement of Free Running.

Margaret has collaborated many times with composer Judith Weir. ARMIDA, their fourth collaboration and Margaret's third drama for Jan Younghusband, was filmed on location in Morocco. Margaret’s film version of OWEN WINGRAVE by Benjamin Britten, for Channel 4, was received with great critical acclaim; writing in The Telegraph, Tom Rosenthal described it as 'the best opera film ever made'.

The WAPPING PROJECT held a retrospective of Margaret’s dance films at Wapping Hydraulic Pumping Station, London. In a multi-screen installation, the retrospective ran over three and four screens, on loops, throughout the gallery opening hours. It allowed the viewer to dip in and out at will and to shift between documentary, dance film, the improvisational and the multi-camera work. The critics were unanimous: 'Awesome' - Time Out; 'Must-see show' - The Times; 'Dazzling... a strange and lovely eye for dance' - The Guardian.

In 2010, Margaret completed the film LIFE STUDY # 1, her 6th collaboration with choreographer Victoria Marks. It was shot on location in Los Angeles; LIFE STUDY was funded by the first prize from PREMI INTERNACIONAL VIDEODANSA, BARCELONA.

The dance film OUTSIDE IN, also choreographed by Victoria Marks, described as 'A Midsummer Night's Dream for the nineties', is among the BBC's most awarded music and arts films having won the Prague d'Or, Film Board of Canada Creativity Award, IMZ Dance Screen and other prizes.

Margaret's award-winning collaboration with Victoria Marks continued with two more films: MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS for Channel 4 and MEN for the BBC. MEN was a dance film for seven men in their seventies shot on location in Canada's Rocky Mountains. ‘The most impressive and uplifting twenty minutes of television to have come along in years', according to Time Out. MEN also won major awards at IMZ and at Moving Pictures in Toronto.

Other dance films made specially for television include: CROSS CHANNEL, described as 'one of the best television dance programmes I have ever seen', by the Financial Times; WATERMARK, a collaboration with choreographer Jiri Kylian performed by NDT3; YOU CUBA, a dance film shot in Havana, performed by Danza Contemporeana de Cuba. And, having made the films MIDDAY, IN STONE and WRISTS with choreographer-performer Maria Muñoz of company MAL PELO, their fruitful collaboration continues.

Margaret has adapted stage works for the screen such as the as Thomas Adès's opera POWDER HER FACE and Judith Weir's BLOND ECKBERT, both for Channel 4. Her television version of David Bintley's CARMINA BURANA with Birmingham Royal Ballet for the BBC won a Welsh BAFTA. Her relationship with BRB continued in 2006 when she was invited to direct the multi-camera filming of Ballet Hoo's ROMEO AND JULIET (Diverse Productions for Channel 4).

She has also made a number of well-respected documentaries. Her series for Channel 4, A LOVE DIVIDED, filmed in Belfast, Berlin, Jerusalem and Johannesburg, was consistently praised for its ' tear-jerking clarity '. Other documentary work includes films on composers: STEVE REICH and ELIZABETH MACONCHY; QUARTET, a 90-minute special about the role of four in music from classical string quartets to U2; MUSIC AND THE MIND, a series of 3 x 50-minute films; GYPSY PASSION a film about Flamenco star Joaquin Cortès; and Y FLAMENCO, a documentary about regular British people who love to dance flamenco, both for the BBC.

Margaret is developing two feature film scripts: THRILL (working title) with writer Stef Penney and TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, written by Neil Bartlett.

The feature film Frank n’ Stella (working title), adapted by Ricardo Adolfo from his own novel, which Margaret is directing, is in pre-production and will shoot in Wolverhampton in 2012.