Patrons
The Grierson Trust’s Patrons are called upon to advise the Trust and provide expertise to the Trust’s activities.
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Michael Apted
has the distinction of working in both documentary and narrative film. His films include the documentaries Incident at Oglala, Me and Isaac Newton, and the UP Series along with the feature films Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, The World is Not Enough, Enigma, Amazing Grace, and most recently The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He was elected President of the Directors Guild of America in 2003 and served three terms. He is a recipient of the IDA Career Achievement Award as well as the Grierson Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Sir David Attenborough
is one of the world’s best-known broadcasters and naturalists. Widely considered one of the pioneers of the nature documentary, he has written and presented ten major series surveying every aspect of life on earth. He is also a former senior manager at the BBC having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programmes for BBC Television in the 1960s and 70s.
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Nick Broomfield
with his trademark style, is probably one of the world’s best-known documentary filmmakers. He is a graduate of the National Film and Television School and has received numerous awards - including two Grierson Awards – for his films which include The Leader, His Driver and the Driver’s Wife, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Kurt & Courtney and Biggie and Tupac.
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Roger Graef OBE
is a writer, filmmaker, broadcaster, criminologist and CEO of Films of Record. As a director, producer and executive producer he has been responsible for more than 120 documentaries on current affairs, criminal justice and the arts. He developed the ‘fly on the wall’ technique in Britain – gaining unprecedented access to boardrooms, ministries and institutions – and devised the first international co-production. He has served on many boards including Theatre de Complicite, the London Transport Executive, Channel Four, the BFI and the ICA. Among many distinctions, he is a BAFTA Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal Television Society, and the IVCA and was Visiting Professor of Communications at Oxford University. As a criminologist, he is a Visiting Fellow of the Mannheim Institute of Criminology at the LSE, and author of Talking Blues, Living Dangerously, and Why Restorative Justice?
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Sir Jeremy Isaacs
has had a long and distinguished career in television. He produced the acclaimed 26-episode series The World at War for Thames Television and was Director of Programmes for Thames between 1974 and 1978. He was the founding chief executive of Channel 4 between 1981 and 1987, overseeing its crucial launch period and setting the channel's distinctive style. After leaving Channel 4 he became General Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He has been president of the Royal Television Society was founding Chairman of Artsworld, now known as Sky Arts.
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Edward Mirzoeff CVO CBE
has directed and produced numerous documentaries for the BBC, attracting record-breaking audiences to his portrait of the Queen during her 40th anniversary, and to studies of institutions including Scotland Yard, the Royal Green Jackets, Westminster public school, the Royal Opera House, National Trust and Ritz hotel. He made a series of enduring films with Sir John Betjeman, and has edited numerous series, from the innovative Bird’s-Eye View (shot entirely from a helicopter) to the award-winning 40 Minutes documentary strand. His many honours include four BAFTA’s – among them the Alan Clarke Award for outstanding creative contribution to television – the Samuelson Award, British Film Institute Television Award, British Video Award, an International Emmy, and the awards of the Broadcasting Press Guild and the Royal Philharmonic Society.
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Norma Percy
Norma Percy is known for series made with Brian Lapping in which Presidents and Prime Ministers describe what happens behind closed doors when crucial decisions are made. These include: The Second Russian Revolution, The Death of Yugoslavia, The Fall of Milosevic, The 50 Years War, Endgame in Ireland, and recently Iran & the West. This year she received the Grierson Trust’s highest honour, the Trustees' award, and the Royal Television Society Judges' award, previously, with Lapping, the BAFTA Alan Clarke Award and the RTS Journalism Judges’ award, all recognise an outstanding contribution to television over many years. Her series are littered with accolades; sixteen major awards for Yugoslavia; a US Emmy for Watergate, and she is perhaps the only TV producer to have had a Guardian leader written in her praise.
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Anthony Smith CBE
Anthony Smith has recently retired after 17 years as the President of Magdalen College, Oxford.
During the 1960s, he worked as a television producer of current affairs programmes for the BBC, and became responsible for running a key nightly news programme – Twenty-four Hours. In the early 1970s, he became a Research Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and he also worked for the Annan Committee on The Future of Broadcasting. He became deeply engaged in the national debate which led to the foundation of Channel Four Television, and subsequently was appointed a Board Director of Channel Four (1981-85). He also carried out research for the McGregor Commission on the Press, which presented its report in 1976. He was appointed Director of the British Film Institute (BFI) in 1979, and remained in that post until 1988 when he took up the Presidency of Magdalen College. During his time at the BFI, the Museum of the Moving Image was conceived and constructed on London’s South Bank, and new premises for the British National Film Archive, the world’s largest, were established. He was made CBE in 1987.
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Will Wyatt CBE
is chairman of Racecourse Media Group, a director of The Vitec Group plc and chairman of the Teaching Awards Trust. He was chairman of the University of the Arts London from 1999 to 2007. Formerly he worked at the BBC as journalist, producer, Head of Documentaries and Features, Managing Director Television and Chief Executive Broadcast. From 2000-4 he was President of the Royal Television Society. He has written The Fun Factory - A Life in the BBC, 2003, The Man Who Was B. Traven, and numerous articles on broadcasting.
