Biography

Anthony B. Sloman, GBFE, MBKS

Tony Sloman is recognised worldwide as one of the world's leading cineastes, and is presently Risk Manager for two of the City of London's leading insurance houses, holding responsibility for seven international theatrical features, four televison series, and two made-for-television motion pictures. Immediately prior to this position Tony co-produced "Hard Edge", and was Associate Producer on "Vol-Au-Vent" and "Alone", all independent British productions, while concurrently serving as an elected Govenor of The British Film Institute, uniquely serving over a 10-year period, his last term at the specific appointment of the Government's Department of Heritage Minister.

 

Working professionally within the film industry, primarily as editor but also as screenwriter, director, and producer, Tony has had many noyable prestigious successes. As producer, he became the only English-language film-maker to have produced a Russian entry for the Cannes Film Festival, "Assassin of the Tsar" in 1991, after which he was appointed Executive in Charge of production for Spectator Films, for whom he also co-produced and edited "Lost In Siberia", which was England's only foreign-language submission for the American Academy Award. Other award-winning films he has contributed to include Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron," Neil Jordan's "The Company of Wolves", Chris Petit's "Radio On" (Associate Producer Wim Wenders), Ed Bennett's "Ascendency," and the Laurence Olivier version of "Othello". Other feature work embraces such titles as "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "Wonderwall," "The Class of Miss MacMichael", "O Lucky Man!", "Empire State", "Dance Craze", "Shadey", "I'll Never Forget What's'isname", "Rhubarb", "The Pink Panther Strikes Again", "All Men Are Mortal", and the Mel Gibson-Anthony Hopkins version of "The Bounty" featuring Liam Neeson and Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

Feature Documentaries include Marcel Ophuls' mammoth "The Memory of Justice" and Wolf Mankowitz' "Almonds and Raisins", whilst televison includes the now-classic BBC "Count Dracula" with Louis Jordan and Frank Finlay, "Act of Vengence" with Charles Bronson and Ellen Burstyn, plus the popular series "Orson Welles' Great Mysteries", "London's Burning", "Strange Report", and the cult favourite "The Prisoner".

 

Appointed by Goldcrest to supervise and deliver their latest releases, Tony had the recent experience of handling post-production budgets as diverse as the \$30 million science fiction epic "Space Truckers" and the Irish Section 35 feature "Driftwood" for which Tony directed co-star Anne Brochet's post-synchronisation performance in Paris. He also performed a similar chore with Toni Collette on "Clockwatchers".

 

An acknowledged authority on all aspects of film-making, Tony has been invited to lecture on such diverse subjects as Digital Editing (about which he has also contributed the definitive view in a commissioned article for The British Film Facilities Journal); CinemaScope and wide-screen cinema (both at the BKTS anamorphic seminar at Pinewood Studios and at the National Film and Television Museum Bradford -- text published in Image Technology); and feature film camera technique at the Watershed Arts Complex, Bristol. He has taught Post-Production at the National Film School at Beaconsfield and has taught degree courses in post-war European Cinema at the University of London's Birkbeck College. He was also asked to contribute as cinema consultant to the recent international wide-screen wall chart published by The British Moving Image Society.

 

Other activities inclede broadcasting on film for BBC Radio 2, including the writing and presenting of 2-hour arts programmes on directors George Sidney and Michael Curtiz and producer Arthur Freed, and a "Christmas at the Movies" special, plus two long-running morning live series "Movietime" and "Movie Chat"; occasionally guest-programming London's National Film Theatre, most notably with the ground-breaking 5-part "The Choreographer as Director" series, plus other seasons including Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Montgomery Clift, and the 3-part Marilyn Monroe and her Generation, also seasons on, and on-stage interviews with, such luminaries as Sir David Lean, Stephen Sondheim, Walter Matthau, Terence Stamp, Richard Todd, Lewis Gilbert, Robert Morley, Stanley Donen, Mickey Rooney, and Ann Miller; and writing and directing the official documentary feature commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) at the Cannes Film Festival, entitled "Celluloid Phoenix". He also instigated and programmed the "Directors Talking To Directors" series for the Directors Guild at the Museum of the Moving Image which featured such choice pairings as David Lean and Hugh Hudson, Robert Parrish and Clive Donner, Bertrand Tavernier and Peter Duffell, and John Schlesinger and Jack Gold.

 

Highly skilled in marketing, Tony Sloman has produced nearly 50 trailers and promotional shorts, ranging from such movies as "The Eagle Has Landed" and "The Long Good Friday" to "Supergirl" and "Zulu Dawn," including EPKs (electronic press kits) on such films as James Herbert's "Haunted." Tony has also prepared and scrutinised many production budgets, including Joseph Shaftel's "Trotsky", Lindsay Anderson's "The Cherry Orchard," Tony Gill's "Not Their England," John Lanasis' "Redemption", and his own "Fifth Avenue" and "Toy Maker" (Working title: "Wenceslas").

 

Tony has worked internationally in such film-making countries as France ("Where is Parsifal?"), Spain ("The Last Remake Of 'Beau Geste'"), Germany ("Son of Hitler", "Jamila", "Married 2 Malcom"), Canada ("Innocents" [Working title: "Dark Summer"] in Regina, Saskatchewan; "Bolt" in Montreal, Quebec), Morocco ("The Visual Bible")and of course the U.S.A., both in Los Angeles and New York with regularity, and also Portland, Oregon. He is also regularly accredited at the yearly international film markets and festivals, most frequently Cannes (both festival and market), Milan (MIFED), The Los Angeles Film Market, and at NATPE.

 

Tony also contributes weekly credited film reviews to film reviews to England's noted listings journal "Radio Times" and writes regular obituaries of film industry notables for "The Independent" newspaper, in addition to supplying interviews with such produers Tim Bevan and Peter Rogers and directors Michael Winterbottom and John Madden to The British Fim and Television Journal. Tony is also a founder-member of Robert Furmanek's 3-D Archive, dedicated to locating and preserving stereoscopic cinema, and is heavily involved in both sponsorship and exhibition.

 

A long-standing member of the Association of Cinema and Television Technicians, now BECTU, Tony also holds a rare Life Membership of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), on which he has served on many juries, and is also a member of both the Guild of British Film Editors and the Writers Guild of Great Britain, and was recently elected to the Cinema Veterans Association.

 

Written 12th December 2000

Coming soon:

 

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