Jill Daniels teaches film and video undergraduate programmes.  She is an award winning filmmaker whose practice spans experimental fiction, documentary and cinematic essay.  Her films have been shown at many international film festivals including Creteil, France, Hot Springs, Athens, Ohio, Feminale, Germany, Astra, Romania, and broadcast. She co-founded the film company High Ground Films in 1985.

Her film awards include best feature documentary for Small Town Girl at the Filmdirecting4Women Film Festival, London, in 2010; best UK Documentary for Small Town Girl at the British Film Festival in Los Angeles, in 2009; Jury award for Fool's Gold at the Athens International Film and Video Festival, Ohio, USA in 2003 and best fiction film for her first fiction film, I'm in Heaven, 1990 at the Huesca Film Festival in Spain. Her films are in numerous international collections.  Her most recent film, Not Reconciled was screened at the London Filmmakers Convention in London in 2010. She has recently completed The Border Crossing, an exploration of the cinematic representation of subjectivity and autobiography through place, memory and identity.

• Film and Video

• MS1203
• MS2202
• MS3000
• MS3407
• MS2201

Filmography:

• The Border Crossing - An experimental autobiographical documentary exploring place, memory and identity in the Basque country.  Video 47 minutes. 2011.
• Next Year In Lerin - Documentary about Macedonian children exiled from Greece since the civil war.  Video. 45 minutes. (2000) Updated 2010.

Conference presentations:

• Film and Media Conference - Birkbeck College, University of London. Paper on 'Autobiography in Documentary Films'. 2011.
• Visible Evidence Documentary Conference, New York. Paper on 'Autobiography in  Documentary Films'. 2011.
• Conference on Memory and Gender - Birkbeck College, University of London. Paper and presentation of 'Not Reconciled'. 2010.
• Visible Evidence Documentary Conference, Istanbul.  Paper on 'Minitorian Discourse in the Age of the Internet'. 2010.

Article:

•  Journal of Media Practice – Report on Visible Evidence XVII in Istanbul, Turkey. 2011

 Award:

• Small Town Girl: Best Documentary Feature - Filmdirecting4Women Women's Film Festival, London. 2010.

Filmography 

• Not Reconciled (Irreconciliados) - Rosa and Carlos, the voices of ghosts of young republicans from the Spanish civil war roam the ruins of Belchite in northern Spain. Video. 41 minutes. 2009
• Small Town Girl - A documentary shot over 5 years about 3 young girls growing up in Nelson and Frome, two small run-down towns in England. Video. 82 minutes. 2007.
• Lost in Gainesville - Hector was eight when his father brought him to Gainesville, in the heart of the American south. Olga was twelve when her father swam the Rio Grande with her on his back. Thomas was sixteen when his mother put him on a bus alone, with a bag of tacos for the 2000 mile journey. ‘Lost in Gainesville’ retraces their journey, as they tell their stories of growing up amongst lost hopes and dreams, in a town where work has dried up, where fascists march against them and where rich whites live out lives of faded glory.Video. 60 minutes. 2005.
• Spirits (experimental) - shot on an unspoilt coast of Greece using fragmented slow-motion close-ups and sound, an exploration of fear and violence when the parallel worlds of humans and insects collide.Video. 5 minutes. 2003.
• Fool’s Gold - Documentary about Myra who is part Cherokee. She works as a cleaner in the local hotel in Dahlonega Georgia where gold was discovered and the Cherokees were deported in ‘The Trail of Tears’. While others cash in on the gold heritage Myra struggles with poverty. Video. 55 minutes. 2002.
• Killing Time - Experimental drama - one woman and a boys’ isolation from city life. Video. 3 minutes. 2000.
• Assault - Drama - a woman is betrayed by her lover. 16mm. 11 minutes. 1996.
• Skin Deep - Documentary about the life of the director’s Jewish Romanian grandmother.16mm. 40 minutes. 1996.
• Secret Heart - Documentary about four young women with learning difficulties and their music.16mm. 25 minutes. 1994.
• Exiles - Documentary about three Jewish women refugees living in a Jewish old people’s home in North London.16mm. 45 minutes. 1991.
• I’m In Heaven - Drama about a Jewish woman estranged from her orthodox family.16mm. 30 minutes. 1989.
• Debacle - An experimental film exploring the conventions of narrative embodied in the ‘thriller’ genre.16mm. 40 minutes. 1976.

Collections (selection)

• University of Manitoba, Canada
• Athens University, Greece
• Sebina Open Library, Sardinia
• Leeds University, UK
• University of East London Library, UK
• The Imperial War Museum, UK
• The Runnymede Trust, UK
• Alaska Museum of Film & Video, USA
• The Naval War College, USA
• Ohio State University, USA
• University of South Florida Library, USA
• University of Arizona, USA

Awards

• Not Reconciled: Special Mention - Granada Festival of Film, Spain. 2010
• Small Town Girl: Best UK Documentary British Film Festival, Los Angeles. 2009 Nominated best UK Documentary Swansea Bay Film Festival. 2008.
• Fool’s Gold: Jury award, Athens International Film & Video Festival, Athens, Ohio, USA 2003; Audience Award Best American Folk Film, Dahlonega International Film Festival, Georgia, USA. 2003. Audience Award Best Documentary Feature, Downstream International Film Festival, Georgia, USA. 2002.
• I’m In Heaven: Best Fiction Film, Huesca International Film Festival, Spain. 1990

Articles and Publications

• Journal of Media Practice – Report on Visible Evidence IV in Bochum, Germany. 2008.
• Permanent Revolution. - Film Review of – ‘4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days’. 2008.
• Article on ‘Cinema Action’ for the Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film –editor Ian Aitken, Routledge. 2006
• Article on ‘Sheffield Film Coop’ for the Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film – editor Ian Aitken, Routledge 2006.
• ‘Anthropology Today’ April 2002 . Review of the Taiwan Ethnographic Film Festival held in 2001. 2002.

Conference Presentations

• Conference on Memory and Forgetting, Kent University. Paper on ‘Memory and Forgetting in Belchite, Aragon, Northern Spain.’ 2008.
• Visible Evidence Conference, Lincoln University, UK. Paper on ‘Longitudinal Documentary.’ 2008.
• MeCCSA, Cardiff University – paper on ‘Identity and Place’. 2008.
• ‘Macedonia-Macedonias’: Changing Contexts in the Changing Balkans. The Centre for South-East European Studies, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London; Presentation on ‘Macedonian Child Refugees during the Greek Civil War’ 2002.
• Intersecting Times: "The Work of Memory In South Eastern Europe, Swansea, Wales. Presentation of ‘Next Year in Lerin’. 2001.
• Association for the Study of Nationalities, World Convention, New York, USA Presentation of ‘Next Year in Lerin’. 2001

• Directors UK

www.jilldanielsfilms.com