Jonathan Gili was an award-winning film-maker, editor and director, who produced numerous and wide-ranging television documentary and features programmes, mostly for the BBC.

Education

The son of Catalan publisher and translator Joan Gili

Joan Gili

Joan Gili i Serra, also known as John Gili, was a Catalan antiquarian book-seller, publisher and translator.Joan Gili was born in Barcelona in 1907. His father, Lluis Gili, ran a religious publishing house which also published a cookery book, Sabores, written by his mother, which became a...

, Jonathan Gili was educated at The Dragon School in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, and Bryanston School

Bryanston School

Bryanston School is a co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Blandford, north Dorset, England, near the village of Bryanston. It was founded in 1928...

 in the village of Bryanston

Bryanston

Bryanston is a village and civil parish in north Dorset, England, situated on the River Stour one mile west of Blandford Forum. The parish has a population of 968 . The village is adjacent to the grounds of Bryanston School, an independent school.The village was named after Brian de Lisle, a...

 in north Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

.

Career

Most of Gili's work was made at the BBC in the 1980s and 1990s. Among his most prominent works were the two BBC Television series entitled Public School, the first of which featured Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

 in London, broadcast in late 1979, and the second, Radley College

Radley College

Radley College , founded in 1847, is a British independent school for boys on the edge of the English village of Radley, near to the market town of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and has become a well-established boarding school...

 in Radley

Radley

Radley is a village and civil parish about northwest of the centre of Abingdon, Oxfordshire. The parish includes the hamlet of Lower Radley on the River Thames. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire....

 in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, in 1980, which both received BAFTA awards. One of his last works was a programme in the BBC's Timewatch

Timewatch

Timewatch is a long-running British television series showing documentaries on historical subjects, spanning all human history. It was first broadcast on 29th September 1982 and is produced by the BBC, the Timewatch brandname is used as a banner title in the UK, but many of the individual...

series, entitled The Legend of Bigfoot, first broadcast in 2002, and for which he received a Best Director Award at BAFTA.
Gili died from leukemia in 2004, at the age of 61.