Marcus Dillistone is an award-winning and Royal Premiered British film director. A close friend of Sir John Mills, he directed the film of Sir John's life Sir John Mills' Moving Memories

Sir John Mills' Moving Memories

Sir John Mills' Moving Memories is a British documentary film featuring 16mm color home movies shot by the actor Sir John Mills. It documents his life between 1946 and 1969, directed by Marcus Dillistone and written by his son Jonathan Mills. Commentary was provided by Sir John , Hayley Mills,...

. Dillistone and Sir John first collaborated on Dillistone's film "The Troop", which was first screened at BAFTA in the presence of The Princess Royal

Anne, Princess Royal

Princess Anne, Princess Royal , is the only daughter of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

. A loan copy of the film was requested by a Royal Equerry for screening to The Queen at Sandringham

Sandringham

Sandringham can refer to:Places*Sandringham, Johannesburg, a suburb of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa*Sandringham, Norfolk, a village in Norfolk, England*Sandringham House in the aforementioned village, owned by the British Royal Family...

 over Christmas. A 35mm film print was donated by Fuji Film, Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 and Glory Film Co.
Dillistone directed Sir John Mills in his last ever screen appearance Lights 2, in which he played a tramp. Shot at Pinewood Studios

Pinewood Studios

Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...

, Sir John was lit by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff, OBE, BSC was a British cinematographer, director and photographer.His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor to filmmaking in the 21st century...

 (The African Queen, Black Narcissus). The combined age of lead actor and cinematographer was 186 years, a cinema record!

Dillistone was educated at The Skinners' School

The Skinners' School

The Skinners' School , is a British grammar school for boys located in the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent...

, Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 and gained an honours degree at Staffordshire University

Staffordshire University

Staffordshire University is a university with its main campus based in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and with other campuses in Stafford, Lichfield and Shrewsbury.- History :...

, specialising in film production.

Dillistone set up the company Glory Film Co. to make the film The Troop with help from Paul-Anthony Viollet, a former King's Troop RHA officer. Cinematographer

Cinematographer

A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

 on The Troop was Alex Thomson (cinematographer) (Oscar nominee for the John Boorman

John Boorman

John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...

 film Excalibur

Excalibur

Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...

).

In 2001 Dillistone directed a major British Film Industry tribute event held in the Painted Hall in Greenwich. Hosted by The Lord's Taverners

Lord's Taverners

The Lord’s Taverners is a thriving club, the official charity for recreational cricket and the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charity whose objective is to 'give young people, particularly those with special needs, a sporting chance'.The Lord’s Taverners was founded in 1950 by a...

, and the First Sea Lord

First Sea Lord

The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...

 of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Nigel Essenhigh; participating artists included Sir Roger Moore

Roger Moore

Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...

, Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

, Lord Richard Attenborough

Richard Attenborough

Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...

, Juliet Mills, Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills

Hayley Mills is an English actress. The daughter of John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Tiger Bay , the Academy Juvenile Award...

, Richard Stilgoe

Richard Stilgoe

Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician. He is noted for clever wordplay as much as for his music....

, Sarah Miles

Sarah Miles

-Early life and career:Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England.She first attended Roedean but at the age of 15 she enrolled at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...

 and Dame Kiri te Kanawa.

Dillistone was Associate Producer Music for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony

2004 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games was held on August 13, 2004 at the Olympic Stadium in Maroussi, Greece, a suburb of Athens. 72,000 spectators attended the event, with approximately 15,000 athletes from 202 countries participating in the ceremony as well...

 and closing ceremony.

In December 2007 Dillistone was invited by the Governor of Luxor to screen a trailer of his latest film to the former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

Hosni Mubarak

Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

 and the Prime Minister of Egypt

Prime Minister of Egypt

The Prime Minister of Egypt is the head of the Egyptian government. According to the constitution, the prime minister is the leader of the largest political party in the Egyptian Parliament....

, Ahmed Nazif

Ahmed Nazif

Ahmed Nazif served as the Prime Minister of Egypt from 14 July 2004 to 29 January 2011, when his cabinet was dismissed by President Hosni Mubarak in light of a popular uprising that led to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011...

. This was followed by an Invitation from the Jordanian Minister of Culture to present a film at the 2009 Jordan Festival in Amman

Amman

Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...

.

Marcus recently completed an Ice Suite for the world famous Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi)

Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi)

The Icehotel in the village of Jukkasjärvi, about 17 km from Kiruna, Sweden, was the world's first ice hotel. After its first opening in 1990, the hotel has been erected each year from December to April.-History:...

, working 200 km north of the Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....

 in Swedish Lappland at temperatures down to –40°C.

Marcus lectures extensively on film making, imaging and photography, including hosting international masterclasses. He is also involved in charitable film making, being particularly known for films dealing with social and medical matters (his films have garnered a number of BMA awards). Marcus has supported organisations such as Riding for The Disabled, the British Brain and Spine Foundation, and more recently the Sarah Lamping Memorial Expedition. In June 2011 he was invited to launch the new Spinal Injury Patient Film at The Guttmann conference.

External links

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0226944
• http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4491055.stm