David Puttnam

Birth : 1941-02-25, London, England, UK

Movies

Ennio
Self
A portrait of Ennio Morricone, the most popular and prolific film composer of the 20th century, the one most loved by the international public, a two-time Oscar winner and the author of over five hundred unforgettable scores.
Who Killed British Cinema?
Himself
A feature length documentary about the real state of the British film industry in relation to UK structures past, present and currently for the future. This film exposes the shocking truths about the UK Governments' will to grow an indigenous British film industry, the legacy and testament of the now closed UK Film Council (UKFC), the current British Film Institute and the new Creative England.
My Generation
Self (voice)
The vivid and inspiring story of British film icon Michael Caine's personal journey through 1960s swinging London.
The Genius of George Boole
Self
Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, The Genius of George Boole assembles academics and industry leaders from across the globe to explore the life and importance of one of the world’s greatest unsung heroes.
Billy Fury: The Sound of Fury
Billy Fury became an overnight sensation in the 1950`s and The Sound of Fury album, a landmark in British Rock & Roll history. This the story of Billy Fury and how his Sound of Fury album is now seen by many as the high water-mark of British Rock and Roll. Shot entirely in HD with unique and unseen archive and photos, this music documentary highlights Fury`s contribution to popular music and the reason why Britain`s original teen idol had more Top 40 hits than the Beatles during the 1960`s. Featuring exclusive home movie footage and interviews with Lord Puttnam, Amanda Barrie, Imelda May, Vince Eager, Len Goodman, Clem Cattini, Boz Boorer, Spencer Leigh, Billy`s mum, Jean Wycherley and many more; this is a must-see for Billy Fury and music lovers alike.
Richard Attenborough: A Life in Film
Self
The life story of the film director, movie star and industry figure who furthered the cause of cinema: Lord Richard Attenborough.
Duelling Directors: Ridley Scott & Kevin Reynolds
Self (archive footage)
Directors Ridley Scott and Kevin Reynolds talk about the film The Duellists. Reynolds interviews Scott while watching the movie, and they examine some of the key visual shots that Scott created and that eventually got him recognized as one of the best visual directors of our time.
Fame, Fashion and Photography: The Real Blow Up
Tells the story of the photographers who cemented the image of swinging London and who, through their pictures, irreversibly altered the face of fashion and pop.
Enya: A Life in Music
Himself
The perfect oxymoron: Enya is as famous as she is withdrawn. There is no other musician in the world who has reached the heights that the Irish singer has reached without ever selling a concert – never. As Ireland’s biggest ever solo artist with over 75 million albums sold, Enya is definitely a mystery.
My Life So Far
Producer
A memoir of the lives of a family growing up on a post World War I British estate headed up by a strong disciplinarian, her daughter, her inventor husband, their ten year old son and his older sister. Through the household comes a number of suitors hoping to impress the young woman, including an aviator. When the elder woman's son shows up at the estate with his French fiancé, everything gets thrown into turmoil. The young boy takes a sudden interest in her sexual allure and his father is disturbed by his own non-Victorian feelings.
The Peculiar Memories of Bruce Robinson
A journey through the career of the British writer/director best known for his film "Withnail & I" (1987). Robinson reveals how he writes, reads from his screenplays, and revisits the town of his birth where his first novel "The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman" is set. Interviews include Andy Garcia, Richard E. Grant, Ken Russell and David Puttnam.
Ennio Morricone
Self
From his quirky compositions for the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to his sublime musical contributions to director Roland Joffé's acclaimed 1986 drama The Mission, film composer Ennio Morricone has crafted more than 500 scores over the course of his enduring career in film. Now fans can take a look back at the life and career of one of cinema's most prolific composers through interviews with both the composer himself and many of his longtime collaborators. From his Italian efforts to his work in America, this documentary covers every aspect of Morricone's career as few have, offering insight into his childhood, his longtime association with Leone, and his ultimate disenchantment with the American studio system.
The Burning Season
Executive Producer
Based on the true story of a Brazilian rubber tapper who leads his people in protest against government and developers, who want to cut down their part of the rainforest for a new road and ranch land. The rich and the powerful will stop at nothing, and frequently resort to murder
Being Human
Producer
One man must learn the meaning of courage across four lifetimes centuries apart.
Garbo
Thanks
Comedy about two Australian garbage collectors starring Los Trios Ringbarkus.
Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth
Self
Meeting Venus
Producer
Celebrated Swedish opera star Karin Anderson is slated to appear in an internationally-telecast production of Tannhauser. Ms. Anderson balks at the notion of working with obscure Hungarian conductor Zoltan Szanto. The much-anticipated production may never get off the ground, thanks to labor-management difficulties, intramural jealousies, and clashing egos. Amidst all this chaos, the mismatched Anderson and Szanto fall in love.
Without Warning: The James Brady Story
Executive Producer
The story of Ronald Reagan's press secretary who was crippled in the 1981 assassination attempt on the president and who, with his wife, became the lightning rod for the gun control movement in the years since.
The Josephine Baker Story
Executive Producer
Biography of the African-American who became a major performer in the Paris cabarets of the 1920s and 1930s. The film follows her life beginning as a struggling performer in 1917 St. Louis, her frustrations leading to her move to France, and follows to her death in 1975. Written by John Sacksteder
Memphis Belle
Producer
The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, the crew discover that the target for the day is Dresden, a heavily-defended city that invariably causes many Allied casualties
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
Producer
In 1919, the great English military man T. E. Lawrence tries to help the king of the Syrian in the Conference of Peace in Paris.
An interview for Scottish television of film director Bill Forsyth
The Mission
Producer
When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.
Defence of the Realm
Executive Producer
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenage runaway and a U.S. Air Force base. Has there been a Government cover-up? Mullen teams up with Vernon Bayliss, an old hack, and Nina Beckam, the MP's assistant, to find out the truth.
The Frog Prince
Executive Producer
A young British girl journeys to Paris to go to college, and is determined to find the man of her dreams and fall madly in love. However, things don't work out quite the way she planned.
Winter Flight
Executive Producer
As the Falklands War looms, an RAF recruit falls for a young barmaid, but their romance is quickly complicated with some surprising news.
The Killing Fields
Producer
The real-life story of a friendship between two journalists, an American and a Cambodian, during the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, which led to the death of 2-3 million Cambodians during the next four years, until Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the intervening Vietnamese in 1979.
Arthur's Hallowed Ground
Executive Producer
Arthur is the groundsman. He's a perfectionist who has lovingly tended the cricket pitch for 45 years. Now he is given a new assistant.
Cal
Producer
Cal, a young man on the fringes of the IRA, falls in love with Marcella, a Catholic woman whose husband, a Protestant policeman, was killed one year earlier by the IRA.
Those Glory Glory Days
Executive Producer
Girls growing up in 1960-61 London develop a passion for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the first British team in the 20th century to win the English league and FA Cup "double". Twenty years later, one of the girls tracks down players of the '60-'61 Spurs for a documentary.
Red Monarch
Executive Producer
British comedy satirising Stalin's inner circle as an absolute monarchs court. In the face of rampant abuse of power and poisonous distrust some still manage to keep faith with the Bolshevist creed until the very end. In front of the firing squad a stalwart bolshevist of the first hour exclaims: "Even in the best democracy errors are being made!"
Secrets
Executive Producer
An enjoyable story of a 13-year-old girl, Louise, who lives alone with her widowed mother. Louise is sent off to a boarding school, but not before she discovers some secret documents kept hidden by her father. A curious look reveals that her father was a member of the secret order of Freemasons. When she finally gets to school, she tries to explain to her friends what the Freemasons are. Later, Louise's mother discovers a box of condoms in her daughter's room and wrongly presumes that the girl is sexually active.
The South Bank Show: 'Local Hero'
Self
A documentary about the making of Bill Forsyth's 1983 film "Local Hero."
Local Hero
Producer
An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.
Forever Young
Producer
A lonely young boy idolizes his local priest. An old acquaintance of the priest shows up one day, and the boy learns that his idol isn't exactly what he seems to be--it turns out that many years before, the priest had betrayed his friend, and now his friend has come back for revenge.
P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang
Producer
Summer, 1948. 14-year-old Alan has just three wishes: that there will be lasting peace, that England will win the Ashes, and that he will finally kiss classmate Ann. So when he's cast opposite her in a play that requires a kiss and England seem to be doing well in cricket, life couldn't be better.
Chariots of Fire
Producer
In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.
Foxes
Producer
A group of friends come of age in the asphalt desert of the San Fernando Valley, as set to a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.
Midnight Express
Producer
Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".
The Duellists
Producer
In 1800, as Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power in France, a rivalry erupts between Armand and Gabriel, two lieutenants in the French Army, over a perceived insult. For over a decade, they engage in a series of duels amidst larger conflicts, including the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812, and shifts in the political and social systems of Europe.
Bugsy Malone
Executive Producer
New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.
Lisztomania
Producer
Roger Daltrey of The Who stars as 19th century genius pianist Franz Liszt in this brash, loud and free-wheeling rock 'n' roll fantasia centered around an imagined rivalry between Liszt and composer Richard Wagner-- painted here as a vampiric harbinger of doom and destruction.
James Dean: The First American Teenager
Producer
Stacy Keach narrates this documentary that chronicles the abbreviated life and career of iconic brooding bad boy James Dean, from his obscure early days working in television to his rise to stardom in films such as Rebel Without a Cause. Clips from Dean's movies are intermingled with candid interviews with the star's friends and Hollywood colleagues, including Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dennis Hopper.
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Producer
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Stardust
Producer
Jim MacLaine is now enjoying the nomadic 'gigs and groupies' life on tour with his band. When he achieves all his wildest dreams of international stardom, the sweet taste of success begins to turn sour.
Swastika
Producer
Swastika is a feature length documentary about the way in which the Nazi regime infiltrated the lives of the German population, during 1933-45.
Mahler
Executive Producer
Famed composer Gustav Mahler reflects on the tragedies of his life and failing marriage while traveling by train.
The Final Programme
Executive Producer
After the death of his Nobel Prize-winning father, billionaire physicist Jerry Cornelius becomes embroiled in the search for the mysterious "Final Programme", developed by his father. The programme, a design for a perfect, self-replicating human being, is contained on microfilm. A group of scientists, led by the formidable Miss Brunner (who consumes her lovers), has sought Cornelius's help in obtaining it. After a chase across a war-torn Europe on the verge of anarchy, Brunner and Cornelius obtain the microfilm from Jerry's loathsome brother Frank. They proceed to an abandoned underground Nazi fortress in the Arctic to run the programme, with Jerry and Miss Brunner as the subjects.
That'll Be The Day
Producer
Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park, where he discovers a world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called rock & roll.
The Pied Piper
Producer
Greed, corruption, ignorance, and disease. Midsummer, 1349: the Black Death reaches northern Germany. Minstrels go to Hamelin for the Mayor's daughter's wedding to the Baron's son. He wants her dowry to pay his army while his father taxes the people to build a cathedral he thinks will save his soul. A local apothecary who's a Jew seeks a treatment for the plague; the priests charge him with witchcraft. One of the minstrels, who has soothed the Mayor's daughter with his music, promises to rid the town of rats for the fee. The Mayor agrees, then renigs. In the morning, the plague, the Jew's trial, and the Piper's revenge come at once.
Glastonbury Fayre
Producer
In the Summer of 1971 the Glastonbury legend was born when the organisers decided to try and create a festival that would be a forerunner for an 'alternative and utopian society'. The festival encompassed Midsummer's Day, and in true medieval tradition, the area of Worthy Farm, Pilton was given over to music, dance, poetry, theatre, spontaneous entertainment and nudity.
Melody
Producer
Two youngsters declare to their parents that they want to get married. Not sometime in the future but as soon as possible.