Jeanie Finlay

Jeanie Finlay

Birth : , Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside, England, UK

History

Jeanie Finlay is one of Britain’s most distinctive documentary makers. Her acclaimed films tell small and intimate stories to international audiences, whether inviting them behind the scenes of Teesside’s last record shop (SOUND IT OUT), to share the extraordinary journey of a British transgender man, pregnant with his child (Seahorse) or onto the set of the world’s biggest television show (Game of Thrones: The Last Watch). Her films, although varied in subject matter, share an empathetic approach to bringing overlooked and untold stories to the screen.

Profile

Jeanie Finlay
Jeanie Finlay
Jeanie Finlay
Jeanie Finlay

Movies

Your Fat Friend
Writer
Popular anonymous blogger Aubrey Gordon spent five years writing about the realities of living as a self-described “very fat person.” Now, she is about to face the public for the very first time.
Your Fat Friend
Cinematography
Popular anonymous blogger Aubrey Gordon spent five years writing about the realities of living as a self-described “very fat person.” Now, she is about to face the public for the very first time.
Your Fat Friend
Producer
Popular anonymous blogger Aubrey Gordon spent five years writing about the realities of living as a self-described “very fat person.” Now, she is about to face the public for the very first time.
Your Fat Friend
Director
Popular anonymous blogger Aubrey Gordon spent five years writing about the realities of living as a self-described “very fat person.” Now, she is about to face the public for the very first time.
Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth
Cinematography
Director Jeanie Finlay charts a transgender man's path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.
Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth
Director
Director Jeanie Finlay charts a transgender man's path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.
Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth
Producer
Director Jeanie Finlay charts a transgender man's path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.
Game of Thrones: The Last Watch
Cinematography
For a year, acclaimed British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay was embedded on the set of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones,” chronicling the creation of the show’s most ambitious and complicated season. Debuting one week after the series 8 finale, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH delves deep into the mud and blood to reveal the tears and triumphs involved in the challenge of bringing the fantasy world of Westeros to life in the very real studios, fields and car-parks of Northern Ireland. Made with unprecedented access, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH is an up-close and personal portrait from the trenches of production, following the crew and the cast as they contend with extreme weather, punishing deadlines and an ever-excited fandom hungry for spoilers. Much more than a “making of” documentary, this is a funny, heartbreaking story, told with wit and intimacy, about the bittersweet pleasures of what it means to create a world – and then have to say goodbye to it.
Game of Thrones: The Last Watch
Producer
For a year, acclaimed British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay was embedded on the set of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones,” chronicling the creation of the show’s most ambitious and complicated season. Debuting one week after the series 8 finale, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH delves deep into the mud and blood to reveal the tears and triumphs involved in the challenge of bringing the fantasy world of Westeros to life in the very real studios, fields and car-parks of Northern Ireland. Made with unprecedented access, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH is an up-close and personal portrait from the trenches of production, following the crew and the cast as they contend with extreme weather, punishing deadlines and an ever-excited fandom hungry for spoilers. Much more than a “making of” documentary, this is a funny, heartbreaking story, told with wit and intimacy, about the bittersweet pleasures of what it means to create a world – and then have to say goodbye to it.
Game of Thrones: The Last Watch
Director
For a year, acclaimed British filmmaker Jeanie Finlay was embedded on the set of the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones,” chronicling the creation of the show’s most ambitious and complicated season. Debuting one week after the series 8 finale, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH delves deep into the mud and blood to reveal the tears and triumphs involved in the challenge of bringing the fantasy world of Westeros to life in the very real studios, fields and car-parks of Northern Ireland. Made with unprecedented access, GAME OF THRONES: THE LAST WATCH is an up-close and personal portrait from the trenches of production, following the crew and the cast as they contend with extreme weather, punishing deadlines and an ever-excited fandom hungry for spoilers. Much more than a “making of” documentary, this is a funny, heartbreaking story, told with wit and intimacy, about the bittersweet pleasures of what it means to create a world – and then have to say goodbye to it.
Indietracks
Director
In 2007 an indiepop music festival was born in the unlikeliest of settings - a heritage steam train site, Butterley Derbyshire. Bringing together passionate characters from two very distinct worlds this affectionate portrait is told from the point of view of the retired volunteers that run the locos who have "steam in their blood" and don't really know very much about "this indiepop music".
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Producer
August 16, 1977. All of America was stunned by the news of Elvis Presley's untimely passing. Some went so far as to believe that it couldn't be true. Somehow he had faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. First appearing in 1979, Orion recorded 11 albums and performed live to packed houses and rapturous fans around the nation. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay exposes the incredible life of an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight with the complicity of a manipulative music industry and a public fan base unwilling to let The King go. Resonant in its themes of identity, fate, and the double-edged nature of fame, Orion is a stylish mystery story that finally gives a name and a face to a gifted artist who had been unjustly deprived of both.
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Writer
August 16, 1977. All of America was stunned by the news of Elvis Presley's untimely passing. Some went so far as to believe that it couldn't be true. Somehow he had faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. First appearing in 1979, Orion recorded 11 albums and performed live to packed houses and rapturous fans around the nation. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay exposes the incredible life of an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight with the complicity of a manipulative music industry and a public fan base unwilling to let The King go. Resonant in its themes of identity, fate, and the double-edged nature of fame, Orion is a stylish mystery story that finally gives a name and a face to a gifted artist who had been unjustly deprived of both.
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Director
August 16, 1977. All of America was stunned by the news of Elvis Presley's untimely passing. Some went so far as to believe that it couldn't be true. Somehow he had faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. First appearing in 1979, Orion recorded 11 albums and performed live to packed houses and rapturous fans around the nation. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay exposes the incredible life of an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight with the complicity of a manipulative music industry and a public fan base unwilling to let The King go. Resonant in its themes of identity, fate, and the double-edged nature of fame, Orion is a stylish mystery story that finally gives a name and a face to a gifted artist who had been unjustly deprived of both.
Panto!
Producer
Heartfelt and heartbreaking documentary following a cast of Nottingham amateur actors staging a production of Puss in Boots.
Panto!
Director
Heartfelt and heartbreaking documentary following a cast of Nottingham amateur actors staging a production of Puss in Boots.
The Great Hip Hop Hoax
Director
Scottish rappers Billy Boyd and Gavin Bain reinvent themselves as West Coast Homeboys after they were signed by Sony.
Sound It Out
Director of Photography
Over the last five years an independent record shop has closed in the UK every three days. SOUND IT OUT is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England. A cultural haven in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, SOUND IT OUT documents a place that is thriving against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive. Directed by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, the North and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives. High Fidelity with a Northern Accent.
Sound It Out
Writer
Over the last five years an independent record shop has closed in the UK every three days. SOUND IT OUT is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England. A cultural haven in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, SOUND IT OUT documents a place that is thriving against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive. Directed by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, the North and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives. High Fidelity with a Northern Accent.
Sound It Out
Director
Over the last five years an independent record shop has closed in the UK every three days. SOUND IT OUT is a documentary portrait of the very last surviving vinyl record shop in Teesside, North East England. A cultural haven in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, SOUND IT OUT documents a place that is thriving against the odds and the local community that keeps it alive. Directed by Jeanie Finlay who grew up three miles from the shop. A distinctive, funny and intimate film about men, the North and the irreplaceable role music plays in our lives. High Fidelity with a Northern Accent.
A Life at the Mill
Director
A video portrait of eleven mill workers, past and present, living in and around the Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. The film details the important role that work played in their lives, how it felt; to clean a mill, to work all your life, to face retirement, to shut a mill down and make hundreds unemployed and the hole that was left behind.
Goth Cruise
Writer
A look at the growing allure of Goth culture in England and the USA...on a boat.
Goth Cruise
Director
A look at the growing allure of Goth culture in England and the USA...on a boat.
Teenland
Director
Documentary in which artist Jeanie Finlay goes behind the closed bedroom doors of four British adolescents on the brink of adulthood and explores their passions, obsessions and their hopes for the future.
Love Takes
Director
Love Takes charts the places that love takes us and leaves us as we fall in and out of love over a lifetime. The film combines documentary footage with digital design to explore what we talk about when we talk about love.