David Wilkinson

Director · Cast · Writer

Born

December 2, 1955 · Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK

Birth name

David Nicholas Wilkinson

David Nicholas Wilkinson, director/ producer/ founder and owner of Guerilla Films is probably unique in the UK entertainment industry in that he has been involved in so many different areas since he entered the industry in 1970. He first role was playing Ronnie Winslow in "The Winslow Boy" with Kenneth More. He was an award-winning actor. He has produced and/or distributed around 120 feature films in the cinema, on DVD, TV and online. In 1982 he pioneered the " Reverse Co-Production" with Keith Williams BBC Head of Plays/ Films making him effectively the first true independent producer with the Corporation. His first production To The Lighthouse was nominated for a BAFTA Award. Films he has help produce have won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, DocFest, the Galway Film Fleadh, the Grierson awards etc. He has given lectures to film schools in London, Leeds, Moscow and at film festivals held in London, Edinburgh, Galway, Cannes, Denver, Istanbul, Antalya, Dinard, Ghent, Vilnius, Bradford, Montreal, Cologne, Brussels and Bulgaria. From 1999 - 2019 apart from Alex Gibney's Zero Days Wilkinson's Guerilla Films has only released British & Irish productions/ co-productions within the UK & Ireland, specialising in those films that other distributors thought difficult and un-commercial. Since Louis Le Prince made the worlds first film on 14th October 1888, no other British distribution company has ever made such a strong and wholehearted commitment to British films. Some of these films starred Anthony Hopkins, Alan Bates, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Penelope Wilton, Pete Postlethwaite, Harvey Keitel, Richard Attenborough, Ewan McGregor, Kenneth Branagh, Stellan Skarsgård, Jim Broadbent, Richard E Grant, Susannah York, Rita Tushingham, Tom Courtenay, Joanna Lumley, Derek Jacobi, Bob Hoskins, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Capaldi, Richard Armitage, Elliott Gould, Gérard Depardieu, Tom Wilkinson, Michael York and many more. (See Guerilla Films IMDb page for details). In 2015 his first film as a director was released, The First Film. He is currently part way through directing his third documentary feature film. He is also a writer both for the screen, newspapers, and magazines and co-wrote the book "Ronald Harwood's Adaptations" and has twice appeared on BBC's Radio 4's Today Programme as an expert on the British film industry. He has now returned to production (and very occasionally acting if he likes the filmmakers) and only tends to distribute films he is involved in producing. The films he makes now are not drama, despite his background, but documentaries.