Jonathan Stedall

The year 2011 was Jonathan Stedall’s fiftieth year as a documentary film-maker. He began his career as an ASM and then Stage Manager in Repertory Theatre, and then worked in the cutting-rooms at Pinewood as an assistant film editor. For two years he was a Floor Manager in ITV before becoming a studio and film director at TWW in Cardiff and Bristol in 1961. There he made his first films with the poet John Betjeman, and in 1963 joined the BBC as a producer at the advent of BBC2.

Jonathan worked on the staff of the BBC for twenty seven years and has made over 150 documentaries, working with many thoughtful and creative people including Laurens van der Post, Alan Bennett, Mark Tully, Malcolm Muggeridge, Fritz Schumacher, Cecil Collins, Bernard Lovell, Ben Okri and Theodore Roszak.

In 1969 he won a British Film Academy Award for his film ‘In Need of Special Care’ about a Camphill School in Scotland, and since then has made further films about Camphill’s work for children and adults with special needs.

Other notable productions include biographies of Tolstoy, Gandhi and Jung, and three films for the 1976 BBC series ‘The Long Search’ – in Romania, Taiwan and California. 

His book ‘Where on Earth is Heaven?’ was published by Hawthorn Press in 2009 – see his website: www.jonathanstedall.co.uk