Leslie Woodhead - Documentary Filmmaker

Trailers and Videos The following video extracts offer a small glimpse of my work. Copryright of the works resides with the original broadcasters/production companies. To view the videos, you will need a broadband connection.
‘Saving Jazz’ (2006) Photography and Jazz are my two passions, and this film is a labour of love since it’s about both - and about one of my heroes, the great jazz photographer Herman Leonard. Leonard lost thousands of his historic prints when Hurricane Katrina flooded his house in New Orleans where Jazz was born. Made over a year,the film follows the efforts of Leonard and the city to bring the music back to New Orleans.
‘Children of Beslan’ (2005) The former Soviet Union has been a major subject of my films for more than 30 years, but the Beslan School siege was uniquely harrowing . Co-producer Ewa Ewart developed a close relationship with some of the surviving children, and I shaped the film around their memories. There is no narration, no adults, no experts - simply the Children of Beslan.
'Fire Will Eat Us’ (2001) i have made 6 films since 1974 with the cattle-herding Mursi nomads who live in Ethiopia’s remote Omo Valley. Working with my guide and saviour, Anthropologist David Turton, the films record the Mursi’s gathering involvement with the world beyond their horizon. This most recent film revisits the Mursi as they struggle to come to terms with the arrival of tourists, and with the demands of modern Ethiopia
'A Cry from the Grave’ (1999) A CRY FROM THE GRAVE is an investigation of Europe’s worst atrocity since World War 2, the Srebrenica Massacre in July 1995 when 8000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serb army. We tracked down extraordinary archive to tell a story which has haunted me for years.
‘Endurance’ (1999) ENDURANCE is the result of my improbable affair with Hollywood. Invited by mythic director Terrence Malick to make a film about a great African runner, I reconstructed the story of Olympic Gold medallist Haile Gebreselassie in Ethiopia’s Rift valley where Haile grew up. Haile and his family played key roles. The film had a cinema release in America and Europe.
‘444 Days’ (1998) In today’s Iran, I fancy it would be impossible to make this film - about the takeover in 1979 of the American Embassy in Teheran, and the hostage crisis which destroyed President Carter. I was fortunate to be able to film in Iran during a brief liberal moment, interviewing the radical Islamic hostage takers. It was still an edgy and difficult shoot.
‘Comrade Rockstar’ (1992) The extraordinary story of Dean Reed, a pretty American pop singer. He was totally unknown at home, but from the 1960s until his mysterious death in 1986, Reed was the biggest star in the Soviet Union, known as the ‘Red Elvis.’ American writer Reggie Nadelson follows Reed’s trail from Colorado to Moscow. Tom Hanks has bought the story for a feature film.
‘Strike’ (1981) Reconstructed from hundreds of hours of tape recordings made by the Polish shipyard workers of Gdansk, STRIKE dramatises the birth of SOLIDARITY, the first free trade union in the Soviet Union. Following research in Poland, I shot the film in the Liverpool and Manchester docks. The film has a remarkable central performance by Ian Holm as Lech Walesa.
Invasion (1980) INVASION is a dramatised day-by-day record of the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia. Based on the memories of a defecting Czech leader, the film traces the story of how Alexander Dubcek and his colleagues were kidnapped and forced to submit to Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. In 1990, I screened the film for Dubcek in Prague.
‘The Stones in the Park’ (1969) I have always enjoyed making music films, and this was especially memorable. Shot with 6 crews, and co-produced with my friend the late Jo Durden-Smith, the film was in Granada Tv’s - and Jo’s - tradition of rock documentary specials. The concert in Hyde Park was a classic 60s occasion - just a month before Woodstock.