Jawbone
ERIC STYLES - Writer
Eric Styles trained at the UK’s National Film & Television School (1989-91) before working as a documentary director for the BBC. His observational series, Last Days at Fforchwen, and The Dream earned BAFTA nominations for direction. After several award-winning short films and television dramas, Eric made his feature length debut in 1996 with All Mixed Up for Channel 4, which went on to win a host of awards, including Best TV Feature at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Award for Best Original Score at The Royal Television Society, a Writers Guild Award and three BAFTA Cymru Awards.
His 1997 short film Birdbrain won the Kodak Award for Cinematography at the British Short Film Festival and has been screened at festivals including Toronto, Denmark, Clement Ferrond and Edinburgh. In 1997 Styles made four single film dramas for the BBC including ‘Love In The House Of The Lord’ by Catherine Linstrum and ‘Washed Up’ by Steve Gould. ‘Washed Up’ went on to win the Best Drama Award at the BAFTA Cyrmu Awards 1999.
His debut theatrical feature film, was the powerful drama ‘Dreaming Of Joseph Lees’ starring Samantha Morton and Rupert Graves. This was released to great critical acclaim in the Autumn of 1999 by Fox Searchlight. It played a a number of International Festivals including MIll Valley, Chicago and won an Award for Actress Samantha Morton at the Verona Love Film Festival.
Reviews for Dreaming of Joseph Lees:
“Beautifully articulated and acutely perceptive work with impeccable, carefully
shaded performances.” - Los Angeles Times.
“Beautifully shot and incredibly moving” – New York Post
He continued to work with producer Chris Milburn on their second feature film
‘Relative Values’, an ensemble comedy starring Julie Andrews, Colin Firth, Steven Fry, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and William Baldwin. This was distributed by Alliance Atlantis and First Look Pictures.
Being drawn to darker script material Eric’s next feature was ‘Tempo’, a european set thriller with Melanie Griffith, Hugh Dancy and Rachel Leigh Cook. This was financed and distributed worldwide by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Eric subsequently directed the psychological thriller ‘True True Lie’, starring Jaime King. International Sales are being handled by Intandem Films, who have sold the film to The Weinstein Company for the USA and will be releasing the film in late 2008. In 2007, Eric made the comedy ‘Miss Conception’ aka ‘Buy Borrow Steal, starring Heather Graham and Mia Kirshner for Blue Angel Films. The film’s USA premier was at The Miami International Film Festival in March 2008, it’s European Premiere is at the Belfast Film Festival in April, and it had a limited theatrical release in the USA by First Look Studios in June 2008.
Eric Styles lives in Wales with his wife Geinor and two young sons, Elliot and Gabriel.