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Sara Jolly, senior lecturer in media production

After graduating from the National Film and Television School (with financial help from the Elizabeth Nuffield Educational Fund) I began a long career as a freelance director and editor. In addition to two fiction films directed at the NFTS, I wrote, directed and edited a documentary on Michael Nyman’s electronic mini-opera, I’ll Stake My Cremona to a Jew’s Trump, which has been broadcast on Channel 4 and widely shown at festivals.

I have lived and worked in India, training young film makers and have written and directed documentaries on development in Ghana, India and Bangla Desh for agencies such as Christian Aid and The Department for International Development.

My productions include Women of the Dust – a play in the making, a documentary which follows writer Ruth Carter to India to research a play about a group of Rajasthani migrant workers. The film traces the development of the play from initial research in India through to its successful presentation on the London stage by the Tamasha Company, with Goodness Gracious Me star Nina Wadia in a leading role.

Pelican Man – a 60-minute documentary on the efforts of a remarkable conservationist in South India to save an endangered species of pelican – was my first venture into wildlife / environmental films.

I have recently completed Looking for Zobole, a documentary about the Rhondda painter, Ernest Zobole, made in collaboration with artist and art historian Ceri Thomas.

As an editor I have worked on a wide variety of broadcast programmes, including two prize-winning documentary series for BBC2 – The Second Russian Revolution and Watergate, which won an Emmy for Best Historical Documentary.

In 2001 I took up my current post as a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at The University of Glamorgan but continue to make films as well. I am at the moment developing a documentary film on the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

Last Updated Thu, 6 July 2006