May Miles Thomas

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May Miles Thomas
Born January 1959
Glasgow, Scotland
Occupation Filmmaker, film director, screenwriter
Spouse(s) Owen Miles Thomas
Awards Festroia Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal 2004, Best Director and Best Cinematography, Solid Air
Website http://www.elementalfilms.co.uk/

May Miles Thomas is a Scottish film director, screenwriter and artist. In 2000 she made the UK's first end-to-end full-length digital film One Life Stand[1] which became a paradigm for future UK low budget filmmaking.[2]

"One Life Stand"

The full-length film One Life Stand was shot on miniDV in black and white on a small budget.[3] It was written, directed and edited by May Miles Thomas and was favourably reviewed.[4]

It won awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Writer, and Best Performance at the BAFTA New Talent Awards and won Best Achievement in Production at the British Independent Film Awards in 2000.[5]

May Miles Thomas won the prestigious Scottish Screen Outstanding Achievement Award for the film.[2]

She was also one of the first recipients of a NESTA Fellowship for the contribution the film made to the artistic and technical development of digital cinema.[6] In 2003 Queen Elizabeth II honoured her as a Pioneer to the Life of the Nation for her services to British Cinema.[5]

Biographical details

Born in Glasgow and a graduate of Glasgow School of Art where she studied design and photography, May Miles Thomas worked as production designer, writer, editor, director of photography, producer and director.[3] Her career as a filmmaker began in the mid-1980s at BBC Television, where she made the transition from production design to directing music and arts documentaries and music videos.[7] She then moved on to writing and directing feature films. She was awarded funding for the first series of Scottish Television and British Screen's short film scheme Prime Cuts.[3] In 1995 she formed the company Elemental Films with her husband Owen Thomas.[2] The short film, "The Beauty of the Common Tool" won Best Film at the Palm Springs International Short film Festival in 1997. [3] She wrote the initial screenplay for "One Life Stand" during a film scholarship at the Nipkow Programm, Berlin in 1997.[3]

She followed up One Life Stand with a second feature film Solid Air which premièred at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2003, starring Maurice Roëves and Brian McCardie.[8] The film won Best Director and Best Cinematography at the Festroia International Film Festival, Portugal in 2004.

She won the Creative Scotland Award[9] in 2007 to create The Devil's Plantation[10] aninteractive website and multi-media project which explores the secret geometry and ancient paths of Glasgow.[1][3] The project won the Best Interactive category at the BAFTA New Talent Awards in 2010. In 2013 the project was re-worked as a feature-length film and was selected for the Glasgow Film Festival. It was nominated for the 2013 BAFTA Scotland Cineworld Audience Award.

Films

Feature films[11]

  • 2000 One Life Stand
  • 2003 Solid Air
  • 2009 The Devil's Plantation - website version
  • 2013 The Devil's Plantation - film version

Shorts & documentaries[11]

  • 1997 The Beauty of the Common Tool
  • 1999 Colentina (doc)

Awards

  • Best Film

Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, 1997
The Beauty of the Common Tool shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination in the Short Live Action Category.

  • Nipkow Fellowship

awarded by Nipkow Programm, Berlin, 1997

  • Best Film, Best Director, Best Writer, Best Actress

BAFTA New Talent Awards, 2000
for One Life Stand

  • Outstanding Achievement Award

Scottish Screen, 2000
for One Life Stand

  • Best Achievement in Production

British Independent Film Awards, 2000
for One Life Stand

  • European Finalist

Sundance Institute/NHK International Filmmakers Awards, 2001
for the feature screenplay Ringing the True

  • Best Director and Best Cinematography

Festroia Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal, 2003
for Solid Air

  • NESTA Fellowship

awarded by National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, 2000–02

  • Pioneer to the Life of the Nation

May Miles Thomas honoured for her services to British Cinema
by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, 2003

  • Creative Scotland Award

Scottish Arts Council, 2007

  • Best Interactive Project - The Devil's Plantation

BAFTA New Talent Awards, 2010

  • Nominated for BAFTA Scotland/Cineworld Audience Award - The Devil's Plantation - film version

BAFTA Scotland Film and Television Awards, 2013

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Life's too short not to make movies.[12]

May Miles Thomas

See also

Cinema of Scotland

References

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External links