Oscar-winning director to discuss film that depicts journalist and lecturer

South African film director Gavin Hood will be at the University of Essex for a screening of his 2019 film Official Secrets, which depicts an international government conspiracy exposed by a British journalist.

Gavin, who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005 for his film Tsotsi, will answer questions about Official Secrets at the event on 30 January.

He will be joined on stage by Essex’s Director of Undergraduate Journalism Martin Bright, the investigative journalist whose exposé in The Observer inspired the film.

Official Secrets tells the true story of Katharine Gun, a whistleblower who leaked information about an illegal spying operation by American and British intelligence services in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War.

Martin, now Director of Undergraduate Journalism in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, was played in the film by British actor Matt Smith, famous for his roles as Dr Who and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown.

Official Secrets was named Political Film of the Year at the 2020 Cinema for Peace Awards.

The public event is the first in a series of film screenings exploring how journalists are represented in films.

Speaking ahead of the event, Martin said: “I am proud to invite Gavin Hood to Essex. He is the very best kind of politically engaged filmmaker, who is also a great artist. I will always be grateful for the sensitive way he treated the story of Katharine Gun.”

The screening of Official Secrets and Q&A with Gavin Hood and Martin Bright will be chaired by Professor Shohini Chaudhuri. The event, at 5pm-8pm in LTB10 at the University’s Colchester Campus is free to attend and open to the public.

Header image, of Matt Smith (left) and Martin Bright (right) courtesy of Robert Viglasky.