Roland Joffé

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Roland Joffé (born November 17, 1945 in London) is a film director who began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and a version of The Stars Look Down for Granada. He gained a reputation for hard-hitting political stories with the series Bill Brand and factual dramas for Play for Today. Roland Joffe is the son of Marc Joffe (born in Riga) and so is not related to the French film director Arthur Joffé as often wrongly stated.

His first two feature films (The Killing Fields, 1984, and The Mission, 1986) each garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Joffé worked closely with producer David Puttnam on each film. The Killing Fields detailed the friendship of two men, an American journalist for the New York Times, and his translator, a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It won three Academy Awards (for Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing) and was nominated for four more (including Best Picture and Best Director). The Mission was a story of conflict between Jesuit missionaries in South America, trying to convert the Guaraní Indians, and Portuguese colonials, who want to enslave the natives. The film achieved six Academy Awards nominations – including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Ennio Morricone's acclaimed Best Original Score – and won one, for Best Cinematography.

Since his initial acclaim, Joffe's film career has been less successful. In 1993, he produced and partially directed a big budget adaptation of the video game Super Mario Bros.. The film struggled to make back its budget. His 1995 adaptation of The Scarlet Letter was a critical and financial disaster, and his 2007 horror film Captivity drew controversy with its advertising billboards, perceived as exploitative and misogynistic.

Joffe's adopted grand-father was the renowned sculptor Jacob Epstein. Joffé was formerly married to the actresses Jane Lapotaire and Cherie Lunghi.