Chris Barfoot

Chris Barfoot (born Christopher John Barfoot on 7 September 1966) is a British actor, writer/director and producer of film productions.

Biography

Barfoot[1] was born in Southampton to Eileen Ann a company secretary and John Montague a carpenter and surveyor. Barfoot has two brothers (Paul and Timothy) and one daughter (Bianca). Barfoot is also a member of BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts[2][3]).

Barfoot attended school in Swanmore, Hampshire where he met the girl that was 30 years later to become his bride to be Theresa Higham (daughter of Carol Ann Meare International Outdoor Bowls Champion) and Donald Higham (Barge Superintendent for COMEX). Barfoot left in 1983 and entered the world of construction erecting steel, working in Scandinavia and the Canary Islands with his father (John) for the oil companies. When he returned to the UK he attempted to realise his primary ambition - to become an actor or a television presenter. Inexperienced, he failed a RADA audition and sought out Lee Peck (a RADA failure and an ex TV presenter living in Southampton). Peck advised Barfoot to start at the bottom, by joining a hospital radio station - so Barfoot signed up with Winchester's Hospitals Radio. He presented for a year and then quit to go back to college on a two-year media course as a mature student. He enrolled at Highbury College, Portsmouth, where lecturer Andy Birtwistle inspired him to become a filmmaker.

Barfoot graduated in 1991 and immediately began producing short films with Alastair Vardy (Special Effects Supervisor) [4] and Peter Dobson of then ScreenTrax (now Carnyx Films).[5] Barfoot picked up work as a regular extra/actor on the Ruth Rendalls, and featured in a few movies such as Sudden Fury, Fit For Nothing and Distant Shadow. Barfoot and Dobson also created TV Sketches for Jeremy Beadle's Hot Shots [6] in 1994 before casting Prunella Scales in the Sci Fi mini-thriller Phoenix in 1997.

Winning two Platinum Remis—for Phoenix [7] and Hellion[7] (Martin Hobbs and Katherine Blackburn)[8]—and two Gold Remis—for Dead Clean[7] (starring Andrew Sachs and Shane Richie)[9] and The Reckoning[10][11] (starring, Mark Chapman, Susie Lumley, Lex van Delden and Katherine Blackburn) [12]—in the U.S. led Barfoot to write several feature scripts. His first to become a full feature, Fall of the Roman Empire (2011), is a contemporary crime thriller set in London.[13]

Barfoot received an Honorable mention at the Dragon Con film festival for The Reckoning in 2003.[14] The Reckoning also won Sky Movies Top Ten Short Films of All Time and was followed by an interview with Richard Jobson. It played out with NBC Universal's Sci Fi Channel until 2008, where it received the highest Sky Movies viewing figures of all time.

In 2006 Barfoot achieved First Place at the Dragon Con film festival for Helix starring Prunella Scales and Robert Pulvertaft.[15] Helix is a re-cut joining of the short films Hellion and Phoenix.

Other feature screenplays he has written are Contact (TV), Banshee, Knights of Delirium, Hellion (work in progress), The Bump and the Grind (work in progress) and Hell's Gate (shortlisted for best script 2006 at the Beverly Hills Film Festival).,[16] and winner of an Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Film and Script Festival 2010.[17]

Barfoot's companies are Anglo American Pictures[18] and Chris Barfoot Productions.[19]

References

External links

Short films: