Roland Joffe

Roland Joffé is a film director who began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation 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 and so is not related to the French film director Arthur Joffé as often wrongly stated.

His first two feature films 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 and was nominated for four more. 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.