Tom Kingsley

Poster of Kingsley's 2011 feature film, Black Pond

Tom Kingsley (born 18 November 1985) is an English film director. He is best known for co-directing Black Pond, a 2011 feature film starring Chris Langham and Simon Amstell.^[1] He first made his name directing music videos and adverts.^[2] He was shortlisted for Best New Director at the 2010 Music Video Awards, and his work has been nominated for the 2012 BAFTAs,^[3] the 2011 British Independent Film Awards,^[4] the Guardian First Film Award,^[5] the Evening Standard Film Awards,^[6] and the Raindance Film Festival.^[7]

Career

In 2008, he joined Blink, the Soho-based production company, after sending them a DVD containing several of his short films.^[8] Following a short apprenticeship, he began directing music videos and commercials - most notably for Fatboy Slim,^[9] Darwin Deez, Guillemots, and phone recycling company Envirophone. Kingsley's work was well received in the industry press^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} and led to his being shortlisted for the Best New Director prize at the 2010 Music Video Awards.

In summer 2009, Kingsley travelled with his long-time collaborator, Will Sharpe, to Japan to direct "Cockroach", a 30-minute short.^[16] Buoyed by the experience, in early 2010 the pair began work on a feature-length film: Black Pond, which was shot in August of that year, on a tiny £25,000 budget.^[17] Released in November 2011, Black Pond received overwhelmingly positive reviews,^{[18][19][20][21]} though it initially attracted controversy because of the casting of Chris Langham. The film sold out every night of its limited London run, and was shortlisted for a BAFTA, two Evening Standard film awards, a British Independent Film Award, and at the Raindance Film Festival. It received a four-star rating from The Times, The Guardian, the Evening Standard, The List, and Little White Lies.^{[18][19][20][21]} The Independent called it "a funny and very well-observed low budget British movie".^[22] It was listed as a film of the year in the New Statesman and the Financial Times.^[23][24]

The film led to Kingsley and Sharpe being nominated for Outstanding Debut at the Baftas, and Most Promising Newcomer at the Evening Standard Film Awards.^[25]

Kingsley and Sharpe are now working on a film adaptation of an eighteenth-century French novel.

Personal life

Kingsley was born in London, UK. He made his first feature-length film when he was 12 - a 70-minute James Bond spoof called Black Eye. He read English at Cambridge University, where he was a prominent member of the comedy group Footlights, directing the Footlights Revue "Wham Bam" at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe.^[26] It was through Footlights that Kingsley met Sharpe - then also called Tom - and Sharpe's friend Tom Williams. The three quickly formed a writing partnership, directing several Footlights shows together, and were known collectively as "the three Toms". Among other projects, the trio wrote a play called Our Darker Purpose, on which Black Pond was based. After leaving Cambridge, Kingsley was briefly the design editor of the literary London free-sheet, Notes from the Underground.^[27] He currently lives in north London. He is the nephew of Grammy-winning producer, John Shanks.

Filmography

Feature films

• The Darkest Universe (2016)
• Black Pond (2011)

Short films

• "Cockroach" (2009)
• "Rip" (2008)

Music videos

Commercials

References

External links

• Official website
• Tom Kingsley at the Internet Movie Database
• Profile on Blink website
• Video interview with Kingsley and Will Sharpe
• Q&A with Kingsley and Will Sharpe at the Raindance Festival
• Kingsley's YouTube channel