Paul Morrison (director)

Paul Morrison (born 1944, London) is a British film director, screenwriter and psychotherapist.

Morrison was born in London to a family of ethnic Eastern European Jews from Ukraine and the USSR.

They had changed their surname to assimilate to England.

He made his first film as a schoolboy.

He used Super 8 film to shoot a Keystone Cops-inspired silent comedy, The Doubry Film, with his friends acting.

He recalls it as his most joyous experience as a filmmaker.

Later at Cambridge University, Morrison tried acting but found he was more suited to directing.

He directed a number of plays and short plays, including Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, with Robert Cushman as Goldberg.

He graduated with a first in Economics.

Afterwards he attended the Royal College of Art Film School on their one-year course 1966-67.

The following year he accepted a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard's Kennedy Graduate School to study the Sociology of Underdevelopment.

While there he became a part-time projectionist with the Ivy Film Club; he could view and analyse films overnight before they had to be returned.

He also worked with Josh Waletzky on a drama film about a rent strike.

He worked with Morgan Fisher on several highly regarded conceptual films, including The Director and His Actor Look at Footage...

After Morrison returned to London, he started work with the BBC, making short films for the nightly current affairs programme 24 Hours.

He moved up to longer pieces, working with a young John Humphrys on an expose of conditions at Ashford Remand Centre.

He made a series of films with Kenneth Allsop on ecological issues.

He hired the first black presenter to make a film exposing the systematic undervaluing of black children’s scholastic ability.

In 1969 Morrison made a fly-on-the-wall documentary with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

It was broadcast to coincide with the launch of their War is Over/Give Peace a Chance poster campaign.

That film was later honoured by Broadcast magazine as one of the great moments in the first fifty years of television.

It has recently been reissued in the United States on Amazon Prime.

In 1970 Morrison left the BBC and went to work with a Community Arts Project, Inter-Action, where he led the films division.

He encouraged young people and community groups to make their own films, using the newly available portable Sony and Akai cameras.

He also made experimental participatory films with Geoff Hoyle, an actor, comic and mime.

While still at Inter-Action, Morrison was sought out by producer Irving Teitelbaum from Kestrel Films.

He directed several sponsored films for Kestrel, notably Like Other People, about sexuality and disability.

It won the Grierson Award for best UK documentary in 1972.

It was shown twice on the BBC in the Man Alive slot and became a touchstone for the emerging disability movement.

At Inter-Action the tragic death of a colleague resulted in Morrison seeking help to face difficult feelings.

For the first time he sought psychotherapy and to learn its deep and lasting value.

Paul left Inter-Action to become a founder member of the Newsreel Collective, helping make campaign and educational films.

These included Divide and Rule – Never! against racism, and True Romance etc. about relationships and sexual preference.

The script for the latter was workshopped with the young people who performed in it.

Divide and Rule – Never! won first prize at Oberhausen.

True Romance etc! was runner-up for the Grierson award.

During the same period, Morrison was deeply engaged in the nascent men's movement.

It explored redefining men’s roles and masculinity in response to women’s liberation.

He published a volume of poems celebrating and exploring the birth of his daughter, Pregnant Fatherhood.

He also wrote for and helped to produce Achilles Heel, a radical men’s magazine.