John Burgan

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(born in 1962 in London) is an independent documentary director and writer. Many of his films are themed around identity, sense of belonging, and migration. Burgan is best known for his 1998 documentary essay ''Memory of Berlin''. Sometimes autobiographical, sometimes observational, he takes the viewer on a search for identity, sharing his own roots as English adoptee as well as reflecting on the torn identity of the city he chose to live in:

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. The film was shown in many film festivals around the world and received the first prize at the Marseille festival "Vue sur les Docs". The film was repeatedly broadcast by

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

and

Arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

. Selected commentary to "Memory of Berlin" was published in Grand Street. In ''Friendly Enemy Alien'' Burgan asks: "Friends, enemies, aliens: is it possible to be all three at once? June 1940: Jewish refugees from Austria, Germany and Italy flee Hitler at the outbreak of the war and are given asylum in England, to be interned as suspected spies, shipped off on the HMT Dunera to Australia to endure months behind barbed wire deep in the outback." ''Friendly Enemy Alien'' was first broadcast by

in Germany in August 2006. The

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

quotes John Burgan on his motives for making this film: "Refugees are invariably unwanted and unloved when they arrive, but being at the bottom of the heap they knuckle down and make the best of the chance they've been given, to become an asset to their adopted country."

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), ''A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''S ...

said about John Burgan's work: "I guess it's about time for the First-Person film to become a genre by itself, and for historians to wonder why, as it had been at the roots of literature, it took so much time to the cinema to catch up. I don't take any risk at predicting ''Memory of Berlin'' will be considered as a milestone in the road of the film-essay." The film was included in the ''Planète Marker'' retrospective at the

Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris, December 2013.

Biography

John Burgan grew up in

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...

, East Yorkshire where he attended

Hymers College Hymers College is a co-educational independent day school in Kingston upon Hull, located on the site of the old Botanical Gardens. It is one of the leading schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistres ...

. He read English Language and Literature at

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

from 1981 to 1984, then worked as a picture editor at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Biography

Films

References