Profile of Amanda Neville - BFI - published in Sunday Times April 20th
The boundary between profession and passion is blurred for Amanda Nevill, director of the British Film Institute.
Her working hours are full of the challenges of running an institution in the throes of radical re-invention. It is 75 this year and waiting for Government approval to create an ambitious £200 million National Film Centre on the South Bank in London.
But after hours and at weekends she can often be found – along with many other BFI staffers - at the present BFI Southbank centre, watching films or mingling with people from the business.
“I don’t know how many films I’ve seen, but I still get excited every time that curtain opens. I want other people to have the opportunity to get as excited and to be nourished in the same way that I do.”
Nevill, 51 who earns around £120,000 annually was appointed in 2003 by the then new chairman of the BFI, film director Anthony Minghella. He died this March.
“His loss numbed me. The BFI that exists now is very much his vision. He and I shared the same values. We wanted the BFI to be loved by a lot of people.”
His successor is former BBC Director General Greg Dyke. Nevill has just taken him to see the BFI’s film archive – the world’s largest - housed over 34 acres underground near Birmingham and in Hertfordshire.
During the week Nevill moves between meetings with colleagues to discuss things like the London Film Festival, conservation issues, the proposed National Film Centre and how to make the BFI’s vast collection increasingly accessible.
“We are like the British Museum for film – one of the great planks of UK culture. Our job is interpret this stuff in a way that is relevant and exciting for lots of different audiences.
The BFI is multi-faceted. As well as running the BFI Southbank and Mediatheque, it has the IMAX, a vast library and immense film archive, a distribution wing, Sight and Sound magazine, publications and more.
Nevill says there are many challenges for the BFI – all interconnected. These include protecting the archive and ensuring that everyone has access to the widest diversity of cinema and to knowledge about it in the digital age.
“Our distribution of films is spectacular now. We serve over 800 venues across the UK with around 12,000 prints in an average year.”
Then there are the Mediatheques in London and touring the UK and co-productions utilising forgotten archive film. But the single biggest vision is the proposed National Film Centre.
“Anthony used to say that BFI Southbank is a rehearsal run for this. It will be a collision of facets which have never sat together before.
We are in the throes of negotiating a very exciting formal partnership with higher education which will breathe the next level of scholarly engagement with our collections.”
“We want to create a destination where anybody who loves anything about film can come, a place to capture the hearts and minds of the public, for people from the industry and for everyone else.”
Friday, April 25, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Kew Gardens Profile - Sunday Times - April 2008
Most mornings before breakfast, Professor Stephen Hopper and his wife walk in the gardens around the West London house which comes with his job.
But these are no ordinary gardens. The 56-year-old Australian botanist became Director of Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in 2006 and his stroll can take him anywhere in its 300 acres.
Kew is the popular public showcase for a vast root system of lesser-known but vital scientific work there and at Wakehurst Place in Sussex – home to the Millennium Seed Bank. Kew’s scientists work globally and it also has a small outpost in Mozambique manned by six local people. “It is one of the world’s richest but least explored places for plant species.”
When Hopper started the £129,000 a year job he says: “I had a sense of awe and found it humbling to be involved in a place so rich in history and global reach. There are around 700 staff - about a third involved in science, so it is one of the plant science powerhouses of the world.
The scientific work is focused at the Jodrell laboratories in Kew and at the Seed Bank where it is aimed to have seeds from 25 percent of the world’s plants in storage by 2020.
“The challenges for Kew are to help improve the quality of life by focusing on what plants can do for people in general and what they can do in terms of some of the environmental challenges we all face. That involves some organisational changes and new partnerships and ways of doing things.”
Attending to those partnerships meant meeting a senior BBC executive this week to explore ways of increasing public awareness of environmental issues. Hopper also travelled to Cambridge for a scientific conference. His weekend was spent reading about Darwin whose 200th anniversary coincides with Kew’s 250th birthday. Big events are planned.
Hopper grew up in the semi desert landscape of Western Australia and a school trip into the wild made him realise he wanted to work outdoors. He trained first as a marine biologist but switched over to botany. He still spends a month a year in the field.
Scientific and management skills must now be matched by political canniness. “We have an active role in exploring the world of plants and funghi, demonstrating clearly their value and importance and engaging in the political process to get the world to turn the corner and stop this crazy behaviour of ever more destruction of wild vegetation.”
“Kew’s role is not blatantly political. It is about ensuring that the underpinning science is conducted to really help policy makers take informed decisions.”
“I have to be optimistic. I went to a conference on sustainability and indigenous people and an elder from an Native American nation said the most important thing we can give to young people is hope. We really need to think of what can be done and engage people. All good things start with individuals.”
But these are no ordinary gardens. The 56-year-old Australian botanist became Director of Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in 2006 and his stroll can take him anywhere in its 300 acres.
Kew is the popular public showcase for a vast root system of lesser-known but vital scientific work there and at Wakehurst Place in Sussex – home to the Millennium Seed Bank. Kew’s scientists work globally and it also has a small outpost in Mozambique manned by six local people. “It is one of the world’s richest but least explored places for plant species.”
When Hopper started the £129,000 a year job he says: “I had a sense of awe and found it humbling to be involved in a place so rich in history and global reach. There are around 700 staff - about a third involved in science, so it is one of the plant science powerhouses of the world.
The scientific work is focused at the Jodrell laboratories in Kew and at the Seed Bank where it is aimed to have seeds from 25 percent of the world’s plants in storage by 2020.
“The challenges for Kew are to help improve the quality of life by focusing on what plants can do for people in general and what they can do in terms of some of the environmental challenges we all face. That involves some organisational changes and new partnerships and ways of doing things.”
Attending to those partnerships meant meeting a senior BBC executive this week to explore ways of increasing public awareness of environmental issues. Hopper also travelled to Cambridge for a scientific conference. His weekend was spent reading about Darwin whose 200th anniversary coincides with Kew’s 250th birthday. Big events are planned.
Hopper grew up in the semi desert landscape of Western Australia and a school trip into the wild made him realise he wanted to work outdoors. He trained first as a marine biologist but switched over to botany. He still spends a month a year in the field.
Scientific and management skills must now be matched by political canniness. “We have an active role in exploring the world of plants and funghi, demonstrating clearly their value and importance and engaging in the political process to get the world to turn the corner and stop this crazy behaviour of ever more destruction of wild vegetation.”
“Kew’s role is not blatantly political. It is about ensuring that the underpinning science is conducted to really help policy makers take informed decisions.”
“I have to be optimistic. I went to a conference on sustainability and indigenous people and an elder from an Native American nation said the most important thing we can give to young people is hope. We really need to think of what can be done and engage people. All good things start with individuals.”
Zoo profile - Sunday Times - april
It was on his second day as a teenage volunteer at Dudley Zoo that David Field had a life-changing encounter.
Field, 41, is now Zoological Director of the two establishments run by the Zoological Society of London – ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade.
“I’d like to say my inspiration was David Attenborough or Sir Stamford Raffles who started this zoo, but it was probably Joe the Orang Utan. He was a remarkable animal.
“Joe loved Horlicks and the first time I went to feed him he gently manoeuvred the feeding can aside and, for ten minutes, we just looked at each other. I felt such a sense of responsibility for him and began to understand the responsibility we as humans have for the care of nature, whether it be in zoos or the environment.”
Field has 20,845 animals in his care together with 240 staff. He has been with ZSL five years, first as Whipsnade’s curator and as Zoological Director since 2006. His week now involves so much business planning that, last year, he completed an MBA.
“ It is quite an eclectic job. I am responsible for the animals but also for keepers and the veterinary department, development of new exhibits, future plans for the zoo and also education. It’s not just children, but finding ways to inspire all our million and a half visitors.”
Alongside weekly management meetings and one-to-ones with key workers, another priority is visiting all staff and animals at both sites.
“I like to know exactly what is going on with all the animals. Today I joined a briefing for the bird team and I visited our new gorilla who arrived yesterday – a gorgeous female called Mijuku.
“It is incredibly exciting. Today she met our male gorilla Bobby for the first time and, to quote my head keeper of gorillas: ‘love is in the air.’ “
Other highlights of his week were the opening in London of the Blackburn Pavilion for birds, and in Whipsnade, Cheetah Rock with extensive facilities for captive breeding of the big cat.
Those who disapprove of zoos may not have visited one lately. Field says: “Discovery and learning is one of the pillars of our work alongside research and conservation.”
“”Society is becoming so divorced from nature that places like zoos can really reconnect them with nature. It for their own well being.”
Zoos are now in the environmental frontline. Among many conservation projects, ZSL is pioneering the fight against a fungal infection called the Chytrid Fungus that is killing amphibians globally.
“It is an extinction crisis worse than the dinosaurs. The only survival hope for many amphibians is to set up captive breeding habitats.“
In an era when the challenges of climate change and global extinction seem overwhelming, Field remains optimistic. “ We cannot win all the battles, but I always remember a quotation from the anthropologist Margaret Mead. ‘Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.’”
Field, 41, is now Zoological Director of the two establishments run by the Zoological Society of London – ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade.
“I’d like to say my inspiration was David Attenborough or Sir Stamford Raffles who started this zoo, but it was probably Joe the Orang Utan. He was a remarkable animal.
“Joe loved Horlicks and the first time I went to feed him he gently manoeuvred the feeding can aside and, for ten minutes, we just looked at each other. I felt such a sense of responsibility for him and began to understand the responsibility we as humans have for the care of nature, whether it be in zoos or the environment.”
Field has 20,845 animals in his care together with 240 staff. He has been with ZSL five years, first as Whipsnade’s curator and as Zoological Director since 2006. His week now involves so much business planning that, last year, he completed an MBA.
“ It is quite an eclectic job. I am responsible for the animals but also for keepers and the veterinary department, development of new exhibits, future plans for the zoo and also education. It’s not just children, but finding ways to inspire all our million and a half visitors.”
Alongside weekly management meetings and one-to-ones with key workers, another priority is visiting all staff and animals at both sites.
“I like to know exactly what is going on with all the animals. Today I joined a briefing for the bird team and I visited our new gorilla who arrived yesterday – a gorgeous female called Mijuku.
“It is incredibly exciting. Today she met our male gorilla Bobby for the first time and, to quote my head keeper of gorillas: ‘love is in the air.’ “
Other highlights of his week were the opening in London of the Blackburn Pavilion for birds, and in Whipsnade, Cheetah Rock with extensive facilities for captive breeding of the big cat.
Those who disapprove of zoos may not have visited one lately. Field says: “Discovery and learning is one of the pillars of our work alongside research and conservation.”
“”Society is becoming so divorced from nature that places like zoos can really reconnect them with nature. It for their own well being.”
Zoos are now in the environmental frontline. Among many conservation projects, ZSL is pioneering the fight against a fungal infection called the Chytrid Fungus that is killing amphibians globally.
“It is an extinction crisis worse than the dinosaurs. The only survival hope for many amphibians is to set up captive breeding habitats.“
In an era when the challenges of climate change and global extinction seem overwhelming, Field remains optimistic. “ We cannot win all the battles, but I always remember a quotation from the anthropologist Margaret Mead. ‘Never doubt that a group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.’”
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