OBEY

Jamie Jones

Jamie’s first feature film ‘Obey’ was selected for the international narrative competition at Tribeca Film Festival 2018. It tells the story of the misadventures of a 19-year-old man, somewhat adrift and living with his alcoholic mother in a rough environment, until a romantic encounter with a beautiful hedonistic girl opens the doors to an unsuspected universe. But his naivety does little to prepare him when those doors suddenly bang shut. Obey will be appearing in more international film festivals throughout 2018. Jamie has many more feature films in development. He has also made many documentaries and short films, most notably, ‘The Nest’, starring Vicky McClure, which was selected for Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2017 and Tampere film festival 2017. It was selected for another 12 international film festivals picking up the Woman In Film award at Liverpool. Jamie started making films in 2000. He was drawn to complex stories that were happening in and around his hometown of Swansea, UK to do with violence and poverty. Straight out of college his documentary ‘Fighters’ was commissioned by the BBC. It follows a group of amateur boxers who were training for the British Boys championships. For a lot of people boxing is seen as a brutal and violent sport, but Jamie wanted to explore the opportunities it afforded the impoverished boys. His first documentary ignited a theme often addressed throughout his films - why poverty so often evokes violence. His next documentary for the BBC focused on evangelical Christians who were working to get homeless drug addicts and alcoholics off the streets and into their Christian rehabilitation programme. Far from being another sensational film about a bunch of crazy evangelicals, it actually exposed the flaws in our own society by showing how desperate these people are that they were willing to embrace such an extreme ideology in the hope of salvation. 15 years on and Jamie has picked up many awards for his film work, winning the Film London in 90 seconds at BAFTA with his stirring portrait of inner city life ‘The Birdcage’. He has shot many commercial projects working with big global brands and fashion labels. By bringing his documentary style into his narrative work Jamie is gradually developing a distinctive aesthetic which he will be exploiting on his future projects.