Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts is a multi-award winning documentary film director, founder of October Films, and producer/executive producer with dozens of films to his credit. He has recently extended his directing work into drama with a film about Nelson Mandela for ITV, having previously directed and co-written In Tranzit, with John Malkovich, Vera Farmiga and Daniel Bruhl. The $8m UK/Russian co-production is based on a true story, and set in a female transit camp in USSR during the first winter after WWII.

Roberts began his career at the BBC working on subjects like Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77 movement, the Contra rebels of Nicaragua and the conflict in Northern Ireland. He left the Corporation in 1986 to direct The Other Europe, Channel Four’s epic series on communism in Eastern Europe.

Soon after, Roberts founded his own production company, October Films. It built a reputation for producing distinctive feature-length films on life and society, the arts and historical subjects, in addition to cutting-edge current affairs programmes. The company has won well over a hundred international awards.

Throughout this time, Roberts continued to direct, making films on subjects as diverse as Stalin’s purges, the Arab/Israeli conflict, the crisis of manhood in South Africa, and a controversial series about runaway children in the UK.

He produced and directed a trilogy about the wars of 9/11. Afghanistan’s Dirty War investigated the deadly bombing of Azizzabad, The Insurgency was the first serious investigation of the Iraqi opposition, and A Company of Soldiers followed a combat team in Baghdad. The latter two films were nominated for a BAFTA and a Grierson – adding to his personal total of over 45 awards and nominations.

His latest feature-length doc is the Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry - an emotionally powerful story combining a personal search for redemption by a white American veteran of Korea and Vietnam with a trenchant analysis of American exploitation of indigenous peoples. It was funded by BBC Storyville, NHK, ARTE, Denmark Radio and SBS.

In 2011 he completed The Man Who Killed Michael Jackson, a two-year behind-the-scenes study of Dr. Conrad Murray, the man guilty of Michael Jackson’s death. The film was broadcast on NBC & C4 and sold to 42 territories worldwide.

Tom Roberts has now left October Films to devote his energies to his personal documentary, drama and feature film projects. He is currently directing a film for the Gates Foundation and the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi about the international efforts to eradicate polio. Roberts continues to work as a freelance Executive Producer.