Philip John

Philip John (born in Newport, Wales) is an award-winning and multi BAFTA-nominated director and screenwriter. He is the managing director of his own production company, Orange River Ltd, named after the River Ebbw, which, in the 1960s, was one of the most polluted waterways in Europe. 2Early life and education John played bass with DIY punk band called Reptile Ranch. Along with Spike Reptile, Simon Smith and Andrew Tucker, he founded Z-Block Records, a non profit-making collective releasing records by fellow Cardiff-based DIY bands, including the Young Marble Giants. John also ran a musicians collective at the seminal Grassroots Cafe on Charles Street in Cardiff. John left the music business "following an ill-fated busking-trip to Paris with nine-piece kazoo band performing Motown numbers," and set about equipping himself to work as a film maker. A graduate of Newport Film School (formerly part of the University of Wales, Newport, now the University of South Wales), John won Best Fiction Film at the BP EXPO student film awards for his first short Surface Tension and the following year won Runner Up Best Screenplay for Dando's Brilliantine in the Fuji Scholarship Awards. 2Film On leaving film school, John made a further three short films under various schemes. Sixteen Ounces was made as part of an in-house BBC Wales scheme. BBC Wales and Sgrin Cymru collaborated on Welsh Rarebits, which produced John's controversial and BAFTA-nominated short film Suckerfis