Justin Edgar

Justin Edgar (born 18 August 1971) is a British film director, screenwriter and producer.

Born in Handsworth, Birmingham, Edgar left school with no qualifications because he regularly played truant to watch movies at the nearby Odeon. He had a string of dead-end jobs before enrolling on a Sutton College media course from 1991-93 where he used the basic equipment to make films. "It was really, really bog standard stuff and the edit suite was simply two VHS machines joined together. But I used to stay there until last thing at night until the caretaker came to kick me out."

He graduated from Portsmouth University in 1996 with a first class degree in film.

In 1998 he directed the short comedy Dirty Phonecalls for ITV's First Cut scheme. As with all of his work it was shot in his native Birmingham. It became a worldwide festival hit and won the 1998 BBC Drama Award at the Birmingham Film Festival. The success of Dirty Phonecalls led to his first feature film Large, which was released in UK cinemas in 2002. Shot on a budget of £1.6 million,Large was backed by Film Four and went straight in at number one in the UK video charts. It sold to over twenty countries around the world.

His 2005 short Special People won Best Film at the 2005 Chicago International Film Festival, Best Drama at the 2006 Royal Television Society Awards, the BBC New Filmmakers Award and was shortlisted for the 2007 Oscars, BAFTAs and Turner Classic Movies Prize Shorts. Also shot in 2005, real-time crime drama The Ends won best short at the 2005 Raindance Film Festival in London and was nominated for the Golden Horseman Award at Dresden film festival. It also won the Big Issue Film Award and was shown on Channel 4 and cable TV throughout Europe.

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