BFI Screenonline: Webster, Paul (1952-) Biography (original) (raw)

Head of films at Channel Four since 1997, Paul Webster began producing in the mid '80s, having been a successful distributor, coming to the fore with promoting The Evil Dead (US, d. Sam Raimi, 1983).

His somewhat anarchic talents found a rackety home with Palace Films; he was production co-ordinator on A Letter to Brezhnev (d. Chris Bernard, 1985); and he moved out of distribution and into production in the later '80s, on Dream Demon (d. Harley Cokliss, 1988) and The Tall Guy (d. Mel Smith, 1989), before spending several years on US productions such as Bob Roberts (US, d. Tim Robbins, 1992).

He was appointed vice-president of Miramax in 1995, then chief executive of FilmFour, and since then has had a hand in such interestingly offbeat projects as Little Voice (UK/US, d. Mark Herman, 1998), Late Night Shopping (UK/Germany, d. Saul Metzstein, 2001) and My Brother Tom (d. Dom Rotheroe, 2001), as well as the bigger-scale Charlotte Gray (UK/Australia/US, d. Gillian Armstrong, 2001).

Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film