A graduate of Europe’s leading film school, the National Film and Television School, Martin Stellman’s career as screenwriter spans several decades ranging from the youth cult classic based on The Who’s iconic album, QUADROPHENIA (1979) to, most recently, YARDIE (2018) Idris Elba’s acclaimed debut feature as director. Other writing credits include the reggae sound-system classic, Franco Rosso’s BABYLON (1980), hailed by critic Jason Solomons as “one of the mythic films of British cinema”, the David Puttnam produced benchmark political thriller, DEFENCE OF THE REALM (1985) and the hard-hitting urban western, FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY (1988) starring Denzel Washington, which Martin also directed. In addition to The Who, Martin has worked closely with David Bowie on RICOCHET, (1984) a documentary-diary of Bowie’s Serious Moonlight tour of the Far East and worked in Hollywood on several writer-director projects before returning to UK to direct the BBC TV series HARRY (1993) for Franc Roddam. He has also developed a number of larger budget projects for the Universal Pictures’ company, Working Title. THE INTERPRETER, produced by Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner and directed by Sidney Pollack, with an original screenplay by Martin and Film School colleague Brian Ward, was released in 2005. He is currently co-developing the TV Series THE ROCK, an international thriller for UK’s Big Talk and Spain’s Media Pro as well as SHAKESPEARE GOES WEST, a TV mini-series for Stephen Fry’s production company. In March 2019, BABYLON, never before released in USA, opened in 100 US cinemas for the very first time to rave reviews in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and Cahiers du Cinema. Martin is a Member of BAFTA, Directors UK and the European Film Academy. He is a fluent French and Spanish speaker and a deaf signer.