After studies in English literature, Jon Amiel graduated from Cambridge
University and ran the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, which
often toured the USA. He became the Hampstead Theatre Company's
literary manager and began directing there, relocating to the Royal
Shakespeare Company.
Amiel joined the BBC as a story editor, studied television directing
and did TV work through the late 1970s and early 1980s, scoring
attention in 1985 with _Silent Twins, The (1985)_, an unforgettable recreation of the
tragic "silent twins" June and Jennifer Gibbons, who spoke only to each
other. Airing during the same year Marjorie Wallace's non-fiction book
The Silent Twins (1986) was published by Prentice Hall), the docudrama
was the BBC's selection for entry at the Locarno and Montreal Film
Festivals.
As noted in Stephen Gilbert's biography of Dennis Potter, Amiel was
working on The Silent Twins (1986) when Kenith Trodd gave him the six
Singing Detective scripts. After international acclaim for Der singende Detektiv (1986),
Amiel's feature film debut, Liebe, Rache, Cappuccino (1989), premiered at Cannes, was named
Best First Film at the Montreal Festival and won the Birmingham
Festival's Best British Feature Film Award. Amiel's Julia und ihre Liebhaber (1990), based on
Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter, won the Deauville
Festival's Prix Publique. He followed with the period drama Sommersby (1993),
the thriller Copykill (1995), Agent Null Null Nix (1997) and moved into action-adventure with
Verlockende Falle (1999) and The Core - Der innere Kern (2003).
