Born in London, Paul Chart studied sculpture and painting at the
prestigious Great Yarmouth college of Art before taking an Honors
Degree in Fine Art at Sheffield Polytechnic. Here he wrote, produced,
edited, sound-edited, photographed and directed a number of award
winning short films, including the brutal "Not A War Film" (1984), the
comedy "Hand In Hand" (1985) (with director Jim Shields), the musical
"Foreign Bodies" (1985/1) and the thriller "Trick Or Treat" (1986).
The films attracted the attention of famed British Producer Sir David
Puttnam who consequently introduced Chart to The
British Film Institute where he wrote his first commercial feature,
"White Lies".
Ensuing screenplays included the political thriller "Judgement In
Berlin" (1988) (Sean Penn, Martin Sheen) for 20th Century Fox,
"Headcase" (1999) for IF Films, the thriller "Cut Throat" (1994) for
Universal Pictures and "Honest" (2000) for Dave A' Stewart and Mick
Jagger's 'Seven Dials Films'.
In between writing, Chart has photographed, directed and edited such
documentaries as the controversial 'Life Calls' for Chariot films and
"A Conversation With Ken Kessey" (1995) also for Seven Dials Films.
"American Perfekt" (1997), Chart's feature directorial debut was produced by legendary director Irvin Kershner and officially selected for the 50th anniversary
Cannes Film Festival (where it was nominated for the Camera D'or), and
has since become a cult European hit. Stars Robert Forster and Fairuza
Balk also won "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" for the pic at the
prestigious Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. Chart took
home "Best Director" award.
Other screenplay work include an epic adaptation of P.D. James's
famed science-fiction novel "The Children Of Men" (2007) (director
Alfonso Cuaron for Universal), a lavish new 3-D version of 'Journey To
The Center Of The Earth' (entitled "Journey 3-D" (2008) for Walden
Media/Disney starring Brendan Frazer, the Puccini biopic 'Cecilia' for
Irvin Kershner and a rewrite of the hit animated feature 'The Book of Life" (2014) produced by Guillermo Del Toro.
TV work includes "Big Shot" (2008), a black comic musical TV series inspired by the early career of Billy Joel (Showtime/Hazy Mills), Among the Spirits (2012) for the SyFy channel, and The Believers (2013) for NBC TV.
In 2006 Chart was named by Fade In magazine as one of the '100 people you should
know in Hollywood'.
Paul Chart lives in Los Angeles.
