DIRECTOR
10 Scotland Street - an opinionated history of one house over two centuries, by Leslie Hills with a foreword by Val McDermid, will be published on 1 December by our friend, though no relation, Scotland Street Press. Presales now available.
BIOG
LESLIE HILLS early career was in education. She left her native Glasgow to take up a post in a Junior Secondary School in Edinburgh and found herself involved in the early days of the Traverse and the building arts scene in the capital. The experience resulted in her promoting the establishment of comprehensive schools and the teaching of the arts as a central plank of curriculum. In an abandoned primary school crammed with printing machines, she founded and developed the Theatre Arts Centre which catered for 15-16 year olds and offered courses in art, music, drama and dance with the later addition of photography and film. She left TAC to join the Lothian Region's Advisory Division initially working in Drama and latterly in charge of Aesthetic and Creative Studies a course in which she developed for the Scottish Examination Board. She founded and chaired Backstage, the Royal Lyceum's young people's organisation and the Fifth Estate Theatre Company and was a board member of Theatre Workshop and the Edinburgh Video Training Company among others. During this time she was active in the Labour Party, becoming Chair, in her early twenties, of North Edinburgh Constituency Labour Party, where the late Robin Cook launched his political career. In the early eighties she wrote for a number of newspapers in theatre and on contemporary classical music and took to the mountains, enjoying particularly the vertiginous routes on the Buchaille and a rather laborious ascent of the Eiger. The western stretch of the Pyrenees was a particular favourite. During this time she worked with her then husband to establish the Scotch Malt Whisky Society whose board she later joined. In the mid eighties as the advances which had been made in the promotion of the arts in education were rolled back, at the age of 41, she became an independent producer with Skyline Film and Television Productions Limited. With Skyline she has produced drama, documentaries and live outside broadcasts, acted as executive producer to international productions and has provided consultancy and research to feature films. Her focus is on international co-production and much of her time and attention has been spent in Europe, in particular Berlin where she lived for some time.
Leslie also works as script-editor, assessor, doctor and developer and has worked with the UK Film Council, Scottish Screen, Northern Ireland Screen Commission, private clients, Nipkow Programm Berlin, the Berlinale and Moonstone International. She has many awards for her work and is a member WfTV, BAFTA and the German Film Academy. She has been a panel member for numerous international film festivals.
Leslie has published articles, reviews, book chapters, short fiction and has written for radio and television. She was a founder shareholder of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and of the campaigning and research organisation, Engender and was board member and chair 2002-2010 of Edinburgh Filmhouse and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Her current interests outside of work lie in feminism, contemporary classical music and art, travelling, the nineteenth century and books, especially European fiction. She lives in Edinburgh, has a bolthole on Bute and two daughters, a son and three grandchildren.
ASSOCIATES
STEPHANIE HILLS undertakes research for documentary and fiction features and provides transcription and translation services, subtitling and editorial services in English, French, Spanish and German. She can also marry you in France in any combinatin of these languages with greetings available in most others.
WARD CAMPBELL , IT specialist.
We can operate in Spanish, German and French.