Grew up in Blackburn

First worked in the film and TV industries with a job in the cutting room at Thames Television

First work as director: made two TV documentaries about Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, "Ingmar Bergman: The Magic Lantern" (for Channel 4) and "Ingmar Bergman: The Director" (for ITV)

First worked with screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce on the made-for-TV young adult dramas, "The Strangers" and "Forget About Me"

Directed opening two-hour TV-movie installment of the British crime drama series, "Cracker"; opening episode entitled "Cracker: The Mad Woman in the Attic"

Breakthrough work, and first TV miniseries work, the four-part BBC/RTE serial drama, "Family"; a two-hour pared-down version of the program also played at a number of film festivals

Along with Andrew Eaton, formed production company, Revolution Films, in March, while "Family" was in post-production

Directed first feature film, "Butterfly Kiss"

Helmed the underrated adaptation of "Jude", starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet

Directed the based-on-fact "Welcome to Sarajevo", an ironically titled film about a British journalist who develops a bond with a Bosnian child

Won praise for "Wonderland", which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; released theatrically in the USA in 2000

Helmed "The Claim", an adaptation of "The Mayor of Casterbridge" set in 1860s California

Directed "24 Hour Party People", a drama about the British electronica musical group New Order

Helmed "Going Mad in Hollywood" (lensed 2002), a drama about filmmaker Lindsay Anderson's friendship with writer David Sherwin

Directed Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton in "Code 46" a futuristic love story

Directed "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story" an adaptation of Laurence Sterne's essentially unfilmable novel, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman"

Helmed the controversal film "The Road to Guantanamo," the true story of three friends who set off from Britain for a wedding overseas and ended up as terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay

Set to helm "Genova," a ghost story about a British man who moves his two American daughters to Genoa following the death of his wife (lensed 2007)

Helmed "A Mighty Heart," starring Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, the wife of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl