// ABOUT DEREK JARMAN
"To call him a legendary figure is to understate his role in the culture." -- Colin MacCabe
Declared “a national treasure” by the Times of London, visionary avant-garde painter, filmmaker and activist Derek Jarman (31 January 1942–19 February 1994) was among the most innovative, esteemed, and controversial artists of the late twentieth century. London’s Serpentine Gallery calls him “the single-most crucial figure of British independent cinema in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.”
In his films, paintings, and essays, Jarman engaged deeply with British and Western culture and its articulation in terms of personal and political identity, the popular media, and cultural tradition. His work is both incisive and poetic, tackling subjects ranging from punk to Renaissance art, from Ludwig Wittgenstein to Margaret Thatcher, from the Gay Liberation movement to the personal impact of HIV/AIDS, finding a place for those routinely omitted from normative histories of the West.
Throughout his career, Jarman also collaborated with the leading musicians of his day to create documentaries and music videos for ground-breaking performers such as The Sex Pistols and Marianne Faithfull and seminal 1980s pop icons The Smiths, Marc Almond, and the Pet Shop Boys.
In 1986, Jarman became the first UK celebrity to disclose his HIV status, leading the fight for AIDS research and treatment. Jarman succumbed to AIDS-related illness in 1994. His legacy is a substantive body of influential and inspiring work, including his tiny, iconic Dungeness estate, Prospect Cottage, which attracts over two hundred and fifty thousand visitors each year.
Derek Jarman’s films include Sebastiane (1976); Jubilee (1977); The Tempest (1979); The Angelic Conversation (1985); Caravaggio (1986); The Last of England (1988); War Requiem (1989); The Garden (1990); Edward II (1991); Wittgenstein (1993), and Blue (1993).
Iconoclastic Features is proud to present the first major narrative film about his life.
"I had to write of a sad time as a witness...may you of a better future love without a care and remember we loved too. As the shadows closed in, the stars came out. I am in love."
Derek Jarman, 1942 -- 1994