Biography
Encouraged by then Edinburgh International Film Festival Director Lynda Myles, Kennedy started his career in Granada Television in 1975 hired in by Gus Macdonald (later Lord McDonald) to research a wide range of factual programmes. These included a series on Death (1977) with Jessica Mitford (author of controversial whistle-blower "The American Way of Death") and a re-visitation of Liverpool with ex-Beatle and later movie producer George Harrison (1977). Also he worked with Tony Wilson (later played by Steve Coogan in 24 Hour Party People (2002) on music and entertainment TV breaking talents like Joan Armatrading and Patti Smith.
As Associate Producer, then Line Producer and Director, he made medical and science series for Independent Television, which included a massive 3D-TV event throughout the UK in 1984. Working with Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, he arranged the distribution of 15 million pairs of 3D spectacles for a science special on ITV that drew a record audience and caused arrests and fights in the street over the glasses. He then launched into a series of landmark documentaries as Director and Producer - including 20 films on the many attempts by Richard Branson to be the first to fly giant balloons across the Atlantic (successful), and the Pacific (successful) and finally around the world (beaten by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard). These films were seen in all major TV markets and won numerous awards including the Grand Prix at the Jules Verne Aventure (sic) Film Festival in France in 1999.
He won the Glaxo Science Writer of the Year Award for the script for "A Shred of Evidence" (ITV, 1988), a part dramatised documentary that he directed on the first capture of a serial killer using the new technique of genetic fingerprinting - later turned into a bestseller, "The Blooding" by Joseph Wambaugh. Also produced "Pandemic" (2000) - the story of the Killer 'Flu of 1918, a co-production with Associated Producers of Canada, which won Best Science Documentary at the Toronto Film Festival, and produced and directed an acclaimed Nova (1974) and Horizon (1964) special - "Why The Towers Fell" (2002) on the mechanism of collapse of the World Trade Center.
Early in 2002 he started a collaboration with screenwriter, script doctor and producer, David Griffith to make features films. They had 3 "calling card" short films accepted for screening at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival - including All Over Brazil (2003), directed by David Andrew Ward, and Paw (2003), directed by Duncan Nicoll. All Over Brazil (2003) has played to over 200 Film Festival worldwide since its release and is the most successful short in screen agency, Scottish Screen's history. Also the Glasgow-set comedy The Fall of Shug McCracken (2003), directed by David Andrew Ward, written by BAFTA short-listed screenwriter Robbie McCallum and co-produced with Raymond L. Martin of Raygun Films USA. "Shug McCracken" won the Best Comedy Award at the Santa Monica Film Festival 2003.
Kennedy and Griffith (with producer Andrew Bonner) followed with a deeply moving and tragic story set in 1970s Ireland, based on a poem by Nobel Laureate poet, Seamus Heaney, Bye-Child (2003), written and debut directed by Bernard MacLaverty which was Nominated for a UK BAFTA Award and won the BAFTA Scotland Award in 2004 for a first time director.
Kennedy is currently Series Producer for RTÉ (Radio Telefis Éireann) in Dublin, Ireland, after completing an innovative series for the BBC as Executive Producer, How to Start Your Own Country (2005), directed by Lee Phillips. "How to Start Your Own Country" picked up two BAFTA Awards for Interactivity and Original Programming in 2006. He has also recently completed a short film for children - Winning Streak (2005) which premiered on network UK TV in 2005.
