Biography
David Nicholas Wilkinson's very first film as a producer was To The Lighthouse, the first true independent production with the BBC, thanks to the foresight of BBC Head of Plays Keith Williams and Head of Co-Production Ronnie Marsh, who sat with Wilkinson on three separate days and found a formula for a new way of working with the BBC. This production was nominated for a BAFTA Television Award.
He is a director/ producer/ founder and owner of Guerilla Films is probably unique in the UK entertainment industry in that he has been involved in so many different sectors since he entered the entertainment industry in 1969 in a TV commercial. His first acting role was playing Ronnie Winslow in "The Winslow Boy" with Kenneth More and then later with Richard Todd in the lead role.
His film "Getting Away With Murder(s) was voted No. 17 in The Guardian's Best Films of 2021 in the UK (and by default the highest-rated documentary on that list).
On the 3rd of December 2024, Wilkinson was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Bradford. In December 1976. Wilkinson was nominated for Best Actor for his role in a theatre production of "Equus" in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Fellow nominees were John Le Mesurier, Hywel Bennett and Andrew Ray. Wilkinson won.
Films he has produced have won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, DocFest, the Galway Film Fleadh, the Grierson Awards, etc. In November 2023, he was awarded the first-ever Stirling Award for Achievement in Documentary by the Central Scotland Documentary Festival and the University of Stirling (home of the John Grierson Archive). John Grierson was the recipient of the second award (Posthumously) and Jeanie Finlay the third.
From 1999 - 2023, apart from Alex Gibney Zero Days and Lasse Hallström Hilma, Wilkinson's Guerilla Films has only released British & Irish productions/ co-productions within the UK & Ireland, specialising in those films that other distributors thought difficult and un-commercial.
Since Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince made the world's first film on 14th of October 1888, no other British distribution company has ever made such a strong and wholehearted commitment to British films.
Some of these films starred Anthony Hopkins, Alan Bates, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Penelope Wilton, Pete Postlethwaite, Harvey Keitel, Richard Attenborough, Ewan McGregor, Kenneth Branagh, Stellan Skarsgård, Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant, Susannah York, Rita Tushingham, Tom Courtenay, Joanna Lumley, Derek Jacobi, Bob Hoskins, Elizabeth McGovern, Peter Capaldi, Richard Armitage, Elliott Gould, Lena Olin,Tom Wilkinson, Michael York and many more. (See guerilla films limited's IMDb page for details).
He is also a writer both for the screen, newspapers, and magazines and co-wrote the book "Ronald Harwood's Adaptations" and has twice appeared on BBC's Radio 4's Today Programme as an expert on the British film industry.
