Michael Winterbottom (1961-) b. Blackburn, Lancashire, England.

Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, Michael Winterbottom earned a degree in English at Oxford before studying film at Bristol and London. He first worked in the industry as a film editor for Thames Television, directing two documentaries about Ingmar Bergman. He formed working relationship with screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce when they teamed for a couple of youth-oriented TV comedy-dramas, beginning with the BAFTA nominated The Strangers (1989). He then progressed to directing prime-time TV series including Cracker and The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries. A TV breakthrough came with his four-part BBC serial, Family (1994), Roddy Doyle’s tale of a dysfunctional Irish working-class family. He first earned recognition with his debut feature Butterfly Kiss (1995), a story of lesbian lovers on a serial killing spree along the roads of Northern England.