Adrian Wootton OBE is the Chief Executive of Film London (the agency charged with developing the screen industries in the capital) and the British Film Commission, the unit responsible for promoting the UK as the best place to produce feature films and high-end television.  

Prior to becoming the Chief Executive of Film London in 2003, Adrian was Acting Director of the British Film Institute (BFI), in addition to having been the Director of the London Film Festival (LFF), the National Film Theatre (NFT), Head of BFI Exhibition and Director of the crime and mystery film festival, Crime Scene.  

Before his appointment to the BFI, he was founding Director of Broadway Media Centre in Nottingham and Director of the Bradford Playhouse & Film Theatre. Adrian is a Programme Advisor to the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival; Venice Film Festival; Noir in Fest, Milan; the Founding Director of Shots in the Dark, Nottingham’s crime and mystery film festival and the Curator of the UK Italian film showcase Cinema Made in Italy.   

He regularly broadcasts and reviews films for Radio 4 and contributes articles to various newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian and Sight & Sound. He frequently lectures nationally and internationally, as well as curating film programmes and retrospectives for numerous organizations, including BFI Southbank, on a wide variety of subjects, as diverse as Elvis Presley, Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene, Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones.  

Adrian co-ordinated the film and television components of the international Dickens 2012 celebrations, of which Film London was a co-ordinating partner, with the Charles Dickens Museum. Specifically, Adrian co-curated a large film and television retrospective, which toured throughout the world. He also produced, co-wrote and co-narrated the 2012 documentary Dickens on Film for BBC Arena and Film London.  

In 2016, Adrian co-wrote and produced All the World’s a Screen a documentary on Shakespeare and Film for BBC Arena and Film London and was extensively involved in the Shakespeare 400th Anniversary, curating film programmes and lecturing at venues throughout the world.  

In 2012, Adrian received an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts and was appointed Visiting Professor of Film & Media at Norwich University of the Arts.

In 2014, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and as an alumnus of the university hosts an annual mentoring programme there for film studies students wanting to enter the film and tv industry. In 2017, he was awarded an OBE for his services to film in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Read more from our CEO