In Circles

Before his breakthrough script for Do Elephants Pray? Jonnie Hurn wrote, produced and starred in the feature Animals for Jaffa Films. Production work includes the features Black Smoke Rising, and Monk3ys which won the award for Best Microbudget Feature at the Raindance Film Festival in 2011 just 6 months after the shoot. He was also co-producer on the horror sequel World of the Dead for the Weinstein Company. His production experience also includes stints as Associate Producer / Production Manager for Aviary Films on four features Naachle London, Unhallowed Ground, Servants Quarters & Freshers Week as well as Co-Producer for the music revenge thriller Over & Over for Department F Films. Jonnie’s first foray into directing as on the multi-award winning short King John Act vi Sc 1 He followed that with the short film The Girl Who Ran Away (Scared) From The World. In Circles is his directorial feature debut.

Ian Manson is an uncompromising film producer/writer who has taken no short cuts in establishing his film career. His first professional assignment was to work as first assistant director to Lindsay Shonteff (Permissive, How Sleep the Brave and Big Zappa’s Blade) on his last ever feature film Angels, Devils and Men. Lindsay has posthumously been venerated by the BFI and is described as the master of b movie filmmaking. Ian has always taken with him the lessons learned in making every 10 pounds spent in a budget look like 100 pounds on screen. His next projects were collaborations with Caleb Lindsay (winner of the London Film Festival for “Understanding Jane”) on their project Seven Seconds to Heaven as both co-writer and Producer, then with Steve Norris on an art house piece called A short film about a Polish film director, which exhibited at Tate Modern as part of the personality plus show. Through a new friendship with Jonnie Hurn, Ian joined the Monk3ys Ink team which have produced four feature films Umbrage the First Vampire, Monk3ys (Raindance Film Festival microbudget award) Black Smoke Rising and more recently The Devil’s Bargain. Ian has also worked with Paul Hills on his most recent feature film The Power and with Peter Dixon on his Dogma 95 inspired film Set Piece. Ian is also producing The Mod with Mark Forstater (Monty Python & The Holy Grail). In 2015 he directed the feature The Low Road which is in post production.