One of the Hollywood Ten

Set at the height of the Cold War in the fifties, ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD TEN examines the personal struggle and triumph of film director Herbert Biberman in his crusade to continue his career in the face of the McCarthy-led blacklist. At its most personal, Biberman’s story is a compelling drama of individual perseverance and familial sacrifice and, at its most political, a conspiracy thriller and ever-relevant testament to societal paranoia and hate mongering. Biberman and his wife, Academy Award-winning actress Gale Sondergaard, refused to name names and stood by their acknowledged communist beliefs. As a result, Biberman was cited for contempt of Congress, sentenced to jail and forced out of the Directors Guild of America. Resolved to fight back, he made the film THE SALT OF THE EARTH which, in 1992, was among the first 100 films to be placed in the Library of Congress. With Jeff Goldblum, Greta Scacchi and Angela Molina. 2001 San Francisco International Film Festival

Karl Francis, a Welshman, has written and/or directed over twenty fiction and documentary features, almost exclusively for the BBC and Channel 4, including "Streetlife", "Boy Soldier", "Morphine and Dolly Mixtures", and "A Happy Alcoholic". A contemporary friend of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, with whom his work is most often compared, Karl Francis is primarily considered an actor's director. His most recent films have won the Michael Powell Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and Film of the Year at the London Film Festival. His body of work combines social reality, a political consciousness, and a refined sense of humanity. In being awarded the Michael Powell Award he was commended for "demonstrating perfectly the peculiar, perhaps unique, ability of British filmmakers to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit over impossible social conditions". He has also been described as "Britain's best but least appreciated filmmaker… probably because he is Welsh and prefers to work on issue-inspired films".