About Bill Maloney
Award Winning Documentary Filmmaker - A maverick for the ‘people'
www.pienmashfilms.com
BILL MALONEY:
“No one's ever tried making films like this before. As a filmmaker and a child abuse survivor I realised that if the subject was to get a wider audience the films had to be gritty, informative, engaging and entertaining.”
Bill Maloney is a cockney speaking Irishman. His parents came over to England in the early 50’s. Bill was born in Lambeth hospital in 1956; he lived in Paddington, Brixton, Peckham and Lewisham and experienced similar discrimination as his black ‘brothers & sisters’. By the time he was 20 he had spent 14 years in different institutions, brought about by the brutality of his Mother and Father’s alcoholism, which had decimated his family (seven siblings – all of whom were severely abused within Catholic Institutions and UK care authorities.)
Bill’s Mother left the family home when he was four. She became a prostitute in order to feed her drink and drugs habit. Bill’s Father worked as a miner in the tunnels. He was a foreman in charge of a gang of Irish navies on the Victoria tube line. As Bill puts it:
“They dug it, they laid the tracks, they ate in it, they urinated in it, they defecated in it, and some died in it. The life these men led was hard and brutal. Drink expelled the pain and suffering but it didn’t help their families who became dysfunctional”.
Bill believes his documentary filmmaking talent was shaped in those early years: “I would put myself into fantasy stories to escape the brutality of ‘carers in children’s homes’ and the pain of solitary confinement in Young Offenders Institutions and Borstals. Rebellion, humour and a compassion for the underdog were to become my friends and strongest allies.”
After acting opposite Colin Firth and Orlando Bloom and the success of his first feature films, Bill took the decision to walk away from a lucrative filmmaking career to utilise his skills to make campaigning documentaries focusing on institutional child abuse and the erosion of civil liberties.
The trauma and abuse received in care, be it mental or physical, contributed massively towards the skills that this writer/director/actor/presenter would need to shoot the cutting edge, and controversial documentaries that are creating his signature around the world. His empathy gives license to survivors to tell their own stories freely, creating unsanitised, uncensored, engaging and electrically charged films.
Bill’s life-turning point came at the age of 34 on a bitter January night in the early hours of the morning when an alcohol-fed undiagnosed ulcer erupted, almost bleeding him to death.
That was 21 years ago. Since then Bill has developed his writing, acting, directing and presentation talents. These are best witnessed in his cutting edge films, and documentaries, some of which have won awards throughout Europe and America.
Bill and his co-filmmaker Lilly Starr, have developed their style - charging in where angles fear to tread. They put the audience into their films as ‘the third eye’. Their highly energised banter and choreography gives their productions a definite new dimension.
For further details or to arrange an interview please contact [email protected] or Tel: 07710 416470.
Documentaries to date:
1. Palmers Boxing Academy - The noble art of boxing (2011)
2. SURVIVORS ROAR – The Battle of Trafalgar Square (2011)
3. The Kids Punch Back (2011)
4. 4Ward Forever The Heroes (2010)
5. The Street Politicians (2010)
6. Adam Rickwood & The Medomsley Heroes (2010)
7. G20 RAW (2009)
8. Sun Sea & Satan (2009)
9. Billy & Lilly go to New York (2008)
Fiction Films to date:
1. Lunatic (2007)
2. The Blunderers (2008)
www.pienmashfilms.com
BILL MALONEY:
“No one's ever tried making films like this before. As a filmmaker and a child abuse survivor I realised that if the subject was to get a wider audience the films had to be gritty, informative, engaging and entertaining.”
Bill Maloney is a cockney speaking Irishman. His parents came over to England in the early 50’s. Bill was born in Lambeth hospital in 1956; he lived in Paddington, Brixton, Peckham and Lewisham and experienced similar discrimination as his black ‘brothers & sisters’. By the time he was 20 he had spent 14 years in different institutions, brought about by the brutality of his Mother and Father’s alcoholism, which had decimated his family (seven siblings – all of whom were severely abused within Catholic Institutions and UK care authorities.)
Bill’s Mother left the family home when he was four. She became a prostitute in order to feed her drink and drugs habit. Bill’s Father worked as a miner in the tunnels. He was a foreman in charge of a gang of Irish navies on the Victoria tube line. As Bill puts it:
“They dug it, they laid the tracks, they ate in it, they urinated in it, they defecated in it, and some died in it. The life these men led was hard and brutal. Drink expelled the pain and suffering but it didn’t help their families who became dysfunctional”.
Bill believes his documentary filmmaking talent was shaped in those early years: “I would put myself into fantasy stories to escape the brutality of ‘carers in children’s homes’ and the pain of solitary confinement in Young Offenders Institutions and Borstals. Rebellion, humour and a compassion for the underdog were to become my friends and strongest allies.”
After acting opposite Colin Firth and Orlando Bloom and the success of his first feature films, Bill took the decision to walk away from a lucrative filmmaking career to utilise his skills to make campaigning documentaries focusing on institutional child abuse and the erosion of civil liberties.
The trauma and abuse received in care, be it mental or physical, contributed massively towards the skills that this writer/director/actor/presenter would need to shoot the cutting edge, and controversial documentaries that are creating his signature around the world. His empathy gives license to survivors to tell their own stories freely, creating unsanitised, uncensored, engaging and electrically charged films.
Bill’s life-turning point came at the age of 34 on a bitter January night in the early hours of the morning when an alcohol-fed undiagnosed ulcer erupted, almost bleeding him to death.
That was 21 years ago. Since then Bill has developed his writing, acting, directing and presentation talents. These are best witnessed in his cutting edge films, and documentaries, some of which have won awards throughout Europe and America.
Bill and his co-filmmaker Lilly Starr, have developed their style - charging in where angles fear to tread. They put the audience into their films as ‘the third eye’. Their highly energised banter and choreography gives their productions a definite new dimension.
For further details or to arrange an interview please contact [email protected] or Tel: 07710 416470.
Documentaries to date:
1. Palmers Boxing Academy - The noble art of boxing (2011)
2. SURVIVORS ROAR – The Battle of Trafalgar Square (2011)
3. The Kids Punch Back (2011)
4. 4Ward Forever The Heroes (2010)
5. The Street Politicians (2010)
6. Adam Rickwood & The Medomsley Heroes (2010)
7. G20 RAW (2009)
8. Sun Sea & Satan (2009)
9. Billy & Lilly go to New York (2008)
Fiction Films to date:
1. Lunatic (2007)
2. The Blunderers (2008)
