Josh Appignanesi

Josh Appignanesi (born 1975) is a British film director, producer, and screenwriter.

Appignanesi is best known for the feature film Song Of Songs (2006), starring Nathalie Press, which he directed, co-wrote and co-produced. The film won several awards including a special commendation for Best British Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Made on a tiny budget, the film is a dark study of the intense relationship between a brother and highly religious sister in London's orthodox Jewish community. The film had a small, arthouse UK release but received critical acclaim; The Observer said it "reveals a distinctive and bold new voice in British cinema."

He recently directed and script edited the comedy feature film The Infidel, written by David Baddiel and starring Omid Djalili, Richard Schiff, Archie Panjabi, Amit Shah and Yigal Naor. Produced by Arvind David at Slingshot, the film follows the adventures of a British Muslim everyman (Djalili) who discovers he was born Jewish. The film was released internationally in Spring 2010, in the UK with distributor Revolver Entertainment.

He has written and directed several short films, most notably Ex Memoria (2006) which also stars Nathalie Press as well as Sara Kestelman in a study of a woman with Alzheimer's disease, funded by the Wellcome Trust; and Nine 1/2 Minutes (2003), a romantic comedy starring David Tennant.

He lives in London and studied anthropology at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary and close friend of the novelist Zadie Smith.

He is the son of writers Lisa Appignanesi and Richard Appignanesi.

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