His father's family were Bessarabian on both sides. Mark Kidel si recognised as one of the world's leading documentary film makers on the arts and music. He works mainly in the UK, France, Germany and the USA. His work is regularly se- lected in leading international festivals as well as honoured worldwide. Recent films include a feature doc about Cary Grant (Becoming Cary Grant, Official Selection Cannes 2017), a film about Englishness with the writer Martin Amis and a portrait of the British sculptor Bridget McCrum. He was a founding producer of the BBC2 series ARENA(1976), and hasmade films about visual artists Derek Jarman,Balthus, Brian Clarke, Bill Viola andFabienne Verdier and architect Norman Foster. Mark has also made films about British rock star Elvis Costello, pianists Alfred Brendel, and Leon Flesher the Bristol hip-hop musician Tricky, left-field rock musician and com- poser Robert Wyatt, Boy George, Rod Stewart, choreographer Karole Armitage, the 20th century composers Varèse and Xenakis, as well as a collaboration with Artangel around a commission of a new work by Georgian composer Giya Kancheli. He has also madea number of films on African music, a highly original serieson architecture and symbolism with writer James Hillman (with filmson The Door, The Staircase, The Window, The Tower and The Bridge) as wel as film essays on melancholia and the heart as imagined by science andi n poetry.