NOTTING HILL [Filmmakers]

DUNCAN KENWORTHY (Producer) studied at Cambridge University and the University of Pennsylvania before moving to New York where he worked for the Children’s Television Workshop, producers of Sesame Street. In 1997 CTW sent him to Kuwait, where he produced 130 episodes of an Arabic version of Sesame Street, Iftah Ya Simsim, which was seen daily by fifteen Arab countries.

From 1979 Kenworthy worked closely with the late Jim Henson for more than ten years in London until Jim’s death in 1990. First as associate producer on the feature film The Dark Crystal (1981), then as co-creator and producer of Fraggle Rock (International Emmy 1983). He also produced fourteen television dramas written by Anthony Minghella--The Storyteller, Greek Myths and a one-hour film for Channel 4 entitled Living With Dinosaurs, for which he won two British Academy Awards and an International Emmy. From 1988 to 1995 he served as senior vice president of production for Jim Henson Productions.

In 1994 Kenworthy took a leave of absence from the company to produce Four Weddings and a Funeral, still the most commercially successful British movie of all time. The film grossed more than $250 million worldwide and Kenworthy received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations as well as French Cesar and British Academy Awards. For this feat, he was named British Producer of the Year in 1994 by the London Film Critics Circle.

In 1995 Kenworthy set up his own company, Toledo Pictures. His first production as an independent was Gulliver’s Travels, a $20 million mini-series for Hallmark and NBC. The series broke audience records with more than 56 million people tuning in and won five Emmy Awards. Following its broadcast in the U.K., it won four RTS Awards and two British Academy Awards.

Kenworthy’s first American film, Lawn Dogs premiered at the Montreal Film Festival where Sam Rockwell won the Best Actor Award. The film received several festival awards around the world, and opened in the U.K. to critical acclaim. In 1997 Kenworthy formed DNA films, a partnership with Andrew Macdonald which was awarded a film production franchise by the Arts Council of England to make sixteen films over six years.

Kenworthy is a member of the government’s recent Film Policy Review Group whose report on the film industry, "A Bigger Picture," was published in March 1998. He is on the council of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and was made an OBE in the 1999 New Years Honors List.