The British writer, director and producer Peter Kosminsky was born in London in 1956 and educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s school and Oxford University, where he studied chemistry. He joined the BBC as a trainee script editor in 1980. Since making Warriors, his 1999 breakthrough drama about British peacekeepers in Bosnia, he has directed television films including The Government Inspector, The Promise and Britz, as well as two feature films, Wuthering Heights and White Oleander. He lives in Wiltshire. His latest project, Wolf Hall, starts on BBC2 on 21 January at 9pm.
Film: Pride
The film that has moved me most lately is Pride. A number of features have used the miners’ strike as their backdrop, but writer Stephen Beresford tells the story in an unexpected way that stays just the right side of sentimentality while remaining very funny. I found Andrew Scott’s performance particularly moving. At the time, living through it, it felt like just another battle gallantly lost. Perhaps it’s only now that, with 30 years of hindsight and while watching a film such as Pride, I’ve come to realise the miners’ strike actually marked the moment when we lost the war in this country.
Book: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Rather than mention a book I’ve recently enjoyed, I’d like to mention the book I’m most looking forward to at the moment. I’m childishly excited at the prospect of The Buried Giant [to be published in March], the first new novel from Ishiguro in a decade. For me, there is no author working today who better evokes intricacy masquerading as simplicity who writes with such quiet compassion about the human condition. From A Pale View of Hills in 1982 to Never Let Me Go in 2005, Ish has kept me entranced.
Music: Bob Dylan
I recently bought a stack of Bob Dylan albums on vinyl for one of my daughters. Her generation’s love of the music we grew up to seems now to extend to the wow-and-flutter format on which we originally “enjoyed” them. Playing the LPs on my old turntable for her, I was surprised by how warm and welcoming the sound seemed, compared with the crisp rigour of the digital files now in favour. Dylan’s calls to arms rang out nicely in my increasingly elderly world – a memory of forgotten passion. The recently released 1967 Basement Tapes Complete was a particular revelation. I also like Lost on the River, the new basement tapes album produced by T Bone Burnett, based on a session at the Montalban theatre in Hollywood.
Art: Montserrat Gudiol
Some years ago in Barcelona, a friend introduced me to the work of Montserrat Gudiol, a self-taught Catalan painter born in that city in 1933. Her work is, for me, poignant and disturbing in equal measure. Like the paintings of Edward Burne-Jones, another artist I hugely admire, her characters seem to inhabit a strange, semi-mythical space. They observe, they examine, they participate – though somehow, unnervingly, disengaged. There is something filmic about the imagery that draws me in.
Theatre: The Duchess of Malfi, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Last year, I was lucky enough to see a production of The Duchess of Malfi at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The Globe studio space was lit entirely by candlelight. At that time, I was evolving the look of the TV serialisation of Wolf Hall with our wonderful director of photography, Gavin Finney, and I was very influenced by the effects achieved in that production. I am now looking forward to Farinelli and the King, also at the Wanamaker – a first play by the celebrated composer Claire van Kampen, starring Mark Rylance, our extraordinary Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall.
App: Silver Efex Pro
I was an Apple “early adopter” and have long been fascinated by all things Mac. From the ridiculous range of apps I have installed, I would recommend two without which I would be lost. If you use Apple Mail, try an indispensable add-on called MailHub by Dervish Software. It brings order to my inbox and equally chaotic life. And if you use Aperture, Lightroom or any other mainstream photo-app, then try Silver Efex Pro, part of the Nik software suite recently gobbled up by Google. My father was an accomplished photographer in black and white. Many childhood hours were spent with him in the darkroom, wrestling with high-contrast paper and Ilford Pan F. Silver Efex Pro recreates this magical paper/stock combination for a digital universe, giving a gorgeous, deep contrast. If your snaps disappoint, as mine often do, give it a try.
• This article was amended on 11 January 2015 to correct personal details.
