Education
Cambridge University (Gonville & Caius College), Modern Languages (French/German) and Law. Lincoln’s Inn, called to the English Bar.
Law Practice
Seven years working with US entertainment lawyer Irwin Margulies, whose independent film producer clients included Sam Spiegel, Harry Saltzman and Carlo Ponti.
As a partner, based in London, Mitchell specialised in structured finance film transactions and the setting up of international co-productions, notably the classic Don’t Look Now (UK/Italy), directed by Nic Roeg, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland and Force 10 From Navarone (UK/Yugoslavia), directed by Guy Hamilton, starring Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw.
Little Bird
Mitchell founded Little Bird and with business partner Jonathan Cavendish, built one of the most successful independent production companies in Europe. Over the course of some 25 years, Little Bird, based in Dublin, London and Johannesburg, developed and produced some 50 movies, feature documentaries and television dramas.
Selected highlights include –
December Bride, directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival, won 11 International Awards including Montreal Critics Prize and a FELIX Special Jury Prize at the European Film Awards; Into The West, written by Jim Sheridan, directed by Mike Newell, starring Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin (“a gloriously romantic story of childhood escape” Sunday Independent) and indie US box office hit Croupier, directed by Mike Hodges, starring Clive Owen (“Intense, tough and all aces” Los Angeles Times).
Co-Productions
World War II epic Enemy At The Gates (France/Germany/UK/Ireland/US), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz and worldwide box office hit Bridget Jones’s Diary (with Working Title), directed by Sharon Maguire, starring Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.
Television Drama
The Irish R. M., a classic period series (Channel 4/Masterpiece Theater) over three seasons (“A rollicking great success” The Standard); The Writing On The Wall, thriller mini-series (BBC/WDR) starring Denis Haysbert and William H. Macy; The Hanging Gale, Irish Famine mini-series (BBC), Golden FIPA Biarritz, and No Tears, State of the Nation mini-series (RTE), starring Academy Award winner Brenda Fricker, Golden Nymph Monte Carlo.
Feature Documentaries
King of Communism, directed by Ben Lewis, Grierson Award; The Klaus Kinski story Mein Liebster Feind, directed by Werner Herzog, Special Presentation Cannes Film Festival (“Genius and madness” Der Spiegel), documusical Sophiatown, directed by Pascale Lamche, Best Documentary Cape Town World Cinema Festival and Dreams of a Life, directed by Carol Morley, starring Zawe Ashton (“Nothing has lingered in my mind like this” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian).
Soho Moon
Irish production company Soho Moon makes films and high end television drama. The company was set up in 2009 by James Mitchell, an Executive Producer and, on occasion, Producer.
In 2017/2021, Soho Moon made and released –
Acceptable Risk, 6 x 1 hours thriller series written by Emmy winner Ron
Hutchinson, directed by Kenny Glenaan, starring Elaine Cassidy and Angeline
Ball. International sales DCD Rights. Second season for Acorn TV, Super
Channel and RTE, shooting Summer 2019.
Death and Nightingales, based on Eugene McCabe’s classic novel of love,
betrayal and revenge, 3 x 1 hours, written and directed by Allan Cubitt (‘The
Fall’), starring Emmy winner Matthew Rhys, Jamie Dornan and Ann Skelly for
BBC2. International sales Red Arrow.
Vermeer, Beyond Time, “imaginative and sensitive…remarkable” (RTE.ie/
culture), a film directed by Jean-Pierre Cottet, narrated by Steve Martin for
ARTE and WETA (PBS).
Citizen Lane, “a must see for Irish culture vultures” (Sunday Times), a film
written by Mark O’Halloran, directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan starring Tom
Vaughan-Lawlor and Michael Gambon for RTE in association with Screen
Ireland.
Hidden Assets, a new six part Irish drama made in association with Screen Ireland and Screen Flanders, RTÉ and AMC Networks’ Acorn TV. Hidden Assets was broadcast on RTÉ One, RTÉ Player, BBC Four, BBC iPlayer, and as an Acorn TV Original on Acorn TV in the United States and on Super Channel in Canada in 2022. DCD Rights has global distribution rights excluding Ireland, Benelux and North America. The second season of Hidden Assets aired in 2023.