Steve Hawes

Agent:  Julian Friedmann

Biography: Bilingual (French / English) scriptwriter, with many years of writing and producing experience.   

His adaptation of Dimitri Verhulst's novel, PROBLEMSKI HOTEL, Director Manu Riche with a multinational cast, was premiered at the 2016 Rotterdam Film festival, opened the 2016 RAINDANCE film festival in London, and won the GRAND PRIX du JURY INTERNATIONAL at LA ROCHE-SUR-YON.  Muriel Merlin, chair of the jury, said of the film: “We were won over by the perfectly unexpected approach to this most topical of subjects, switching as it did time and again from the absurd to the poetic.”  

In November 2017, PROBLEMSKI HOTEL premiered in France, and received considerable praise from French audiences. Télérama called the film “Poetic and spellbinding", Le Monde "Contemplative, surrealistifying and hyper-stylized" and Culturopoing commented it had “…undeniable virtuosity in finding the balance between despair and lightness, Franz Kafka and Jacques Tati.” Persistance rétinienne  said “It places everyday topicality outside time and achieves a state of equilibrium as rare as it is magical… The screenplay aligns the fragmentary episodes of the novel and plants them in a polyphonic narrative which brings further depth to the subject matter.”

His stage play, ORIGINAL SIN, which premiered in Basingstoke in 2009, has been acquired under license by PEGASUS in Berlin with a view to a German-language production in 2017.

Steve Hawes joined Granada Television as a sports journalist in 1976. He produced sport and documentary features for ITV's regional and national networks 1978-82, and adapted Arthur Ransome's fishing stories for Michael Hordern, ROD AND LINE, Channel 4 1982.   He started producing drama in 1984 and subsequently moved to Paris to produce the first twelve episodes of the MAIGRET series starring Bruno Cremer, which ran until 2006 when the 54th episode was aired. For the last few years of the run he was lead writer on the series.

 

In development:

  • A GIRL MADE OF DUST, adapted with Monica Solon Ribeiro from the novel by Nathalie Abbi-Ezzi, to be directed by Hiam Abbas for Alliance de Production Cinématographique, Paris
  • A TIME TO DIE (feature film commissioned by Hart Films. Producer: Tim Hart)
  • FRIENDLY FIRE (play depicting the stormy relationship between Churchill and de Gaulle from the Fall of France to the Liberation)
  • THE BLACK TULIP (feature film script adapted from the novel by Alexander Dumas, for director Harry Kümel, Diamond Productions Antwerp & Tom de Mol, Amsterdam)
  • THE WIDOWER (feature film script for Manu Riche on a detective who speaks to his dead wife through his cat:  sometimes she answers him

Other credits:

  • LA GUERRE SECRETE de JOSEPHINE BAKER (2 x 90 minutes co-writing adaptation for Studio International)
  • ON PAIN OF DEATH (Feature adaptation of the Simenon short story. For Chorion / Studio International)

TV writer credits:

  • MAIGRET AT THE DOCTOR'S (With Claire Marine Level. 90 minutes. For Dune (Paris) and BBC 4)
  • MAIGRET et LA DEMOISELLE DE COMPAGNIE (90 minutes. For Dune / FR2)
  • MAIGRET ET LES SEPT PETITES CROIX DANS UN CARNET (With Claire Marine Level. 90 minutes. For Dune / FR2)
  • MAIGRET ET LE DOCTEUR (With Claire Marine Level. 90 minutes. For Dune / FR2)
  • MAIGRET ET LES PETITS COCHONS SANS QUEUE (90 minutes. For DUNE / FR2)
  • UN ÉCHEC DE MAIGRET (90 minutes. For Dune / FR2. TX February)
  • THE MAN WHO WASN'T MAIGRET (60 minute semi-dramatized documentary on Georges Simenon. For FR2. With Manu Riche)
  • THE BILL: TO US AND OURS; SMITTEN (Thames / ITV. Both transmitted in 2001. Title of the latter changed prior to TX)

Producer credits:

  • LE GRAND PATRON (Consultant: medical series. For Dune)
  • MAIGRET (Co-wrote / produced two episodes. With Jean-Pierre Sinapi and Daniel Tonachella)
  • PLEASURE (Christopher Hood's feature-length comedy. With Adrian Dunbar and Jennifer Ehle. For the series ALAN BLEASDALE PRESENTS. Channel 4. 1994 / 5)
  • MAIGRET (Artistic producer of the first feature-length episodes. Starring Bruno Cremer. Directors: Claude Goretta, Serge Leroi, Bertrand van Effantère and José Pinhéro. Dune)
  • A TALE OF TWO CITIES (As Head of Drama. Co-produced. With Dune for Granada / ITV, France 2 and for WGBH Boston)
  • THE HEAT OF THE DAY (Exec-produced Harold Pinter's adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen's novel. For ITV/WGBH Boston)
  • SMALL WORLD (Six-hour adaptation of David Lodge's book. Granada / ITV)
  • FLOODTIDE (Thriller with Philip Sayer. 2 series Granada / ITV)
  • BULMAN (Produced private-eye series with Don Henderson. 2 series Granada / ITV)
  • CELEBRATION (Produced three of Kenneth Macmillan's theatrical ballets)
  • THE SEVEN SEADLY SINS (Granada / ITV)
  • A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Thea Musgrave's contemporary opera. Channel 4)
  • ISADORA (Granada / ITV)
  • GLORIA (Granada / ITV)
  • MESSIAH (A rock and roll version of Handel's work. Granada / ITV)

Stage plays:

  • BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Anvil Arts)
  • 1963 (Anvil Arts)
  • ORIGINAL SIN (Anvil Arts)
  • WHO THE HELL IS BRAMBLE? (Play on Shakespeare's sonnets. Anvil Arts)
  • TRISTAN (adapted from Béroul's Old French text. John Stripe Theatre, Winchester)