John Battsek is the Managing Director and founder of Passion Pictures and is one of the most prolific and successful documentary producers. His most internationally recognised films include conceiving and co-producing One Day in September (1999), as well as producing Searching for Sugar Man (2012), which both won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. Other works include Academy Award-nominee Restrepo, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight of Freedom, Emmy-winning The Tillman Story and Manhunt: Inside the Hunt of Bin Laden, BAFTA Award-winning The Imposter, Grammy®-nominated Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, Project Nim about animal activism, Studio 54, The Final Year about Barack Obama, and multi-award-winning Listen to me Marlon about actor Marlon Brando. Battsek has been nominated three times for a Producers Guild of America Award and was the recipient of 2013 Grierson Trustees Award for Outstanding Contribution to Documentary. He received his first APSA nomination for The Australian Dream in 2019.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
