Mike Christie (director)

Mike Christie is a British film and television director and producer who has made films for the BBC, Channel 4, Sky, Discovery, History Channel, Apple, Showtime and Red Bull. His career began in the 1990s working with the artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman – who he met at meetings of Act Up London – on projects including the book At Your Own Risk.^[1]

Other early collaborators included Pet Shop Boys^[2] and Suede^[3] with whom he worked from 1992 to 1997.^[4] In 1997, he co-created Drop the Debt,^[5] the mainstream music and entertainment industries campaign of the Jubilee 2000 movement, fronted by Bono and others, and led to the cancellation of more than $100 billion in debt owed by 35 of the poorest countries.^[6]

Christie's Parkour documentaries Jump London (2003)^[7][8] and Jump Britain (2005), debuting Sebastien Foucan, presented the discipline to a global audience for the first time. In recognition, in 2010, Christie was nicknamed the "godfather" of Parkour by one of the sport's publications.^[9][10] Following the success of Jump London, in 2004 Mike Christie founded production company Carbon Media, which was sold to ITV in 2009.^[11]

During the 2010s, Christie made sports and arts films and documentaries including Concrete Circus (2011), The Secret Life of Buildings (2011), Danny MacAskill’s Imaginate (2013), The Art of China with Andrew Graham-Dixon (2014), Sir Alex Ferguson: Secrets of Success (2015), and Football: A Brief History (2016).^[12][13] In 2017 and 2018 he directed music documentaries Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976–90, New Order: Decades and Suede: The Insatiable Ones.^[12] New Order: Decades and Suede: The Insatiable Ones screened at CPH:DOX in 2019.^[14] Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976–90 was shortlisted for a Grierson Award.^[15]

In 2021, Zinc Media Group launched the production label Supercollider, led by Christie.^[16]

Through Supercollider, Christie directed the documentary Accelerate or Die (2023), featuring artist Jake Chapman and focusing on debates around accelerationism, technology and the climate crisis.^[17][18] He later directed the Sky Arts feature documentary The Pilgrimage of Gilbert & George (2024).^[19][20] In 2022, Human Pinball (Red Bull TV) was nominated for a Sports Emmy in the category Outstanding Studio or Production Design/Art Direction, with Christie credited as a creative director.^[21] More recently, Christie has directed films engaging with editorial themes around AI and responsibility, including a one-minute G42 film featuring Lewis Hamilton (2024) and The Dreamer featuring Andrea Kimi Antonelli (G42 / Mercedes-AMG Petronas), which centres on AI’s growing role in society.,^[22][23] and a Sky documentary about Nick Cave’s songwriting and creative process, Nick Cave’s Veiled World, was reviewed in The Independent in 2025.^[24]