Jonathan Gili: curiosities from the filing cabinet of a BBC documentarist
Explore the artefacts and keepsakes from the career of documentary filmmaker, Jonathan Gili, now preserved as part of BFI Special Collections.
20 April 2021
Jonathan Gili
In 1995, Jonathan Gili made a documentary for the BBC’s Timewatch strand about Pocahontas, the Native American ‘princess’ (more accurately a chief’s daughter). That year, Disney’s animated version of the character was everywhere, including on fast food packaging. Whether Gili purchased a Burger King kid’s meal for himself is unclear, but he got hold of one of the tie-in bags and, rather than throwing it away (as most would have done), he filed it carefully with the production documents for his own film, pressed like a dried flower.