Little Johnny Jewel

Jude Rawlins is a British-Irish filmmaker, musician, artist and writer based in New York and Iowa. He was born in Birmingham, England, in 1972. Musically he is perhaps best known as the singer, guitarist and principle songwriter of the band Subterraneans, and as guitarist with the Lene Lovich Band He made the acclaimed experimental feature film Albion Rising in 2009, starring Dudley Sutton as William Blake, and Hollywood actress Juliet Landau as the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. His second feature was Songs of Alchemy, an adaptation of Kirsten Morrison's opera based on the angelic conversations of Elizabeth I's astrologer and alchemist John Dee. His 2016 short film The Divine Image won the Ken Russell award at the Edinburgh Fringe and was semi-finalist at the Los Angeles CineFest. In 2017 he made a controversial version of Faust, and wrote the screenplay for Little Johnny Jewel set in Marshalltown, Iowa. His other films include the shorts Notes on a Summer's Day, Tea with Judee Sill, and Red, his long-gestating tribute to friend and mentor Derek Jarman, which stars Georgia Mackenzie and Julian Firth. Jude was the under-12s Hereford & Worcestershire county chess champion, and won his first art prize aged seven with a painting of the space station Skylab. His father is a keen playwright, poet and photographer, and gave Jude his first 35mm camera for his ninth birthday. His mother was a professional seamstress in Dublin and London during the 60s, and made outfits for the artist Pauline Boty. Jude is married to writer, musician and pop culture critic Dahlia Schweitzer, professor of Film and Media Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.