Biography
If Joseph Archer is being honest with himself, he was an annoying child at school.
To the confusion of his teachers in Lincolnshire, he would turn his homework into films, handing in the cinematic works rather than anything paper-based. This would include directing his mates in his back garden to perform live action versions of algebra equations and oxbow lakes. The best of this early and wholly unrecognised work (probably for the best) would be his retelling of Macbeth, where the King of Scotland has to fight through WW1, with Lenny from Of Mice and Men, in order to take back oxbow lakes from the German Empire.
Some say oxbow lakes featured too heavily in Joseph‘s early experimental work at school.
As the film industry is non-existent in Lincolnshire, Joseph was pushed by his parents to study science at university, he ended up at The University of Nottingham.
As a student Joseph did everything he could to not do his boring degree, so he made a feature film called House Party Raiders (2017), a ninety-minute action-comedy.
In a strange move, that he still doesn't truly understand, Joseph left his science degree after being offered a job as a journalist at News UK, then in 2018 he went on to work for The Daily Telegraph.
During this time he learnt key skills, such as sitting at a computer for hours, turning facts into fiction, and using exaggeration effectively.
These skills helped him to keep writing and making comedy-drama films. He secured funding to shoot his second comedy film: Jobit (2018), and then make a comedy short #Goals (2019). In 2019, he secured funding from the NYFA to make the multi-award winning comedy-short On In 15 (2020), which premiered at the BFI IMAX in February, thanks to partnerships with ODEON and Procam. NYFA also gave him funding to make action-drama Solvi (2020).
Joseph also partnered with London-based charity Thrive LDN to create Workshop (2019), a comedy-drama which explored four men dealing with different mental health conditions.
Currently, Joseph is overseeing film festival promotion of his short films that he produced during 2020, this included The Mean Spirited, The Smoking Fish, MEXED and In-flu-enza.
In addition to this, he’s writing and planning a number of feature film projects that have received varying degrees of financing.
Joseph is also the co-founder of Window Zebra Productions.
He has worked with a number of funding organisations including BFI NETWORK, and NYFA, and now works closely with executive producer Lucas A. Ferrara. He also sits on the NYFA’s Industry Board that aims to promote young filmmaking talent in the UK.
