Home   >   Movie Stars   >   P   >   Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington
  • Biography

Mark Pellington

Mark Pellington, an award-winning director of film, television and music videos, launched his feature career with 1996's Going All The Way.

It was Pellington's unique directorial style in Going All The Way, based on Dan Wakefield's novel and co-starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies, that prompted the ARLINGTON ROAD producers to reteam with him on the thriller. Going All The Way premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and proved a hit. That same year, Pellington created Destination Anywhere, a short film for MTV, starring Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Bon Jovi and Kevin Bacon.

His distinctive work in television and music videos won him 1992 Best Director recognition at the Billboard Video Music Awards for the Pearl Jam video Jeremy, which proved one of the most honored music videos of the year. It earned Pellington four MTV Video Awards in 1993 including Best Director and Video of the Year.

The New York-based Pellington is probably best known for his critically acclaimed, groundbreaking work in television with his creation of Buzz, a 13-part global series of a non-linear collage program he developed in partnership with MTV Europe producer/director Jon Klein.

He began his career in MTV's On-Air Promotions department after receiving a degree in Rhetoric at the University of Virginia in 1984. At MTV, he developed a series of short conceptual spots before branching out as a freelance music video director.

Pellington has worked with performing artists as diverse as U2, PM Dawn, Crystal Waters, Public Enemy and Alice in Chains. But it was his work with INXS on Beautiful Girls that garnered him a Grammy nomination and an opportunity to work on Red Hot & Blue, a landmark ABC AIDS special that included such other top directors as Jonathan Demme, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch.

From there, he created the half-hour In Your Face for PBS' Alive From Off Center, later chosen as one of six U.S. entries at the 1992 Input Festival. He collaborated on the half-hour live action cartoon Punch And Judy Get Divorced for the PBS series Alive TV.

The following year, he created his most personal work: the 30-minute television feature Father's Daze, which dealt with his own father's suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. The film received rave responses at the Berlin, Montreal and Rotterdam Film Festivals.

Pellington also created the five-part PBS series The United States of Poetry, a journey through the end of the century by 72 poets.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2000.

Mark Pellington Facts

OccupationDirector, Actor
BirthdayMarch 17, 1962 (62)
SignPisces
BirthplaceBaltimore, Maryland, USA

Selected Filmography

Not available.