Mike Leigh
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Mike Leigh OBE (born February 20, 1943) is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter, and playwright. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and did his early acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the 1960s, and then in the 1970s, he made the transition to television plays, many of which were characterized by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. Some of his well-known films include Life is Sweet (1990), the Gilbert and Sullivan biography Topsy Turvy (1999), and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). His most notable work is arguably the BAFTA-winning (and Oscar-nominated) Secrets and Lies (1996).
Leigh is often compared to filmmaker Ken Loach, who also makes social realism-oriented films that focus on the banal conflicts of the "everyday life" of regular people.
