Emma Matthews

Emma Matthews is co-director with Anthony Wall of Arena – Night and Day (BBC, 2016–20, fourteen 24-hour films, drawn from BBC Arena’s unique archive of over 600 films, from dawn to dawn, with each version seasonly adjusted according to location and time of year. Her editing work includes many prize-winning arts documentaries whose subjects include James Ellroy, Phil Spector, Bob Marley, Brian Eno, Guy Bourdin, The Sex Pistols, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan and Moby Dick. She has cut Chris Petit’s films since 1998, including his collaborations with Iain Sinclair — The Falconer (1998), Asylum (2000), London Labyrinth (2002) — as well as Unrequited Love (2006) and Content (2010). Her most recent collaboration with Petit and Sinclair was Pariah Genius (2024), based on Sinclair’s book on London photographer John Deakin.