College welcomes Norma Percy as Honorary Fellow
Stand-out documentary maker admitted to College
Norma Percy, a distinguished and multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker, has been admitted as an Honorary Fellow of the College. Widely acclaimed for her groundbreaking approach to documentary storytelling, she has earned international recognition for her films in which the main players themselves tell the story of what happened during major world events. Guests at the ceremony watched a gripping film showcasing her work, highlighting her exceptional skill in interviewing world leaders such as Arafat, Clinton, Blair, Gorbachev, Putin, Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron, who speak openly and honestly about significant global negotiations.
Dorothy Byrne, President, said:
鈥淣orma is revered and admired for her outstanding documentaries. She has created a new genre: the television current affairs documentary which is also a unique visual form of modern history.鈥
More about Norma Percy
New York-born Norma Percy has been series producer of all the Brook Lapping histories which the 1995 BBC policy statement described as 鈥榲irtually a new genre of documentary鈥 that retells momentous events from the recent past with meticulous objectivity and with the principal actors recording what happened.
A Guardian editorial, 鈥業n Praise of Norma Percy鈥 (February 2009) wrote: 鈥淗er documentaries stand out... most of all for the extraordinary range of people who agree to appear on them... Every significant international story seems to have its Percy film. The 2nd Russian Revolution followed the fall of the Soviet Union. The Death of Yugoslavia traced the causes and consequences of the Balkan wars [followed by The Fall of Milosevic]. Two series, Elusive Peace and The 50 Years War, examined the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the peace process that approached success but never achieved it, while Endgame in Ireland explained how a conflict was resolved.鈥
Recent series include Inside Obama鈥檚 White House (2016), Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil (2019), Trump Takes on the World (2021) and Putin vs the West (2023, 2024).
These series have won more than two dozen major awards including an Emmy, two BAFTAs, four Royal Television Society journalism awards, three Columbia University du Pont journalism awards, and five Peabodys. Norma was the first TV documentary maker to win the Orwell prize (2010) and the James Cameron annual prize for outstanding journalism (2000 then 2003). She received the Grierson Trustee鈥檚 Award (2009), the Aldeburgh Documentary festival鈥檚 personal achievement award (2013), the Royal Television Society's Judges' Award (2010), and is a fellow of the RTS.
She has a BA from Oberlin College and did post graduate work at the London School of Economics and has received Honorary doctorates from London City University (2004) and Oberlin (2013).
In January the BBC announced her new series - Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October (w/t) for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The series chronicles the decisions that have shaped the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past two decades and the failed attempts to broker peace, leading up to the events of 7th October 2023.