John Cairns is the founder and CEO of the Parkland Companies developing, financing, producing and selling feature films and documentaries. 2017 has seen Parkland also develop and produce Television series.

  

John started his film career in 1982 producing music videos. From 1982 to 1992, he produced more than 75 music videos and live concert performances for artists such as The Stranglers, Elton John, ELO, The Jam, The Clash, UB 40, Chrissie Hynde and Robert Palmer and filmed live concerts for Black Sabbath, Whitesnake, Queesryche and Guns ‘N Roses. 

 

During this time he also produced and directed many TV commercials, corporate and government films and production managed a TV series for the BBC. 

 

In 1990 John combined music and publishing forming a team to produce the hugely successful Hard'n'Heavy rock music video series, the worlds first magazine on video, filmed worldwide and producing 18 volumes over three years. 

  

This led to producing large budget television documentaries including:

 

•The Platinum Collection - a 20 part series of music and interviews on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal for Television, Video and DVD

 

•Muhammad Ali, The Whole Story - a 10 part series on the boxing legend. John formed a sales company to independently sell the series. 

   

In 1994 John formed Parkland Productions. Having earlier filmed Muhammad Ali and Mother Teresa together in Calcutta, at their only meeting, John obtained Mother Teresa's agreement to produce a book and film project about her work. John researched, conducted the interviews and jointly compiled, with Lucinda Vardey, the best selling book about Mother Teresa's work  - A Simple Path (Random House 1995) published in 25 languages.  A Simple Path was re-released in August 2016 to coincide with Mother Teresa’s canonization as Saint Teresa.

 

John is currently post-producing Love In Action his documentary on the work and inspiration of Mother Teresa containing her last interviews. John spent two years travelling with Mother Teresa, working in her homes in Calcutta, London and New York and filmed interviews with many who had been inspired and helped her, including then First Lady Hillary Clinton, and actor Martin Sheen. 

 

John has Produced or Executive Produced the feature films:

L' Amour Caché (Isabelle Huppert, Melanie Laurent)

The Tender Hook (Hugo Weaving, Rose Byrne)

The Heavy (Gary Stretch, Vinnie Jones, Christopher Lee)

All At Sea (Brian Cox, Lauren Bacall, James Fox)

Allies (Julian Ovendon, Chris Reilly, Matt Willis)

Bad Mother – short
The Trouble With Jessica (Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams, Shirley Henderson, Alan Tudyk, Indira Varma)

 

and is currently producing:

The Man In The Box dir. Arsen A. Ostojic

 

with In Development projects:

The Inn at The Edge of the World (dir. Charles Dance)
Mooring  (dir. Jodhi May)

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