This year the UK Music Video Awards will be presenting its annual Icon Award to one of the UK’s most gifted filmmakers, and a pioneering director in the field of music video – Julien Temple.

Julien has made a massive contribution to the artistic development of music video, music film and documentary, over a period spanning nearly 40 years. It all started in 1976, when he smuggled a camera into the 100 Club in London to document the performances of a new band called the Sex Pistols. That eventually led to his iconoclastic first feature, The Great Rock n Roll Swindle - a mash-up of documentary footage, stylised fiction and animation about the rise and fall of the notorious Pistols from the perspective of their legendary manager Malcolm McLaren.

That launched Julien's career as a music video director, and he became a major presence in the formative years of the medium, pushing its artistic boundaries and contributing to it's huge popularity and cultural impact in the 1980s. Julien worked with the likes of David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Depeche Mode, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Culture Club, ABC and more, directing many of the iconic music videos during the medium’s ‘Golden Age’. Later when he moved to the US, his videos for Neil Young, Tom Petty, Janet Jackson and many others, dominated MTV and scooped numerous awards.

Julien has gone on to direct several more feature films – including Absolute Beginners and Pandemonium – before he branched out with huge success as a documentarian. Starting with his definitive Sex Pistols documentary The Filth & the Fury, Julien has directed a number of superb, many on music-based subjects close to his heart, from Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten to Glastonbury to Oil City Confidential – all with his distinctive signature.

Julien will receive his Icon Award at the UK Music Video Awards 2013, held at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre in London, next Monday October 28th. Tickets are still on sale to the UKMVAs and the aftershow (also at QEH) via the UKMVA website. 

And find out more about Julien's work, including the trailer for his latest documentary London:The Modern Babylon, at julientemple.com.