Joe Tibbetts is a writer, journalist, playwright and documentary filmmaker. He was born in Cumberland on Walpurgis Night. Before he was five he was uprooted and taken to live in India. For much of his childhood he was deprived of education and the companionship of other children and spent so much time swimming in the Indian Ocean that he contracted an incurable medical condition called Pearl Diver’s Ear.

He started to make factual films when he was seventeen, writing and presenting a short TV documentary for BBC 1 when he was still at school in the Isle of Man. His 2021 film I am the self of my former shadow was awarded a number of international prizes including Best Short Documentary at FAFF ~ the Fine Arts Film Festival in Venice (Ca) Best Documentary at the Kanchenjunga Film Festival in Darjeeling (WB) and was shortlisted for Best Short Documentary at the South Coast Film Festival (UK)

He has written travel features for The Sunday Times, a weekly column on “New Drama” for Television Today and a column on Architecture and Architects for Design Week. His plays have been performed in theatres across England including Newcastle Playhouse, The Young Vic in London and The Yvonne Arnaud Guildford.

Joe has acted as a communications advisor to various UK Government and Whitehall departments including the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Design Council and NHS. He has led export missions promoting British creative industries to countries including Brazil, Philippines and Korea. Joe was made a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers in 1996 and appointed CEO of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Foundation) in 1998.

In 2010 Joe established Code Light & Content to service the growing need ~ especially among arts organisations and local & national government departments ~ for Web video and WebTV. Click on the CL&C link for a two minute showreel, an episode of Working Lunch and a free-to-view screening of I am the self of my former shadow.