David Hinton worked for ten years on the ITV arts programme THE SOUTH BANK SHOW where he made documentaries about artists of all kinds, including surrealist GLEN BAXTER (1983), rock musician LITTLE RICHARD (1985), playwright JOHN GODBER (1986), comedian JOHN CLEESE (1986), and choreographers SIOBHAN DAVIES (1985), and  KAROLE ARMITAGE (1986).

His SOUTH BANK SHOW film on the painter FRANCIS BACON (1985) was a finalist at the International Emmys and the winner of a Rocky Award at Banff. His films about writer ALAN BENNETT (1984) and film-maker MICHAEL POWELL (1986) were both nominated for BAFTA (British Academy) awards. He won a BAFTA in 1988 for the documentary BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI AND THE LAST EMPEROR.

In 1988, he made DOSTOEVSKY: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, a largely dramatised account of Dostoevsky’s work, for the Channel 4 series THE MODERN WORLD: TEN GREAT WRITERS. He then went to America to direct THE MAKING OF A LEGEND: GONE WITH THE WIND (1989), a two-hour documentary for Turner Television, which was shown in Britain by the BBC. This ilm won the Archival Achievement Award of the British Film Institute.

Since 1989, he has worked entirely as a freelance, making both documentaries and performance films.  He collaborated with the comedian Rowan Atkinson to make VISUAL COMEDY (1993) for the BBC series FUNNY BUSINESS, and his BBC documentary CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION (1995) was the winner of a BAFTA award. This film tells the story of a group of classical music students in China during the Cultural Revolution.

He has often worked with dance and dancers, and has made film versions of two celebrated stage works by DV8 Physical Theatre - DEAD DREAMS OF MONOCHROME MEN (1990) and STRANGE FISH (1994). He has made a film adaptation of Russell Maliphant’s dance CRITICAL MASS (1999) for Channel 4, and he has filmed two stage works by Ulysses Dove - VESPERS and HEAVEN (1995) - for the GREAT PERFORMANCES series at Channel 13 in New York.

He has worked with several choreographers to create dance works especially for TV. LATE FLOWERING LUST (1994) is a 55-minute dance-based music drama, starring Nigel Hawthorne, which was created in collaboration with Matthew Bourne and Adventures in Motion Pictures. TOUCHED (1995) is a short dance film created in collaboration with choreographer Wendy Houstoun. BIRDS (2000) and SNOW (2003) are both experimental dance films created entirely from library footage, the latter in collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Lee.

His dance films have won many awards, including an Emmy for TWO BY DOVE (1995), and a Prix Italia and a Grand Prix International Video Danse for STRANGE FISH (1994). He has twice won the IMZ Dance Screen Award - for DEAD DREAMS OF MONCHROME MEN (1990) and for BIRDS (2000).