J.C. Chandor

When he was 19 years old, he was involved in a car accident with four college friends: the driver was killed, and Chandor was suddenly seized by what he calls "a sense of urgency". Then he dropped out of college and enrolled in a film programme at New York University in order to "live enough life" for both himself and that young man who was killed in the accident.

At its core, if the film [Margin Call (2011)] is anything, it's a tragedy. It's structured as a thriller - a ticking time-bomb movie - but an hour into the film you know the bomb can't be defused and the crux of the story becomes who are they going to drop it on?