From 2003 to 2005 Traviss worked on his directorial debut for the big screen Joy Division, a fictionalised biopic which he wrote with Rosemary Mason, based on real life events set in the last months of World War II and the early years of the Cold War. The film was co-produced by German production company Dreamtool Entertainment and Traviss' company Kingsway Films on a budget of $6,000,000. The film starred an ensemble of German, British and Hungarian actors including the rising European stars Tom Schilling and Bernadette Heerwagen, British actor Ed Stoppard, television Actress and pop singer Michelle Gayle, alongside veteran big screen performers Bernard Hill and Suzanne von Borsody and was filmed in London, Canada, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia. The story was influenced by the bestselling books Berlin: The Downfall 1945 by Antony Beevor and Armageddon by Max Hastings. Joy Division was received at the Copenhagen International Film Festival in September 2006 and was released in theatres in the UK, Germany, New Zealand and Australia from 2006 to late 2007. The film received good reviews by critics and Film Review magazine in 2007 named Traviss as one of the UK's most promising new filmmakers. The film also attracted the attention of wider review and debate within the cultural press.