About the Cast
Julie Christie (Fiona Andersson)
Arguably the most genuinely glamorous, and one of the most intelligent, of all British stars, Julie Christie brought a gust of new, sensual life into British cinema when she swung insouciantly down a drab northern street in John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (1963).
Trained for the stage at Central School, after an Indian childhood and English education, she first became known as the artificially created girl in TV’s A for Andromeda (1961), before making her cinema debut in 1962 in two amusing, lightweight comedies directed by Ken Annakin, Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady.
Schlesinger cast her as the silly, superficial, morally threadbare Diana of Darling (1965), for which she won the Oscar, the British Academy Award and New York Critics’ award, and which is now powerfully resonant of its period, and again as Thomas Hardy’s willful Bathsheba, in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), with other 60s icons, Terence Stamp and Alan Bates. Her Lara intermittently illuminates David Lean’s lumbering Dr Zhivago (UK/US, 1965) and the colour cameras adored her.
Notwithstanding her beauty, she continued to make the running as a serious actress in demanding films such as Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between (1971), as the bored upper-class woman who ruins a boy’s life by involving him in her sexual duplicities; Nicolas Roeg’s Don't Look Now (UK/Italy, 1973), with its famously erotic love scenes between Christie and Donald Sutherland; and in three US films with Warren Beatty: Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), as a tough Cockney madame out west, Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978).
She was greatly in demand, but became much more choosy about her roles as her own political awareness increased. This means that some of her later films – Memoirs of a Survivor (d. David Gladwell, 1980) and the documentary The Animals Film (d. Victor Schonfeld, 1981), The Gold Diggers (1984), Sally Potter’s feminist take on several Hollywood genres – were seen by comparatively few people.
However, the talent and the beauty remained undimmed in such British films as Return of the Soldier (d. Alan Bridges, 1982), Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (UK/US, 1996) as Gertrude, and, in the US, Afterglow (d. Alan Rudolph, 1997), for which she was Oscar-nominated. In 1995, she returned to the stage in a revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times, to laudatory reviews.
Gordon Pinsent (Grant Andersson)
A forty-year veteran of theatre, film, television and radio, actor/playwright/author/director Gordon Pinsent is well known to audiences across Canada and the United States.
From his many starring roles in a wide variety of television programs and feature films, we remember the recognizable characters Gordon Pinsent has created in popular Canadian culture: the title role of Quentin Durgens MP, the stuffed-shirt Member of Parliament: Will Cole in The Rowdyman, a sort of Tom Jones let loose in Newfoundland; John in John and the Missus; Edgar Sturgess, the scarlet-coated militiaman in the TV series, “A Gift to Last”, written by Pinsent; Swiftwater, the Card shark in “Klondike Fever”; Sgt. Fraser Senior in “Due South”; and his Gemini-award winning performance as Duff in “Powerplay”.
Clearly, Gordon Pinsent successfully balances acting and writing. His novels, “The Rowdyman” and “John and the Missus” were both turned into feature films, Gordon directing the latter. “The Rowdyman” was made into a musical and presented at the Charlottetown Festival in 1976. He has co-starred with his wife, Charmion King, in two of his plays – “Easy Down Easy” and “Brass Rubbings”, and in “Love Letters”. Gordon wrote and starred in the CBC Movie of the Week, “Win Again”, in which he won a Gemini for his writing. His memoirs, “By the Way”, were published in 1994.
Born in Newfoundland, Gordon began his career at the Manitoba Theatre Centre, which led to roles at the Stratford Festival. This was followed by Prospero in the The Tempest at the Vancouver Playhouse, and the leading role of Cyrano at the Stevenville Festival. He returned to the Stratford Festival to star in Trumpets and Drums. In the U.S.A., Gordon starred as The President of the United States in the cult movie Colossus the Forbin Project, and appeared in such TV series and movies as “It Takes A Thief”, “Silence of the North”, “Young Prosecutors”, “Banacek”, and the feature film, The Thomas Crown Affair, among others.
Gordon Pinsent has received two ACTRA Awards for his television work; three Genie Awards for achievements in Canadian film; five Gemini Awards, a Dora Award for the stage, as well as honourary doctorates at Queens, P.E.I. University and Memorial University, Newfoundland. He was made Officer of the Order of Canada in 1979, and promoted to Companion within the Order in 1998.
Gordon Pinsent also played the long running character of Hap Shaughnessey in the “Red Green Show”, now in its tenth season, a supporting lead in the feature film, The Shipping News and most recently “Fallen Angel” for CBS and Saint Ralph for Alliance Atlantis.
Most recently, Gordon embarked on one of his most memorable projects to date. He wrote, directed and acted in the MOW “Heyday•, (a period piece set during the end of World War II), in co-ordination with Triptych Media Inc./Pope Productions which aired in 2006.
Olympia Dukakis (Marian)
Olympia Dukakis, actress, director, producer, teacher, activist and most recently, author with her best-selling memoir, “Ask Me Again Tomorrow”, received an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category, the New York Film Critics Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award and the Golden Globe Award for her work in the Norman Jewison film Moonstruck. Feature films to be released include In the Land of Women with Meg Ryan, Three Needles (shot in S. Africa) and The Librarian II. Recent films include the highly acclaimed The Event, The Intended (shot in Malaysia and directed by Kristian Levring) and The Thing About My Folks with Paul Reiser. Other feature films include Mr. Holland’s Opus with Richard Dreyfus, Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, and I Love Trouble with Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. Audiences continue to seek out videos of The Cemetery Club, Steel Magnolias, directed by Herbert Ross, Dad co-starring Jack Lemmon, and Look Who’s Talking I, II & III with John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.
On television, Dukakis co-starred in “Last of the Blond Bombshells” with Judi Dench for HBO and in “Ladies and the Champ” with Marion Ross for ABC. One of her favorite projects, “Tales of the City”, a 6-hour mini-series based on the novel by Armistead Maupin, was a controversial blockbuster for PBS. She went on to star in the sequels “More Tales of the City” and “Further Tales of the City” (Showtime) for which she earned Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA nominations. She starred with Frank Sinatra in “Young at Heart” on CBS (Emmy nomination). Other TV movie projects include “Strange Relations”, “Scattering Dad”, “A Century of Women”, a 6-hour mini-series for TBS, “Fire in the Dark” for CBS, “Lucky Days” co-starring Amy Madigan for ABC for which she received an Emmy nomination, “The Last Act is a Solo” for which she received an ACE Award, and “Sinatra”, a mini-series for CBS in which Dukakis portrayed Frank Sinatra’s mother and was nominated for an Emmy.
Dukakis actively participated in first cousin Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign in 1988. She is a founding member of Voices of Earth, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, and a member of several outstanding organizations including Survivors of Torture, Broadway Cares, NOW, Women in Film, Congress of Racial Equality, and Amnesty International. She continues to be a popular speaker at women’s expos and conferences throughout the United States and has participated in nationwide awareness campaigns on the issues of domestic abuse, osteoporosis, senior services, and cholesterol.
Michael Murphy (Aubrey)
For over thirty-five years, Michael Murphy has performed in film, television and in the theatre. He has had major roles in many award-winning pictures, and has worked with some of the most respected filmmakers of his generation. They include: Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Paul Mazursky, Peter Weir, Tim Burton, Oliver Stone, Elia Kazan, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Ritt, Robert Aldrich, Orson Welles and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Murphy has worked in over one hundred television productions, the highlight of which was the Robert Altman - Gary Trudeau cult series “Tanner ’88” in which he played the title role. It was followed in 2004 by the mini series “Tanner on Tanner”. He also appeared in the classic “Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”, with Cicely Tyson. The film won nine Emmy Awards. A partial list of Murphy’s more interesting credits include: Silver City directed by John Sayles, Heights directed by James Ivory, Magnolia (SAG nomination for Best Ensemble), Kansas City, Batman Returns, Salvador, The Year of Living Dangerously, Manhattan, The Front, An Unmarried Woman, Nashville, What’s Up Doc?, Brewster McCloud and M*A*S*H*.
For years Murphy lived in New York, and worked in many theatrical productions in and around the city. He recently starred in Jon Robin Baitz’s “Three Hotels”, at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
Over the last couple of years, Murphy has turned his attention to the independent arena, where he recently completed three films. They are: Three Janes, by Jim & Iris Klein, Tart, by Christina Wayne, and Norma Jean, Jack & Me, by Cyrus Nowrasteh. Murphy and Nowrasteh recently reunited for the Paramount/Showtime “The Day Reagan Was Shot”, also starring Richard Dreyfus. Additionally, Murphy has been busy narrating some highly acclaimed programs for Public Broadcasting that include: “Long Journey Home: The Irish in America”, “The Last Stand of Tallgrass Prairie”, and the forthcoming “Mount Rushmore”. He has also committed many well-known novels to tape including the Nero Wolfe series.
With co-writer David Fineman, Murphy recently completed an original screenplay entitled Crashing, and it appears to be making big waves in Hollywood.
Since his recent move to Canada, Michael has worked on the series “This Is Wonderland” for which he was awarded a 2004 Gemini award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Series, and a second award in 2005. He had a recurring role on “The Eleventh Hour”, the critically acclaimed series for CTV, as well as leading roles in the CBC MOW “Footsteps” and “In The Dark” for Shaftesbury Films. His current films include Silver City directed by John Sayles and Heights directed by James Ivory. He had a recurring role on the series “Tilt” for ESPN. Michael recently completed work on “The Untitled ABC History Project” directed by David Cunningham and is currently shooting the feature XMEN3.
Kristen Thomson (Kristy)
As a playwright and actor, Kristen Thomson won Dora Awards for her one-woman show “I, Claudia”, which has been presented at The Tarragon Theatre, Belfry Theatre, MTC, The Magnetic North Festival, The World Stage Festival and a tour of Hungary. She has been a member of the Soulpepper Theatre Company appearing in “Mirandolina”, “Uncle Vanya”, “The Bald Soprano”, “The Lesson”, “School for Wives” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Other theatre credits include “Hotel Loopy”, (Theatre Columbus), “The Memory of Water”, (Tarragon/Mirvish Productions), “Risk Everything”, “Problem Child”, (Dora Award) both for Factory Theatre, “Hysteria”, “Oleanna”, (CanStage), “Skylight”, (Citadel/NAC, Sterling Nomination), “Les Belles Soeurs”, “Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet”, (GCTC), “Quartet”, (Froth), “Therac 25”, (Summerworks), “Great Expectations”, (Grand Theatre), “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Little Years”, (Theatre Passe Muraille), “Dancing at Lughnasa”, (MTC/NAC) and “Three Penny Epic Cabaret”, (Bald Ego Theatre).
In 2006, Kristen won the Gemini Award for Best Performance, for her work in the television movie adaptation of “I, Claudia”. It was also the winner of two Canadian Comedy Awards, both for performance and writing. Kristin has won the Actra Award for Outstanding Performance twice – in 2005 for “I, Claudia”, and in 2003 for the short film I Shout Love, directed by Sarah Polley. She also received the 2003 Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance for her work in the feature film Flower and Garnet, directed by Keith Behrman. Other film roles include The Republic of Love (Deepa Mehta), Proteus (John Greyson), The Matthew Shepard Story (Roger Spottiswoode) and The Law of Enclosures (John Greyson).
Upcoming, Kristen joins Soulpepper Theatre Company for their production of “The Chairs”. Kristen is a graduate of The National Theatre School.
Wendy Crewson (Madeleine Montpellier)
2006 has been a busy year for Wendy Crewson; she just finished shooting The Covenant for Screen Gems/Lakeshore and is presently shooting Santa Clause III for Disney. Wendy was Gemini nominated for CBC’s production “Sex Traffic” and was most recently seen in CTV’s highest rated “The Man Who Lost Himself”.
Her credits include Fox’s award-winning series “24”, and A Home at the End of the World, which also stars Colin Farrell, and The Clearing, opposite Robert Redford and Helen Mirren, The Santa Clause 2 and the independent Suddenly Naked, of which she was executive producer. She also starred opposite Sophia Loren in Between Strangers, (directed by Loren’s son Edoardo Ponti) and in Perfect Pie. In 2002, she starred in ABC’s thriller “The Beast” and the CBC telefilm “The Many Trials of One Jane Doe” for which she was nominated for a Gemini Award for Best Actress. Although she is most recognizable from her role as the First Lady opposite Harrison Ford in Air Force One, she also drew attention for her performances in The Last Brickmaker in America, Bicentennial Man, What Lies Beneath, The Santa Clause, Corrina, Corrina and The Doctor.
A native of Hamilton, Ontario, Crewson received a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University in Kingston and did post-graduate studies in London at the Webber Douglass Academy of Dramatic Arts and the American Repertory Theatre. In 2002 Crewson was honored with the 2002 Gemini Humanitarian Award for her work with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Alberta Watson (Dr. Fischer)
Well known to television audiences as Madeline on the cable hit “La Femme Nikita”, Toronto native, Alberta Watson received a Best Supporting Actress Genie nomination for one of her first movie roles, In Praise of Older Women. One year later, she took home the Best Actress award at the Yorkton Film Festival for Exposure. Watson then headed to the United States, where she studied with Gene Lasko, made several films including the cult horror classic The Keep with Sir Ian McKellan, and the TV movie “Woman of Valor” with Susan Sarandon.
She was the lead in the very controversial indie hit Spanking the Monkey, directed by David O. Russell.
She later went on to work with Colleen Murphy in the film Shoemaker that garnered her a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Atom Egoyan then cast Watson in The Sweet Hereafter which won the Grand Prize of the jury at Cannes plus Academy Award and Genie nominations. Meanwhile, Watson had begun filming the TV series “La Femme Nikita”, which earned her a 1998 Gemini nomination and a continuing fan base at www.albertawatson.com.
Watson’s many film credits include Desire, directed by Colleen Murphy, and Deeply, co-starring Lynn Redgrave and Kirsten Dunst, both of which debuted at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival, Tart, with Melanie Griffith, Brad Renfro, and Dominique Swain, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell and Steven Trask, which won the Audience Award and Best Director Award at Sundance.
In 2001, Watson scored a second Gemini Award Nomination for her performance in “After the Harvest”. Her other TV movie, “Chasing Cain” garnered multiple Gemini nominations as well. Watson starred in Wild Dogs with director Thom Fitzgerald which took home top honors at the Atlantic Film Festival. Watson’s voice can be heard in the animated short Penguins Behind Bars.
In spring 2002, she starred in Guilt by Association, along with Mercedes Ruehl followed by the second installment of “Chasing Cain”, “Face” and the TV movie “The Risen”. In late 2002, Watson filmed “Choice”, the story of controversial Canadian physician Dr. Henry Morgentaler, in Montreal and got another Gemini nomination. Latterly, she has worked on the features The Prince and Me (Lions Gate Films), Some Things that Stay, My Brother’s Keeper, Perseverance, and Citizen Duane. She had recurring roles on Producer/Director Ken Finkleman’s two television shows “The Newsroom” and “At the Hotel” as well as “Show Me Yours” for Showcase.
In 2005 she starred in the fourth season of the hit Fox series “24” opposite Kiefer Sutherland and William Devane.
About the Filmmakers
Sarah Polley (Writer/Director)
Sarah Polley has been writing and directing in Canada for the last six years. In 1999, she directed the short films The Best Day of My Life, and then wrote, directed and produced Don’t Think Twice, starring Tom McCamus and Jennifer Podemski. In 2001, she wrote, directed and co-produced I Shout Love, starring Kristen Thomson, who won an Actra Award for her performance in the short. The film also won a 2003 Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Drama. In 2002, Sarah wrote and directed The Harp, one of the episodes of “The Shield Stories” for television.
As an actor, Sarah’s breakthrough role was her portrayal of Nicole in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter. The Sweet Hereafter was her second film with Egoyan, after Exotica, and he had written the part with Sarah in mind when he adapted Russell Banks’ novel. She received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada’s Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston and Chicago Societies of Film Critics for The Sweet Hereafter. The buzz continued at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere was showcased, and the entertainment media crowned her the “It Girl” of 1999. Polley chose to return to Canada and appear in unusual, independent films such as Michael Winterbottom’s The Claim, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water, David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing, Thom Fitzgerald’s The Event, and Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me as well as Dawn of The Dead, based on George A Romero’s original script. By the end of 2004 she had filmed two additional projects, Wim Wenders Don’t Come Knocking with Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange and Tim Roth, which premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and Isabel Coixet’s The Secret Life of Words, opposite Tim Robbins. Both films were shown at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
She maintains a home in Toronto.
Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl (Producers)
Partners Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss formed The Film Farm in 1998 after first producing together on the feature film, Jack & Jill. After the success they had with the film, which was released theatrically in Canada by then Alliance Releasing and received two Genie® nominations, Ms. Urdl and Ms. Weiss began a partnership and have now been producing together for over eight years. The Film Farm has produced such critically acclaimed films as Soul Cages, which screened at many international festivals, was the winner of the CSC Award for best cinematography in a short film and received a Genie® nomination for Best Dramatic Short Film and Luck, which won the Best Narrative Feature Film award at the 2004 South By Southwest Film Festival, toured the UK as part of the prestigious UK Canadian Screenings in association with The Toronto International Film Festival and the Edinburgh Film Festival, was nominated for a Best Screenplay Genie and was released theatrically by Odeon Films to four-star reviews. They are the producers of the National Film Board of Canada and Bravo!FACT Shorts In Motion, a series of short films directed by Sook-Yin Lee, Don McKellar, Sudz Sutherland and Mark McKinney, which premiered at the Banff festival in April. The films have gone on to screen at numerous international film festivals, including Toronto and have been nominated for many awards. Upcoming projects include Peter Wellington’s third feature film The Earth, Ruba Nadda’s upcoming feature film Cairo Time and a short and feature film from acclaimed artist and filmmaker Phillip Barker. Simone and Jennifer are the consultants and producers of the Toronto International Film Festival’s successful ‘Talent Lab’, now in its third year. The Film Farm is the Co-Producer on So Kim’s In Between Days, an independent feature that premiered in Official Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize for Independent Vision, followed by a screening in the Forum section at the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI Prize.
Simone Urdl (Producer)
Along with her Film Farm projects, Simone Urdl has produced a number of projects with Atom Egoyan, with whom she has been working for over thirteen years. Urdl was the Associate Producer on Ararat (Atom Egoyan, Alliance Atlantis) and Foolproof (William Phillips, Alliance Atlantis); Executive Producer of Coldwater (Ruba Nadda, Mongrel Media),) and Mouth to Mouth (Alison Murray, UK/German co-production) and the producer of A Made Up Man (Phillip Barker). In October 2004, Simone opened, operated and programmed Camera, a bar and cinema in Toronto owned by Atom Egoyan and Hussain Amarshi. In November 2005, Simone returned to producing.
Jennifer Weiss (Producer)
Jennifer Weiss was an in-house producer at Rhombus Media from 2000 to 2004, where she co-produced the extraordinary Prelude Series for the 25th anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival. Directors for this series of film included David Cronenberg, Don McKellar, Patricia Rozema, Jeremy Podeswa and Atom Egoyan. Jennifer was the co-producer on Larry Weinstein’s Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen; Production Associate on Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World and co-producer of Childstar, by Don McKellar. She shared the 2003 Genie® for Best Short Drama for I Shout Love with writer/director Sarah Polley. Recently, Jennifer produced a short film/installation piece for Michael Snow, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival.
Daniel Iron (Producer)
After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1987, Daniel Iron was legal counsel at Telefilm Canada for five years after which he joined and eventually became a partner at Rhombus Media where he produced the acclaimed feature film, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by David Wellington, as well as co-producing the Oscar-winning The Red Violin from Francois Girard, and producing the award-winning Last Night, directed by Don McKellar. For television he produced, among numerous others programs, “The Four Seasons” and “Don Giovanni Unmasked”, two performing arts films, as well as the Gemini-nominated “Foreign Objects”, written and directed by Ken Finkleman. Other producing credits include the feature, Perfect Pie directed by Barbara Willis Sweete, Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen, a performance/documentary directed by Larry Weinstein, “Elizabeth Rex”, a television film based on Timothy Findley’s play, Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World, “Slings and Arrows”, a six part comedic television series, and Beethoven’s Hair, a documentary directed by Larry Weinstein. More recently Daniel produced Don McKellar’s Childstar and was a co-producer on Clean the most recent feature from Oivier Assayas. Independently, Daniel executive produced Jennifer Baichwal’s acclaimed documentary, Let it Come Down; the Life of Paul Bowles, Luck, Peter Wellington’s second feature film which won Best Fiction Feature at Austin’s 2004 SXSW Festival and Death and the Maiden, a performance film by Laura Taler.
In January 2004, Daniel left Rhombus to create his own production company, Foundry Films Inc. Foundry has produced “Northern Town”, a CBC series, and is developing Out of Rapture, an original screenplay by Barbara Gowdy and Marni Jackson. He is in production on a documentary on acclaimed photographer, Edward Burtynsky, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and shot by Peter Mettler, and “It’s Me Gerald”, a six half-hour series for Showcase. Daniel is also executive producing Fido, a large budget feature by Anagram Pictures in Vancouver. In association with House of Films, Daniel is executive producing the feature, The Pornographer’s Poem, and with Barna Alper Productions, the feature, The Bang Bang Club. On the slate for the upcoming months are “Last Exit”, a TV movie with CTV directed by John Fawcett, and, with Ilana Frank (“The 11th Hour”), The Odds, a six-hour series for TMN, Movie Central, and Showcase written by Semi Chellas and Adam Peddle. Daniel is also producing Ruba Nadda’s (Sabah) second feature, Cairo Time.
Victoria Hirst (Co-Producer)
Victoria Hirst’s credits include: Associate Producer on Stephen Williams’’ Soul Survivor; Co-Producer on Peter Wellington’s Joe’s So Mean to Josephine, Line Producer on Prisoner of Love starring Naomi Campbell, and American Psycho, starring Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon and Christine Bale. In 2003, Hirst co-produced Owning Mahowny, an Alliance-Atlantis/H2O film directed by Richard Kwietnioski, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver and John Hurt.
In 2000, Hirst established Victorious Films Inc. and their debut feature was Century Hotel, written by Bridget Newson and David Weaver, directed by David Weaver. The ensemble cast included Lindy Booth, Colm Feore, Chantal Kreviazuk and Tom McCamus, and was released in Canada by TVA in 2001. In 2003, Hirst produced Twist, written and directed by Jacob Tierney, starring Nick Stahl, Tygh Runyan, and Gary Farmer. Twist premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released in the US in 2004.
Hirst’s other projects include: The Lonely Planet, The Trotsky and Good Neighbours, all written and directed by Jacob Tierney, Dreams, adapted by Deborah Marks from a short story by Russell Smith, MacGillvary’s Girl written by Karen Walton, and Pigeon English, written by Bridget Newson and John Paul Kleiner. Television projects in development include: “ESL”, “Thin Ice”, “My Pet Hamster”, “Lucy Green”, “Family Therapy” and “The Staff Room”.
Atom Egoyan (Executive Producer)
Atom Egoyan has produced a body of work in film, television, and theatre. He has won numerous prizes at international film festivals including the Grand Prix and International Critics Awards from the Cannes Film Festival and two Academy Award® nominations. His films have been presented in major retrospectives around the world and a number of books have been written about his work. Egoyan’s installations have been exhibited at museums and galleries in Canada and abroad, including the Venice Biennale.
Egoyan was President of the Jury at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival. His production of Wagner’s Die Walküre was performed by the Canadian Opera Company in April, 2004 and will be remounted in Autumn, 2006. Egoyan’s latest film, Where The Truth Lies, had its world premiere in Official Competition at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival, and its North American premiere as a Gala Screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2005.
Doug Mankoff (Executive Producer)
Doug Mankoff has produced or executive produced fifteen films, including the Academy Award winning and Golden Globe nominated film Tsotsi (directed by Gavin Hood), Water (directed by Deepa Mehta and to be released by Fox Searchlight 4/06), and Twelve and Holding (directed by Michael Cuesta and to be released by IFC 6/06).
In 2001, Doug won a Peabody Award as producer of Things Behind the Sun (directed by Allison Anders and starring Don Cheadle). He executive produced Thirteen Conservations About One Thing (starring Matthew McConaughey, Alan Arkin, and John Turturo) and Levity (starring Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman, Kirstin Dunst, and Holly Hunter). Most recently, Doug served as producer of Dreamland, which premiered at Sundance in January of 2006 and Kerala (in production in India).
In 1997 Doug started Echo Lake Productions by raising a private equity fund to finance and produce independent films. Since then, the company has helped finance the production and release of over twenty films. In January of 2006, Doug formed Echo Lake Management, which Mike Marcus (formerly of CAA and MGM) is heading.
Before founding Echo Lake, Doug worked for film financier and former Monkee Michael Nesmith managing Nesmith’s library of film and television properties. Doug received a B.A. in history from Duke University and then attended the graduate film program at NYU. He later received his MBA from Harvard.
Echo Lake Productions, LLC is an independent film production company with exclusive access to a private investment fund. Echo Lake’s mission is to finance and produce projects with strong thematic content and to work with directors who have demonstrated exceptional talent. The company develops numerous projects inhouse, and has a particular interest in working with international directors. Echo Lake generally seeks projects that can be made for under 5 million dollars but have significant breakout potential. In addition, Echo Lake provides bridge loans, sales agency advances, gap loans and finishing funds on a selective basis and has recently announced a newly-formed management division focused on the representation of directors and writers.
Luc Montpellier (Director of Photography)
Images created by award-winning Director Of Photography Luc Montpellier have entertained and provoked feature film audiences, festival cinephiles and television viewers for over a decade. From the textured dramatic palettes of Ken Finkleman’s “Foreign Objects”, to the dream-like images of Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World starring Isabella Rossellini, Luc’s vision is timeless and poignant, illustrating a mature balance between art and technology, freedom and form. His touch has elevated the successes of feature films like the award winning Khaled (Ashgar Massombagi) which earned Montpellier The Haskell Wexler award for Best Cinematography at the Woodstock Film Festival and the gambling adventure Luck, directed by Peter Wellington, which won Best Narrative Feature at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin Texas. Montpellier’s reputation is punctuated as much by the finished images on the screen as by the vital approach he brings to process. Montpellier has recently completed shooting Sabah directed by Ruba Nadda, a love story starring Arsinée Khanjian and Shawn Doyle, the biopic mini-series Hemmingway vs. Callaghan directed by Michael DeCarlo that earned Montpellier a Gemini Award for Best Photography in a Drama, and the comedy Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (Dana Lustig) starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Montpellier has recently wrapped on Ken Finkleman’s “At The Hotel” for CBC and is in production on Clement Virgo’s feature Poor Boy’s Game.
David Wharnsby (Editor)
David Wharnsby is the editor of numerous award-winning films. He recently received a Genie for his work on Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World. David has collaborated with many of Canada’s most important filmmakers. Some of his numerous credits include CBC’s miniseries “Northern Town”, directed by Gary Burns, “At The Hotel”, directed by Ken Finkleman, TIFF top ten films, “I, Claudia’, by Chris Abraham and “The Uncles” by Jim Allodi, Ken Finkleman’s Gemini winning “The Newsroom” and “Foreign Objects”, Genie-winning short I Shout Love by Sarah Polley, Atom Egoyan’s Gemini winning “Sarabande”, Emmy-nominated “The Four Seasons” and “Don Giovanni Unmasked” by Barbara Willis Sweete, David Weaver’s “Siblings” and “Century Hotel”, and Genie-nominated Three Stories by Semi Chellas. David received a Gemini for his work on Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary “The Holier It Gets”. He has also worked with Jennifer on the Gemini-winning “The True Meaning of Pictures”, and the Emmy winning “Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles”.
Kathleen Climie (Production Designer)
Kathleen Climie designed for all three seasons of the award-winning mini-series “Slings and Arrows”. Additional recent credits include Lie With Me, directed by Clement Virgo, Full of It, directed by Christian Charles, and the YTV series “Dark Oracle”. Kathleen was also the production designer for director Peter Wellington’s feature, Luck. Other credits include television movies “Time of the Wolf”, “The Impossible Elephant” and “Chasing Cain I”.
Debra Hanson (Costume Designer)
Debra Hanson received a 2004 Genie nomination for Best Costume Design for The Gospel of John, starring Christopher Plummer and Henry Ian Cusiak. Hanson’s recent work includes Don McKellar’s second feature Childstar, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh; Sturla Gunnarsson’s TV movie “The Man Who Saved Christmas”, the television docudrama “Stormy Weather: The Music of Harold Arlen”, starring Paul Soles, Deborah Harry, Sandra Bernhard, and Rufus Wainwright; Steven Williams’ Verdict in Blood; and A Killing Spring. Hanson designed costumes for Laurie Lynd’s miniseries, “I Was A Rat”, starring Tom Conti and Brenda Fricker; the period television movie “What Katy Did”, based on a novel by Susan Coolidge, and for Clement Virgo’s multi-award-winning contemporary love story, Love Come Down starring Larenz Tate and Deborah Cox. Hanson received a Genie nomination for Best Achievement in Costume Design for her work on the multi-award winning New Waterford Girl. Her list of film credits also includes George Mendeluk’s action/drama, Men of Means (1999), Daniel D’Or’s sci-fi asteroid pic, Falling Fire, and “The Taming of the Shrew” (TV) starring Henry Czerny and Colm Feore. In theatre, Debra works in Stratford Festival Theatre where she established herself as one of Canada’s foremost designers and head of design from 1989 to 1994. She has also designed for the stage in Toronto and New York. She won a Dora Mavor Award for Outstanding Costume Design for her work on the play “Translations”.
|
Home |
Story |
Cast and Crew |
Downloads |
Trailer |
Press and Reviews |
Play Dates Copyright © Capri Releasing Inc. 2008. All Rights Reserved. |