Simon Relph is an independent film producer and the author of the Relph report on low budget film production. He began working in movies in 1961 as a 3rd assistant and became an independent producer in 1981. Amongst others he produced or coproduced - The Return of the Soldier, Privates on Parade, The Ploughman’s Lunch, , Secret Places, Wetherby and Comrades. From 1985 to 1990 he was the founding Chief Executive of British Screen Finance Limited. In that role, he co-financed 57 British films. He returned to independent production in 1991 as Executive Producer on Enchanted April, and Co-producer of Louis Malle’s Damage. Since then there have been The Secret Rapture, Camilla, Look Me In The Eye, Blue Juice and The Slab Boys and The Land Girls. For some years he and his business partner Ann Skinner have been developing a film of Sebastian Faulks’ novel BirdSong with Working Title. He is a past chairman of Bafta and is a governor of the NFTS and Chairman of the screenwriters Festival.
The 2008 Jury Chair
The 2008 Jury
Multi-award winning actress Anne-Marie Duff is one of Britain’s brightest acting talents, having become a household name as Fiona in the popular television programme Shameless for which she received BAFTA Award nominations for Best actress in both 2005 and 2006 and the IFTA Award for Best Actress in 2004. She was cast in the lead role in the lavish 2005 BBC television miniseries, The Virgin Queen, for which she received IFTA and TV BAFTA nominations for Best Actress. An accomplished theatre actor, she has also worked extensively on stage with the Royal National Theatre where she most recently played the title character in Marianne Elliott's production of Saint Joan at the National Theatre to great acclaim, winning several awards for her portrayal including the Evening Standard’s Best Actress and the Critics Circle Best Actress awards. Anne-Marie’s recent films include Garage and The Waiting Room and she has just finished filming the Tolstoy biopic The Last Station, alongside Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren and James McAvoy.
Eva Birthistle’s acting career really began on Ireland's TV soap, Glenroe followed by a series of film and TV appearances, but it was her portrayal of Roisin in Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss, that really caught the industry’s attention bringing her a series of award nominations and wins. Eva has since been seen in Breakfast on Pluto, Middletown, The State Within, Nightwatching, The Last Enemy and The Daisy Chain. Next projects include The Wake Wood and Jean Charles, the story of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian shot dead by British police in 2005.
London born Mark Strong trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He has appeared in numerous British stage productions for the Royal National Theatre, the RSC and elsewhere. In 2002 he was recognized by The Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards for his role in “Twelfth Night” and in 2004 was nominated by BAFTA for his performance as Harry Starks in Bille Eltriingham’s “The Long Firm”. In film he has worked with esteemed directors such as Ridley Scott, Stephen Gaghan, Danny Boyle, Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie. Strong can be seen in this year’s “RockNRolla” and the upcoming “Body of Lies” and “Young Victoria”.
Christopher Simpson's diverse array of roles swings from a Banglatown youth in Sarah Gavron's 'Brick Lane' to a Leeds drug dealer in Penny Woolcock's 'Mischief Night'. In television, he is best known for playing polar opposites in the double role of twins Magid/Milat in 'White Teeth'. Other television includes 'State of Play' and 'Second Generation'. Theatre projects range from playing the lead, Dionysus in “The Bacchae of Baghdad” at the Abbey, Dublin to the Song Cycle “Very Present Tense” which he wrote and performed at Edgehill Station in Liverpool this August. Other film work this year includes Dublin set feature, 'Little Foxes' by award-winning Czech film maker Mira Fornayova.
Joe Wright was already an award winning television director of such dramas as Charles II: The Power & The Passion, Nature Boy and Bodily Harm when he made his debut in film. Pride & Prejudice won him the Carl Foreman Award at BAFTA, as well as being nominated for and winning several other awards that year. His second film, Atonement was nominated for seven Academy Awards® and won Best Picture at BAFTA and the Golden Globes. He recently completed his third feature The Soloist.
Paul began his career as an actor but then moved into writing and directing a number of successful pop-promo's, viral ads and short films. His start as a feature film director began with "London to Brighton", inspired by the 2001 short film "Royalty". "London to Brighton" premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, winning numerous awards in the Uk and overseas. The film earned Paul a nomination for The Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or PRoducer in their First Feature Film.
In 2008, Paul's second film "The Cottage" was released across Britain, distribution through Pathe. It is currently playing in festivals around the world and will be out on DVD in the UK in July.
Abi Morgan has written for television, film and theatre. Her plays include Skinned, Sleeping Around, Tiny Dynamite, Tender and Splendour and Fugee. TV includes My Fragile Heart, Murder, Tsunami- The Aftermath, White Girl and Sex Traffic, a multi award winning drama for Channel 4. Film includes, Brick Lane, an adaptation of Monica Ali’s bestseller. She is currently developing films for BBC Films and FilmFour, including The Invisible Woman, The Story of You and If The Spirit Moves You and a six part serial for BBC 2.
In 1998 David Lawson, director John Akomfrah and producer Lina Gopaul set up production company Smoking Dogs Films to make commercially successful documentaries and feature films. Since its conception, David has produced a range of highly acclaimed and award winning films, as well as several films for art gallery installations including John Akomfrah’s The Genome Chronicles about the artist Donald Rodney which is currently on show at the Rivington Place Gallery in Shoreditch. He is now developing a cinema feature documentary on the legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, as well as a feature film set across five Afican countries and producing a feature documentary on an ecological disaster for the BBC. Previously he was head of distribution, marketing and festivals for the seminal film group the Black Audio Film Collective.
Gina Carter started her career as a Production Manager in 1991 on The Institute Benjmenta directed by The Brothers Quay. She went on to Line Produce House Of America, A Mug’s Game, Bent and Resurrection Man. Gina then joined Revolution Films as Head Of Production where she co-produced several films with Andrew Eaton all directed by Michael Winterbottom. She has produced Heartlands, Bright Young Things and Snow Cake and now runs Sprout Pictures with Stephen Fry.
CAT VILLIERS started her career as a magazine editor, working for photographer DAVID BAILEY and for editor TINA BROWN. Moving into film production her first feature film was Milcho Manchevski’s BEFORE THE RAIN, winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion in 1994, and an Academy Award Nomination in 1995. Over the following years she has produced, executive produced and co-produced more than twelve films. Her credit’s include Agnieska Holland’s TOTAL ECLIPSE with Leonardo di Caprio; British comedy SAVING GRACE, winner of the 2000 Sundance Audience Award, directed by Nigel Cole; Bernard Rose’s IVANS XTC with Danny Huston; the 2002 Golden Globe and Academy Award winner NO MANS LAND, directed by Danis Tanovic; and THE PROPOSITION written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat, with Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt, and Emily Watson.
Cat is a Trustee of the Katrin Cartlidge Foundation, a charitable trust that supports and mentors new directorial talent. She was recently awarded The Heart of Sarajevo.
For the past 20 years, Xavier Marchand has been an international executive in the film industry leading production, sales and distribution businesses. His experience spans over all aspects of film finance, production, sales, marketing and distribution (theatrical, video and television) as well as general management.
Since August 15th, 2007 and following the acquisition of Alliance Films by Goldman Sachs and SGF, Xavier serves as President of Worldwide Distribution with responsibilities over operations on all territories, currently Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland and Spain.
In his previous tenure with Alliance Films, Xavier had been Managing Director of Momentum Pictures in the UK (since 5th of January 2004), and Aurum Producciones in Spain (since May 12, 2004)
Prior to joining Alliance Films, Xavier had been a founder and director of Haystack Productions where he produced, co-produced or exec produced the following films: Dirty Deeds (John Goodman, Toni Colette); Birth (Nicole Kidman), Clean (Olivier Assayas); Palais-Royal (Valerie Lemercier ).
Prior to starting up Haystack, Xavier also held senior roles at Polygram (President of Int'l Distribution having been beforehand Head of Int'l Film Distribution), Portman Entertainment (MD), Warner Brothers (SVP Theatrical Distribution) and Sovereign Films (President of Theatrical Sales and Distribution for Europe and Latin America)
Shaheen started work in casting as an assistant to Jina Jay, Patsy Pollock and Debbie McWilliams before setting up her own company in 2002. Since then Shaheen has worked with emerging directors from all over Europe on films as diverse as CONTROL, BRICK LANE, NOTES ON A SCANDAL and 28 WEEKS LATER. Most recently she has completed work on the directorial debuts of Jordan Scott (CRACKS) and Samantha Morton (THE UNLOVED).
Victoria Belfrage is the Managing Director of Julian Belfrage Associates, which she took over on the sudden death of her husband in 1994.
Previously she had worked for many years as assistant to the film producer, Norma Heyman ( Les Liaisons Dangereuses). She also worked as the assistant to Christopher Hampton on his film Carrington.
Julian Belfrage Associates is a London based actor’s agency, representing about thirty-five actors, and its clients include Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jude Law, Jonathan Pryce, Rufus Sewell, David Thewlis, Billy Connolly, Rebecca Hall and Danny Huston amongst others.
Col Needham is the founder and managing director of The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). IMDb is located at http://www.imdb.com/ and is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 57 million unique visitors each month. IMDb offers a searchable database of over 1 million films, TV and entertainment programs and over 2.5 million cast and crew members. Col has had a lifelong interest in both technology and film with IMDb initially growing from a personal database of film information which he created as a teenager, combined with similar data collected on the Internet in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Col published the first version of IMDb online in October 1990 and co-ordinated IMDb as a worldwide volunteer effort from 1990-1996. IMDb incorporated in January 1996 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com in April 1998. Col continues in his original role to this day, working from an office in Bristol with IMDb staff members in countries around the world. Col is married with two children.
Iconic photographer, publisher and film director Rankin's mischievous and witty eye have made him the essential ingredient to any major fashion or culture campaign, and a string of highly successful exhibitions, magazines, ad campaigns and books have gained him a reputation as one of the world's leading photographers. He lives in London and has a 12 year-old son, Lyle.
Image Galleries for 2008
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