DIRECTOR - MICHAEL CATON-JONES
Michael Caton-Jones grew up in the Scottish mining town of Broxburn. Moving to London at seventeen to pursue a writing career, Caton-Jones paid the rent by working as a stagehand at London's West End. He decided to attend Britain's National Film School, where he quickly gained attention when his first project, entitled Leibe Mutter, won the Best Film at the European Student Awards. After he completed his second student film The Riveter, the BBC took no time in purchasing it. By the time he had completed two years of film school, Caton-Jones was offered a job directing the three-part miniseries Brond. By the late 80s, he had decided to direct his first feature length film.
He helmed the drama Scandal (1989, starring John Hurt, Joanne Whalley, Bridget Fonda and Sir Ian McKellen, a compelling look at Britain's Profumo-Keeler sex scandal of the early 1960s. Not unlike his earlier films, Scandal became a critical and popular international hit resulting in numerous awards and nominations, including the Camera D'Or at Cannes, the European Oscars, and the Golden Globes.
The exposure led to a demand for his talents in Hollywood; so, he crossed the pond to direct features like Memphis Belle (1990) staring, Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz, Doc Hollywood (1991 starring Michael J. Fox and Woody Harrelson and This Boy's Life (1993) starring Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Barkin, based on Tobias Wolff's poignant autobiographical novel.
He returned to his roots in the mid-90s to film the story ofone of his country's most heroic patriots: Rob Roy (1995) starring, Liam Neeson, Jessica Lang, Tim Roth, and John Hurt, earned critical acclaim and won Roth an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to work with Hollywood's finest, directing the thriller The Jackal (1997) starring, Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Sidney Poitier. He was reunited with Robert De Niro for City by the Sea with Frances McDormand and reunited with John Hurt for Shooting Dogs with Hugh Dancy which was nominated for a BAFTA award. He continues a successful career with critically
acclaimed films such as Urban Hymn, Asher, After the Wedding and most recently Our Ladies.
SCREENWRITERS - NEIL FLEMING & MATTHEW LOCKYER
Neil Fleming is a British playwright, screen-writer, and children’s fiction writer. He is the founder of UK theatre production company Hydrocracker, chosen for the Guardian's 2007 "Pick of the Year" . Before becoming a full-time writer in 2002, he spent 17 years as an award-winning journalist, covering war, famine, wildlife, politics and business in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He is a steering committee member of The Fence, the international network of theatre-makers.
Much of Matthew Lockyer’s thirty-year career in medicine has involved the care of diabetic patients. Many of them depend for their lives on insulin, but very few would recognise the names of Banting and Best, let alone Macleod and Collip. It has always seemed strange to Matthew that the most dramatic of all the many stories of medical science remains one of the least known. He has cherished the ambition of dramatising the story for many years.
Although he has always written, for science journals and for pleasure, it took the scriptwriting experience and talent of his friend Neil Fleming to breathe life into the dysfunctional quartet who worked through the baking Toronto summer of 1920 in search of a lifesaving cure. The stories of the researchers and patients who first received insulin are so full of dramatic incident that compressing the events into a screenplay was an exacting challenge. They wanted the finished script to work on several levels; to engage the audience with the medical puzzle, to explain clearly the scientific debate and the experimental science, to highlight the ethical concerns of vivisection, but most of all to tell the moving human stories of courage and determination.
PRODUCER - RUTH CALEB O.B.E
Ruth is a multi-award winning producer. She was awarded the O.B.E. �Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama. She was the BBC’s first female head of drama, as Head of BBC Wales Drama.
After a period heading departments in the BBC, Ruth returned to her former role of Producing. Her production credits include many award-winning television and film dramas, including: Tomorrow La Scala!, Out of Control and Care (which won a Prix Italia and BAFTA; the BBC 1 series Judge John Deed (as Executive Producer); the BAFTA winning Last Resort (directed by Pawel Pawlikowski) and BAFTA nomnated Shooting Dogs (with Michael Caton-Jones) and Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb). Other credits include The Whale (with Martin Sheen), A Poet in New York and A Short Stay in Switzerland with Julie Walters. She is currently developing Terence Davies’ film The Post Office Girl and Philippa Gregory’s The Taming of the Queen with Gurinder Chadha directing.
In 2001, Ruth won the Alan Clarke BAFTA Award for outstanding creative contribution to TV and in 2012 the Women in Film and Television Eon Productions Lifetime Achievement Award.
PRODUCER - ALEX TWEDDLE
Alex is a graduate of The London Film School where he studied all aspects of filmmaking. He is a PRINCE2 Practitioner and HEAT certified to operate in hostile environments and has worked in some of the most dangerous cities in the world.
Alex has been making what industry colleagues describe as exciting, innovative, high-quality films for over 30 years. His projects are often daring, edgy and distinctive, that pushes boundaries both in subject matter and content. He aims to make films that not only entertain but inform and show us a different perspective on life, society and even ourselves.
His films have been in-competition at over 140 international film festivals and have won over 47 awards for best film, director, social impact, message, music and editing to name but a few. Alex has had the privilege of working with some of the best actors and technicians the industry has to offer.
CO-PRODUCER - NADINE LUQUE
Nadine has over 30 years’ experience working across the entertainment industry in the UK, Spain and France and has produced and executive produced dozens of films directed by world class talent including Gabrielle Muccino, Francois Girard, John Malkovich and Michael Radford.
Nadine is CEO of Golden Arrow Entertainment, a company offering lenders, financiers, platforms and producers production monitoring and executive producing services. To date, Golden Arrow has monitored the production of over 200 films and TV projects directed by world class talent such as David Cronenberg, Phyllis Nagy, Lars von Trier, Lone Scherfig, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Sally Potter.
Upcoming credits include Mother's Instinct starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway and The End We Start From with Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch; Jackdaw directed by Jamie Childs and starring Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Jenna Coleman; and Modigliani, directed by Johnny Depp.
Nadine has served on a number of juries including Nipkow Fellowship Programme (since 1994), Zagreb Film Festival, Proimagenes Colombia State Fund, served on the board of the European Film Academy from 2014 - 2017 and since 2014 is an evaluator of the European Commission's Media Programme.
CASTING DIRECTOR - SHARON HOWARD-FIELD
Sharon’s casting career began working for the Royal Shakespeare Company, gradually transitioning into film and television casting. Sharon initially broadened her horizons casting large-scale mini-series and American Playhouse projects for the US broadcasters NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS.
Studio films she cast included Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Innocent Blood, Grumpy Old Men and its sequel Grumpier Old Men, Being Human, Falling Down and Last Boy Scout. She has worked alongside directors such as John Landis, John Carpenter, Joel Schumacher, Donald Petrie, Tony Scott, Bill Forsyth, Howard Deutsch and Dan Aykroyd.
As a freelance casting director, Sharon has cast over eighty feature film and television productions.