Our Film Committee
03 June 08
The Film Committee are vital to the running of the Orange British Academy Film Awards and play a crucial role in the Academy throughout the year.
FINOLA DWYER
Chair
Born in New Zealand, Finola was a film editor before turning to producing, and moved to the UK in the early 90's. Her producer credits include Iain Softley's acclaimed debut Backbeat and Stephan Elliott's Welcome to Woop Woop, Chris Menges' The Lost Son and Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You. She produced the festival favourite and Emmy-nominated Hamburg Cell and produced Stephen Woolley's directorial debut Stoned. In 2006 she produced the award-winning Tsunami: The Aftermath directed by Bharat Nalluri. Last year she made her theatre producing debut with the West End hit and award winning Elling. She currently has Dean Spanley (Peter O'Toole, Jeremy Northam and Sam Neill) and An Education written by Nick Hornby and directed by Lone Scherfig in post-production, as Executive Producer and Producer respectively.
NIK POWELL
Deputy Chair
In the early 1970s Nik Powell set up Virgin Records with Richard Branson. In 1982, he formed Palace Productions with Stephen Woolley and exec-produced all productions, including Neil Jordan's award winning Company of Wolves, Jordan's Oscar-nominated & Cannes award winning Mona Lisa and Neil Jordan's Oscar winning The Crying Game. In 1992 Nik & Stephen formed SCALA Productions where they produced Terence Davies' The Neon Bible, the Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning Little Voice by Mark Herman and Fred Schepsi's Last Orders. Nik's latest film is Ladies in Lavender starring Dame Judi Dench.
ANGELA ALLEN MBE
Angela started work at an artists agency, Filmrights. She trained as a script supervisor (known as Continuity) at the Korda studios and worked on the second unit of The Third Man. Romulus films hired her for Pandora and The Flying Dutchman and as the youngest continuity working she was chosen by Sam Spiegel to work for John Huston on The African Queen and then worked on 13 more of his films including Moby Dick, The Misfits, The Man Who Would Be King, Night Of The Iguana. She worked in New York for NBC, a theatre producer and for Ray Stark on his stage production of Funny Girl and, in California, for Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin and as script on some TV shows for Universal. More recently, she worked with John Frankenheimer and has been involved with Franco Zeffirelli on his films and stage work.
JANE CUSSONS
Jane Cussons began her career as an actress, working in theatre and television, including two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, a year with the Old Vic Company, two major West End plays, numerous television roles and a year on TV soap, Emmerdale. She spent a year at the NFTS as a production manager on student graduation films and in 1988, she produced her first film Unexplained Laughter for BBC1. In 1990, she joined Peregrine Productions as Development Executive, where credits included Feast of July and Crossmaheart. She continued to work in production and casting on projects such as Charlotte Gray, Les Soeurs Soleil, Oscar and Lucinda, The Gathering, Family Money and Deadly Summer. Jane spent six years as Chief Executive of Women in Film & Television until April 2007. She has been a BAFTA member since 1988 and is also a member of British Actors Equity and the Casting Director's Guild, and is a RADA Associate.
Mike Downey
Producer Mike Downey launched his independent UK production company on the Frankfurt DAX seven years ago. He has produced since then 30 feature films with producing partner Sam Taylor and company chairman Stephen Daldry. F&ME’s catalogue includes White Lightin’, Saul Metzstein’s GUY X, Deathwatch (Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis), Academy Award-nominated Before the Rain and a slew of international co-productions. His award-winning South African production Son of Man premiered at Sundance while Princess opened Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Serving his fifth year as a European Film Academy Board Member, Downey’s books The Film Finance Handbooks - a Guide for European Producers are published by the MEDIA Business School. In his spare time Downey is a consultant for USAID, he is Thomas Ewing Professor of Film (Ohio University), on the Film Board of Oklahoma University, is President of the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia and also works closely with Amnesty International to establish 'awards of conscience' at film festivals around the world.
Pippa Harris
Biog to come
Justin Johnson
Biog to come
ALISON OWEN
Alison Owen runs Ruby Films who have recently completed a joint 'first look' and co-financing deal with Film4 and Miramax. Her most recent releases were Justin Chadwick’s The Other Boleyn Girl for Sony Pictures and Sarah Gavron’s Brick Lane for Film4. Previous producer credits include Hear My Song, Roseanna’s Grave, The Young Americans and Elizabeth for which she won a BAFTA for Best British Film and was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. Through Ruby, Alison has also produced such films as Sylvia and Proof, both starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Alison set up Go-Go Pictures with Paltrow in 2004 and was an Executive Producer on the critically acclaimed Shaun of the Dead.
DOUGLAS RAE
Douglas Rae set up Ecosse Films in 1988. Since then he has gone on to produce many television programmes and films, including seven series of Monarch of the Glen for the BBC, the Oscar-nominated Mrs Brown starring Dame Judi Dench, Charlotte Gray starring Cate Blanchett and Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway. He is producer of Brideshead Revisited, starring Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon, which is due to be released later this year, and The Water Horse, a $50m film based on Dick King-Smith's book about a mythical sea creature. For TV he has produced My Boy Jack, a two hour film for ITV1 about Rudyard Kipling and his son during WWI, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Kim Cattrall. Douglas executive produced the hit series Mistresses for BBC1, starring Sarah Parish and Sharon Small, with the second series set to start shooting in August 2008. He also executive produced He Kills Coppers, a three part drama set over three decades, starring Rafe Spall and Kelly Reilly for ITV1, and the upcoming Raw, a six part series for RTE2 set in a restaurant in Dublin, starring Shelley Conn and Liam Garrigan.
MAGGIE RODFORD
Maggie Rodford is Managing Director of the Air-Edel Group, incorporating one of the world's leading music publishing and production companies, representing composers, arrangers, music editors and music supervisors worldwide.
Maggie trained as a music engineer and prior to joining Air-Edel, worked at both the BBC and EMI, recording many different artists encompassing an eclectic mix of musical genres. Maggie works very closely with Air-Edel's composers producing and co-ordinating music recordings including Gosford Park, Bridget Jones' Diary, Gladiator, Hannibal, Calendar Girls, Beyond the Sea, Pride & Prejudice and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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