ELYSIUM (ALSO IN IMAX)
Release date:
Duration:
Genre: Drama, sci-fi, action
Director: Neill Blomkamp (writer, director DISTRICT 9)
Cast:
Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice
Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner, Wagner Moura
In
the year 2159, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live
on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who
live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth are
desperate to escape the planet’s crime and poverty, and they critically
need the state-of-the-art medical care available on Elysium – but some
in Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and
preserve their citizens’ luxurious lifestyle. The only man with the
chance to bring equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an
ordinary guy in desperate need to get to Elysium. With his life hanging
in the balance, he reluctantly takes on a dangerous mission – one that
pits him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her
hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he could save not only his own
life, but millions of people on Earth as well.
ELYSIUM
Production Information
In the year 2154, two classes of
people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station
called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined planet.
The people of Earth are desperate to escape the crime and poverty that is now
rampant throughout the land. The only man with the chance to bring
equality to these worlds is Max (Matt Damon), an ordinary guy in desperate need
to get to Elysium. With his life hanging in the balance, he reluctantly
takes on a dangerous mission – one that pits him against Elysium’s Secretary
Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her hard-line forces – but if he succeeds, he
could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well.
TriStar Pictures presents in
association with Media Rights Capital, a QED International / Alphacore /
Kinberg Genre production, Elysium. Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto
Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, and William Fichtner. Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp. Produced by Bill Block, Neill Blomkamp, and
Simon Kinberg. Executive Producer is Sue
Baden-Powell. Director of Photography is
Trent Opaloch. Production Designer is
Philip Ivey. The Editors are Julian
Clarke, A.C.E. and Lee Smith, A.C.E. Visual
Effects Supervisor is Peter Muyzers. Costume
Designer is April Ferry. Music by Ryan
Amon. Casting by Francine Maisler.
ABOUT THE FILM
In 2009, Neill Blomkamp burst onto
the scene with his first feature film, District
9. It was an enormous critical and
commercial success: critics praised Blomkamp’s filmmaking style, and audiences
around the world turned out to the box office to support the film’s originality
and innovation. But the reason it
resonated was that the movie had themes that grabbed the audience: the way the
film seamlessly blended a genre alien-invasion movie with biting and relevant social
commentary pleased both moviegoing audiences and members of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who nominated the movie for Oscars® for Best
Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In his new film, Elysium, Blomkamp has drawn two distinct
and separate worlds: an overpopulated, ruined Earth, and Elysium, a man-made
space station for the extremely wealthy.
While in 2013, six astronauts live and work on the international space
station orbiting about 250 miles above the surface of the Earth, 150 years from
now, in Blomkamp’s vision, those humble beginnings will expand to become a home
with the best of everything for the rich.
“The idea, in a way, is ludicrous,” says Blomkamp. “The idea of taking up stone, and mortar, and
concrete, and swimming pools – and everything you’d need to build these
mansions in a space station – is satire.
It just reinforces the central idea of the film – the people of Elysium
have unimaginable wealth, and they use those resources to build a separate,
synthetic, almost hermetic environment for themselves. In that way, Elysium is the reverse of an
alien-invasion story – it’s still about human beings trying to protect a way of
life, but instead of fighting for Earth, they do it by going into space.”
Blomkamp based his ideas for a
perfect world apart from a desperate, ruined Earth on real-life concepts. “Back in the ‘70s, people were actually
discussing the idea of leaving Earth and building space stations for us to
potentially live on one day. One of the
top answers to that challenge was the Stanford Torus. I like the idea of taking this well-known
concept and caking it with wealth, diamonds and Bel Air-style mansions – the
idea, the image, of putting these exorbitant, ridiculous mansions on a doughnut-shaped
space station is hilarious to me, and it becomes something I want to make a
movie about.”
Simon Kinberg, who produces the
film with Blomkamp and Bill Block, says that the non-stop action of Elysium and the political subtext of the
film mesh well together, because both come out of who Blomkamp is as a writer
and director. “First and foremost, Elysium is an action movie, but the
thing about Neill is that he happens to be very interested in the world and
politics,” he says. “There are themes in
the movie that you wouldn’t expect from a summer action movie, but hopefully, a
moviegoer can see the movie and enjoy the action experience, but have something
seep in about the real world as well.”
“Neill has the gravitas and
expertise as a filmmaker to deliver a crackling action thriller that also
tackles serious themes and subjects,” adds Block, the CEO of QED International,
which also produced District 9. “After
our experience with Neill on District
9, we were thrilled to do this one
with Modi Wiczyk and MRC.”
“I want to blow things up as much
as I want to make films that are about serious topics,” Blomkamp says. “I’m more of a visual artist than anything
else. I don’t want to make movies that
are too serious – I like action and visual imagery, and that’s where it starts
for me. But I’m also interested in
politics, so once I’ve set up the world and start getting into character and
story, the political ideas that intrigue me work their way in there. The subjects that interest me tend to be
large, sociological concepts, and I like the idea of making films about those
concepts in ways that aren’t heavy-handed or preachy – I hope that putting
these topics in this setting will let the audience look at them from a
different perspective. The most important thing to me is that the movie is
entertaining, but I like to put a worthwhile story underneath, so it isn’t just
pure popcorn.”
“I like to think it’s a hopeful message,”
says Matt Damon, who takes on the lead role of the film. “Even in a future where it’s every man for
himself, it’ll be possible for a human being to hold on to his humanity.”
Just as District 9 explored ideas of social justice, class separation, and
race relations, Elysium asks
important questions about where we are now in a context of where we are
going. “The entire film is an allegory,”
Blomkamp says. “I tend to think a lot
about the topic of wealth discrepancy and how that affects immigration, and I
think the further we go down the path that we are on, the more the world will
represent the one in Elysium. In that sense, I think the questions that
underlie the film are quite accurate.”
In fact, Blomkamp says that the
heart of the conflict is more real than one might realize. “When people see the wealth of Elysium
back-to-back with the poverty of Earth, I think some will think that it’s more
extreme than reality – and it is not.
The two things exist, on Earth, right now,” he says. “In Mexico City, in Johannesburg, in Rio, you
have pockets of great wealth, gated communities, amidst a sea of poverty. And I think that’s where the cities of the US
are going to end up, too – that’s why the movie is set in Los Angeles. But that disparity can’t last. And
I don’t know what we’re going to get – whether we’re going to pull ourselves
forward or self-implode. Elysium is the fork in the road.”
CASTING THE FILM
At the center of the chaos on Earth,
between the two worlds, is Max, played by Matt Damon. “Max needs to get to Elysium to save himself,
but in his desperation, he gets involved in a plot that makes him realize that
the problem is much bigger than him,” says Blomkamp. “And he ends up fighting for something more
than himself, fighting to save other people on Earth.”
“Max, like a lot of people on
Earth, has always aspired to get to Elysium,” says Damon. “That was his dream. But he grew up. You get the idea that he’s been a petty
criminal, but on an Earth where resources are so scarce that everybody’s
hustling in some way, he’s just doing what he’s got to do to get by. He’s been
beaten up by life and now, he’s resigned to his life on Earth. He doesn’t dream about Elysium anymore. But in the movie, he’s put in a position to
become the only person who can change things.”
Max is an entirely different look
for Damon – shaven, tattooed, muscle-bound.
“Neill was very specific about every detail and how he wanted the
character to look,” says Damon. “He
provided us all with pictures of the characters. I don’t think anybody had ever done that for
me before – literally handed me a picture of the character with his shirt
off. So I went to my trainer and I said,
‘Make me look like that,’ and a great trainer can do that.”
Damon says that he was inspired to
join the project by the chance to work with Blomkamp. “Like everybody, I saw District 9, and like everybody, I freaked out,” he says. “Neill jumped to the top of the list of
people that I wanted to work with. So
when I heard that he wanted to meet with me about his next movie, I met him for
coffee. He pulled out a kind of graphic
novel that he had designed himself that explained the whole world of
Elysium. He’d designed it all, built it
all already. He just needed us to help
him bring it to life. And that was an
opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Jodie Foster stars opposite Damon
as Secretary Delacourt, the hardline official determined to protect Elysium for
the wealthy. “As the Secretary of
Defense, she sees it as her job to keep immigrants out of Elysium,” says
Foster. “She sees Elysium as a utopia –
what Earth could have been, but wasn’t. She’s
finding herself handcuffed by a new, more liberal administration, but she’s 108
years old; she remembers when Earth was falling apart and why they created
Elysium in the first place. She knows
what will happen if you let everybody in – it’ll end up just like Earth. If you try to give Elysium to everybody, you’ll
end up giving it to nobody.”
“I love the themes of this movie,”
she says. “The richer have become richer
and the poor have become poorer – that extends to everything from who gets to
be healthy to who gets to have children, who gets to have a family and who gets
to escape the poisoned environment. The
chasm has become so enormous that, in the movie, it’s literally two different
worlds.”
Sharlto Copley – Blomkamp’s
childhood friend and the star of District
9 – re-teams with the director to take on the pivotal and villainous role
of Kruger. “He’s ex-Special Forces, now
a gun-for-hire operative, a professional soldier who works on Earth for the
elite of Elysium,” explains Blomkamp.
“Sharlto will always find a way to
make things funny – even subconsciously,” says Blomkamp. “Even in the most extreme, dire situation,
there’s a natural, sardonic humor that comes out of him. He never, ever plays it straight. I provide the parameters for the character,
and he turns it into a magnetic performance, that, to me, is extremely
satisfying to watch.”
Copley was able to draw on his
unique experiences to create the character.
“Kruger wasn’t written as a South African, but I saw a way to play him
that way,” he says. “I drew on two South
African stereotypes to try and create a unique character that you’ve never seen
before. Firstly, for his accent and
sarcastic humor I drew on these guys from ‘The South’ – a tough neighborhood
south of Johannesburg. Secondly, for the
military aspect, there was a unit in the South African Defense Force during the
apartheid years called 3-2 Battalion. It
was a notorious but highly respected battalion – they fought in Angola during
the ‘Bush Wars,’ trying to stop the spread of Communism in Africa. Kruger’s beard, his PT shorts and his utterly
lethal military ability was inspired by them.”
Like Copley, the cast of Elysium is rounded out by a variety of
actors that might not be well-known in America, but are extremely famous in
their home countries. “The notion of
this movie being multicultural and multinational was built into its DNA,” says
Kinberg. “We have two lead actors from
Brazil, Alice Braga and Wagner Moura – Wagner in Brazil is a star on the level
of Will Smith or Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt in the rest of the world. Diego Luna is a huge star in Mexico. We wanted the movie to look like the world in
which we live.”
“This is not obvious casting,” says
Moura, who is the star of Brazil’s highest-grossing film of all time, Elite Squad 2. “Neill could have hired any actor in LA he
wanted. Why bring in this guy from
Brazil? But I think with the subject of
this film – which is so much about social differences – having a multinational
ensemble helps.”
In Elysium, Moura plays Spider, an underworld kingpin he describes as “a
cross between a revolutionary and a human trafficker – a coyote; he’s a guy who
helps people get into Elysium illegally.
The question is, why didn’t he want to go to Elysium himself? And the answer is that he doesn’t want to be
a part of Elysium – he has bigger plans in mind.”
Moura says that Max and Spider once
worked together in a few not-strictly-legal endeavors – but that was a long
time ago. Now, with Max desperate,
Spider is perfectly willing to exploit that desperation. “Max was very good in what he did, but he
left. He just said, ‘Bye, I’m going to
live a straight life,’” Moura explains.
“And then, one day, he comes back, and he needs my character to help him
get to Elysium, and I say, ‘This is priceless, you being here.’ But they make a deal, because Spider has one
big job that he’s always wanted to do, but was too dangerous.”
Luna takes on the role of Julio, a
friend from Max’s past who guides him back into a desperate life when Max has
no other choice. “Normally, in films,
you see good people and bad people – but in Elysium, it’s just people
surviving,” he says. “He’s just a guy
trying to live. Anybody can become a
thief for the right reasons – if it’s about surviving, feeding our kids, making
sure our families are okay, we’ll do anything.
Julio is actually a very sweet and nice guy.”
It was interesting to Luna to find
that aspect of his character, the actor continues, because that complexity is a
vein that runs throughout the film.
“There’s a humanity in Neill’s films,” he says. “He is a director with a voice and a point of
view – he goes out and experiences the characters. He approaches an action film in the same way
that as if he were doing an intimate love story: he cares about the characters,
the objectives, the particular moments.”
Braga plays Frey, Max’s childhood
friend – though their paths have diverged.
“They were kids together in an orphanage,” Braga explains. “They’ve become almost like family, even
though life has taken them in different directions. She always wanted to be a nurse, and she went
for that dream and fought for it. Max,
on the other hand, got drawn into a very hard world. So even though they have missed each other
for part of their lives, the underlying relationship was always there. When they reunite, they pick up where they
left off.”
“It’s a very interesting way to
play a relationship in a film – it’s a love story, in that they care about and
love each other, but it’s not the common love story – it’s not physical,” says
Braga. “That’s something I always loved about this script.”
Braga was also intrigued to play a
unique character, in her eyes. “She’s 28 years old – my age – a single
mom with a sick daughter. I thought this would be a great challenge – to build a
character with such a hard life. We had
to make her strong, but not depressed or unhappy – she just faces the reality
of her life, brave and determined to do what she has to do for her daughter.”
When Max has to get to Elysium,
Spider promises him a trip in exchange for Max’s services on one big job: to
kidnap John Carlyle – the inventor of Elysium – and steal the one thing money
can’t buy: the information in his head.
“They get all the passwords and codes for Elysium. And Spider immediately sees the value in what
they’ve stolen. He can open up Elysium
to everybody,” says Moura. “Just like
that, he starts to be more of a revolutionary than a common thief.”
“Carlyle created the computer
program that operates the entire world of Elysium,” says William Fichtner, who
plays Carlyle. “The droids, the borders, everything is in that. There’s nothing he wants more than to be on
Elysium, rather than Earth. So when his beautiful little Bugatti shuttle is
shot down, that’s the worst thing he can imagine.”
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
To portray the world of Elysium, it
was necessary to draw two very distinct and different worlds – with two
locations and two styles of shooting. “Contrast
was a huge part of making this film, because we wanted to show Earth and
Elysium back to back,” says Blomkamp.
“So, to maintain that very distinct, black-and-white partition between
the two places, we thought about every single element of the filmmaking process
being separate.”
Production Designer Philip Ivey’s
main goal in designing the film was to play upon the contrast been the haves on
Elysium and the have-nots on Earth. “The
idea is that all of the money is on Elysium,” says Ivey. “But even though Earth has to feel gritty and
real to the audience, so do the clean surfaces on Elysium. We have robots trimming the hedges;
everything is heavily manicured. It is
all made from the finest materials.”
The film was primarily shot in two
locations: Mexico City, which doubles for Los Angeles in 2154, and Vancouver,
which doubles for Elysium. “Neill’s aesthetic sensibility is about making things real,
and that comes through both in the locations and the action,” says
Kinberg. One of the other aspects
of District 9 that captured audiences
and critics was that at times, the film felt real – dramatic
scenes, mockumentary footage, and real news video were all part of the same
story. Kinberg says that Blomkamp brings
the same sensibility to Elysium. “The sun is real, the smoke is real,
the smell is real. The chaos, struggle, and danger of the
city informs and infects the movie. Physical action
feels gritty and real.”
Filming in Mexico – especially in
some of the poorest parts of the country – the irony was not lost on the cast
or crew. “As we were filming, I couldn’t help but feel that we are living
in our own private Elysium – our own version of this story,” says William
Fichtner. “The fact that the people of Elysium want to keep their perfect
place for themselves, well, that’s not unlike our circumstances today.”
Another way that Fichtner’s
character is shown as living in literally a different world from the residents
of Earth is in his vehicle – represented by one of the world’s most exclusive
brands. “We approached Bugatti to see
what they would come up with if they were designing a shuttle between Earth and
Elysium,” says Cameron Waldbauer, the film’s Special Effects Coordinator. “In two days, they turned around a bunch of
illustrations – Neill picked one that he really liked, we 3D modeled it, and
then we made it, out of foam and fiberglass.”
The shuttle even has the Bugatti badge.
For the design of Elysium, the
filmmakers went in the opposite direction.
Even though the rich of Elysium can afford the best of everything,
“Money doesn’t necessarily buy taste,” Ivey notes. “You have your faux Tuscan mansions, your
Malibu modern, the ultramodern houses.
And out the windows, thanks to the visual effects, you see the other
side of the Torus and spacecraft flying through.”
For certain set concepts on Elysium,
the filmmakers called upon the legendary futurist designer Syd Mead (Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens). “It was an honor to have met him and worked
with him,” says Ivey. “He did a number
of concept illustrations of the torus for us very early on. Later, as the project progressed, Syd’s main
contributions were in the overall geometry of the control room and the briefing
room. Those are two of my favorite sets
in the film.”
The stunts were overseen by Mike
Mitchell, the film’s stunt coordinator.
“For me, the process began by jumping around in Neill’s office, moving
his couches and grabbing glasses and pretending they’re props,” he says. “From that moment, Neill and I started
clicking.”
For Mitchell, working with Matt
Damon was working with a natural. “He
has an exceptional ability to remember movement,” says Mitchell. “He speaks our language. I’m sure he’s been greatly tuned by his work
on the Bourne films – but it’s crazy.
You can show him six or seven moves in a fight, and then you’ll go to
lunch, come back and he’ll say, ‘OK, that was a left, a slip, a right, and that
elbow?’ I’d look at Shaun Beaton, Matt’s stunt double, and go ‘OK.’ We don’t remember, but he does.”
ABOUT THE SPECIAL AND VISUAL EFFECTS
Elysium
marks a hybrid between the special and visual effects – capturing in camera
what could be physically built and in the computer what could not, and, in some
cases, blending the two techniques.
“Neill wants to make a movie that
people haven’t seen before,” says Visual Effects Supervisor Peter Muyzers. “Every director does that to one extent or
another, but Neill takes it to another level.
He creates the story, develops it, and gives them an experience unlike
any other out there.”
Blomkamp began by giving strong
direction on the look of the droids and the weaponry to the artists at WETA Workshop,
who also designed the aliens and weaponry on District 9. They would also
design the “HULC suit” – the biomechanical exoskeleton that Max wears and gives
him superhuman abilities, even as he is dying.
“It was my favorite prop in the
movie,” says Special Makeup FX / Costume / Props Supervisor Joe Dunckley. “When we first got the brief from Neill, it
was difficult to imagine how we were going to execute it. In the end, it came off great.”
According to Dunckley, the HULC
suit required eight months of research and development and 75 revisions before
the design was finalized. In the end,
the actor wearing the suit was impressed. “The big thing was mobility,” says Damon. “Elysium
is a real action movie, with running and jumping and climbing and fighting, so
they wanted to make sure that I could actually move in the suit, and the guys
at WETA knocked that out completely. I
had 100% mobility. Everything looked metal,
but it was super-lightweight, just 25 pounds, distributed all over my
body. I could stay in it all day and I’d
feel totally fine.”
There are several different kinds
of droids populating the world of Elysium
– police officers, military, government, medical – and though most would be
completed by the visual effects artists at Image Engine (which also created the
aliens of District 9), the design
process began at WETA Workshop. “The
process of designing the droids was very similar to what we did on District 9,” says Dunckley. “Neill wanted them to have a similar size and
proportion to humans, but a much sleeker look.”
And that humanoid, bi-pedal form
was no accident. “We had to make sure
that the design allowed us to cover up the actors,” says Dunckley. Indeed, during production, the roles of the
droids were played by stuntmen in gray suits and painted out later, in the
computer, by the VFX artists.
“The most important aspect of
creating the performance of the droids was making sure that Neill could direct
that performance on set with the gray suit actors to achieve a realistic
interaction with the cast and environment,” says Muyzers. “Then we could replace that actor with a
droid in postproduction and maintain that performance all the way through. We didn’t use motion capture, but the
animators were able to directly translate all of the nuances of the droid’s
actions frame by frame in exactly the way Neill wanted it.”
Muyzers re-teams with Blomkamp
after collaborating with the director on District
9. “District 9 was fairly straightforward – we had a real environment,
and we put characters into that environment as realistically as we could,” he
says. “On Elysium, it was almost the other way around – Neill wanted to
create a world that didn’t exist, but had to look absolutely believable. We created the environment into which we
inserted live-action characters. Because
of what Elysium is – the home of the very rich – we did lots of research. Neill provided us with images and video of
Beverly Hills and Hollywood and the luxury lifestyle. We coordinated closely with Phil Ivey, the
production designer, to determine the size of the ring, the width of the ring,
how many people could live on Elysium, and how many houses would there be, what
do these houses look like, what kind of infrastructure would there be and then
obviously, how you get to Elysium. We ended up with a ring three kilometers
wide, with a diameter of sixty kilometers – that translates to about a
half-million people, living on this space station.”
The most challenging visual effect,
says Muyzers, are the establishing shots of Elysium. “It had to be a design, a torus, that you
could see in the sky when you’re on Earth.
Even when you’re far away, it has to be recognizable as a ring, like
you’re holding your wedding band up to the sky,” he says.
Then, Dunckley continues, the shots
would have to be believable as they push in on the space station. “We have
Elysium floating out there like a giant ring, and then we approach it, getting
more and more detail – plants, birds, buildings. You’re traveling through space, and suddenly
you arrive in Beverly Hills,” says Muyzers. “That’s very challenging, to build
that, to show it in a way that’s believable, and I’m not sure I’ve seen that in
any other film, to the degree that we do it in this film.”
According to Muyzers, the design of
Elysium is based on real scientific concepts.
“Neill consulted with scientists and engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, basically to see if we were on the right track. Would this design be sustainable, given the
technology?” says Muyzers. “And it turns
out, this is pretty much an idea that NASA has been playing around with – on a
different scale, for sure. But a
spinning ring out in space that would create its own gravity field – that’s a
very real concept.” And not only does
the spin of the torus provide gravity for the space station, but the station’s
large body of water acts as a balancer to keep the high-tech world
spinning. “To have a sustainable
atmosphere, you’d have to have an enclosed ring,” Muyzers continues. “We have an air purification ring that runs
along the top and creates the pressure and forces the air to stay on the
surface.”
Figuring out the atmosphere was
another challenge. “We’re on Earth, we
look through the atmosphere into space, and that’s what gives us our blue sky,
darker at the top and brighter on the horizon,” says Muyzers. “But Elysium is inverted. On Elysium, you’re on the inner tube of a
bicycle tire, so it gives you quite a different aspect of the atmosphere. Night and day, too, work differently. On Earth, you don’t see night coming – it
just gets darker. But on Elysium, you
can see the parts of the ring that are in a different time of day – they can be
in darkness while you’re in daylight.
Figuring out how to portray that was a challenge.”
For Muyzers, the most helpful part
of designing and completing the visual effects was being on set, seeing how the
director was shooting. “We spent a lot
of time with Neill in Johannesburg during District
9, and it was the same experience this time,” he says. “Neill is an expert in visual effects – he’s
worked in visual effects. That gave him
a lot of experience – he understands the limitations of effects and how best to
embrace what we can do. He’s an amazing,
creative director.”
ABOUT THE CAST
MATT DAMON (Max) has been honored for his work on both
sides of the camera, most recently earning Academy Award®, Screen
Actors Guild Award® and Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best
Supporting Actor for his portrayal of South African rugby hero Francois Pienaar
in Clint Eastwood’s true-life drama Invictus.
In addition, he also garnered dual Golden Globe Award nominations that
year: one for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Invictus and one for Best Actor for his starring role in
Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!
Earlier in his career, Damon won an Academy Award® for Best
Screenplay and received an Oscar® nomination for Best Actor, both
for his breakthrough feature Good Will Hunting.
Damon most
recently starred in Promised Land. The film, which is directed by Gus
Van Sant, was written and produced by Damon and John Krasinki.
In 2011 Damon starred in a number of projects, including We Bought a Zoo, directed by Cameron Crowe, the Coen
brothers’ remake of the classic Western True Grit,
George Nolfi’s thriller The Adjustment Bureau,” opposite Emily Blunt, he lent his
voice to the animated feature Happy Feet 2, and reunited with Soderbergh to join
the ensemble cast of the thriller Contagion.
In 2002, Damon originated the role of
Jason Bourne in the blockbuster actioner The Bourne
Identity. He went on to reprise his role in the
two hit sequels, The Bourne Supremacy and The
Bourne Ultimatum, both
directed by Paul Greengrass. He has also
repeatedly teamed with Steven Soderbergh: as part of the all-star cast
in the Ocean’s
trilogy, and in a cameo role in the second part of the director’s
two-part biopic Che.
Damon’s other recent film credits include
the drama Hereafter,
which reunited him with director Clint Eastwood, the action thriller Green
Zone, directed by Paul
Greengrass, Martin Scorsese’s Oscar®-winning Best Picture The
Departed, with
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg; Robert De Niro’s
dramatic thriller The Good Shepherd, with De Niro and Angelina Jolie; and
Stephen Gaghan’s geopolitical thriller Syriana, with George Clooney.
In addition, for the small screen,
Damon both executive produced and appeared in the History Channel project “The
People Speak,” based on a book co-written by famed historian Howard Zinn and
featuring dramatic readings and performances from some of the most famous names
in the entertainment industry.
Hailing from Boston, Damon attended
Harvard University and gained his first acting experience with the American
Repertory Theatre. He made his
feature film debut in Mystic Pizza, followed by
roles in School Ties, Walter Hill’s Geronimo: An American Legend, and the cable projects “Rising Son”
and Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Good Old Boys.” He first gained attention with
his portrayal of a guilt-ridden Gulf War veteran tormented by memories of a battlefield
incident in 1996’s Courage Under Fire.
Together with his lifelong friend Ben
Affleck, Damon co-wrote the acclaimed 1997 drama Good Will Hunting, for which they won an Academy Award®
and a Golden Globe Award, as well as several critics groups awards for Best
Original Screenplay. Damon also garnered
Oscar®, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®
nominations for Best Actor. Additionally
in 1997, Damon starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford
Coppola’s The Rainmaker
and made a cameo appearance in Kevin
Smith’s Chasing Amy.
The following year, Damon played the
title role in Steven Spielberg’s award-winning World War II drama Saving
Private Ryan and also
starred in John Dahl’s drama Rounders, with Edward Norton. Damon earned his third Golden Globe
nomination for his performance in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, under the direction of Anthony
Minghella. He also reunited with Ben
Affleck and director Kevin Smith to
star in the controversial comedy Dogma.
Damon’s subsequent film credits include
starring roles in Robert Redford’s The Legend of
Bagger Vance; Billy Bob Thornton’s All the
Pretty Horses; the Farrelly brothers’ comedy Stuck on You, opposite Greg Kinnear; Terry
Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, with Heath Ledger; and a cameo in George Clooney’s Confessions
of a Dangerous Mind.
Earlier this year, Damon starred with
Michael Douglas in the HBO telefilm “Behind the Candelabra” for director Steven
Soderbergh. The film takes a behind-the-scenes look at the tempestuous
relationship between legendary entertainer Liberace (Douglas) and Scott Thorson
(Damon), his younger limo driver and live-in lover.
Damon recently completed filming The Monuments Men, for director,
co-writer and co-star George Clooney. Based on the true story of the greatest
treasure hunt in history, The Monuments
Men is an action-thriller focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon,
tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi
thieves and returning them to their rightful owners.
In 2000, Damon and Affleck formed the
production company LivePlanet to produce film, television and new media
projects. LivePlanet produced three
Emmy-nominated seasons of “Project Greenlight,” chronicling the making of
independent films by first-time writers and directors. The “Project Greenlight” films produced to
date are Stolen Summer, The Battle of Shaker Heights and Feast.
LivePlanet also produced the documentary Running the Sahara, directed by Oscar® winner James
Moll.
In 2008, Oscar® winners Damon and Affleck formed Pearl
Street Productions to produce stories in film and television. Pearl Street recently co-produced Promised Land. Current projects in development include Whitey Bulger, Father Daughter Time – a tale of armed robbery and Eskimo kisses, Live By Night, and Race To The South Pole.
Jennifer Todd (Memento, Alice in Wonderland) serves as President
of the company, which has a first look deal with Warner Brothers Pictures.
In addition, Damon co-founded H20
Africa in 2006, now known as Water.org.
JODIE FOSTER’s (Secretary Delacourt) stunning
performances as a rape survivor in The
Accused and as Special Agent Clarice Starling in the hit thriller The Silence of the Lambs earned her two
Academy Awards® for Best Actress and a reputation as one of the most
critically acclaimed actresses of her generation.
Foster began her
career at age three, appearing as “The Coppertone Girl” in the television
commercial. She then went on to become a regular on a number of television
series, including “Mayberry RFD,” “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” “My Three
Sons” and “Paper Moon.” She made her feature debut in Napoleon and Samantha when she was eight years old.
But it was her role
in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1975)
that brought her to the audience’s attention and her powerful portrayal of a
streetwise teenager in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi
Driver (1976) that won her widespread critical praise and international
attention. Foster appeared in a total of four films in 1976, Bugsy Malone, Echoes of Summer, Little
Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and Taxi
Driver, which were all presented at the Cannes Film Festival. Alan Parker’s
Bugsy Malone earned her an Italian
Comedy Award.
In total, Foster
has appeared in more than 40 films, including recent films Carnage for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination; Nim’s Island with Gerard Butler; The Brave One for director Neil Jordan
for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination; Inside Man with Denzel Washington and Clive Owen; the box-office
hit Flightplan; Jean Pierre Jeunet’s
French language film, A Very Long
Engagement; David Fincher’s box-office success, Panic Room; Anna and the King
for director Andy Tenant, Contact for
director Robert Zemeckis; Nell
opposite Liam Neeson; the comedy Maverick
opposite Mel Gibson and James Garner; and the romantic drama Sommersby opposite Richard Gere.
Other select motion
picture credits include Woody Allen’s stylized black-and-white comedy Shadows and Fog; Siesta; Stealing Home; Five Corners; as well as earlier films Tom Sawyer; Freaky Friday; Adrian Lyne’s Foxes;
Tony Richardson’s The Hotel New Hampshire
and Claude Chabrol’s The Blood of Others,
for which the multi-lingual Foster looped all of her own dialogue in French.
For her role in The Silence of the Lambs, Foster was
also awarded a Golden Globe® Award, a British Academy Award, a New
York Film Critics Award and a Chicago Film Critics Award. Foster received her
first Oscar® nomination and awards from the National Society of Film
Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics for her role in Taxi Driver. She also became the only American actress to win two
separate awards in the same year from the British Academy
of Film and Television Arts – Best Supporting Actress and Best Newcomer
honoring her performances in both Taxi
Driver and Bugsy Malone.
In 2013, she was
presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association for Lifetime Achievement.
In addition to her
acting, Foster has always had a keen interest in the art of filmmaking.
Foster made her
motion picture directorial debut in 1991 with the highly acclaimed Little Man Tate, in which she also
starred. In 1995, Foster directed her second film, Home for the Holidays, which she also produced. The film starred
Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft and Robert Downey Jr. Her most recent film, The Beaver, which stars Mel Gibson, was
released in 2011.
Foster founded Egg
Pictures in 1992 and the company produced Nell
(1994), for which Foster earned an Academy Award® nomination for
Best Actress; Home for the Holidays
(1995); the Showtime telefilm The Baby
Dance (1998) which received a Peabody Award, four Emmy® Award
nominations and three Golden Globe® Award nominations; as well as
USA Films’ Waking the Dead, directed
by Keith Gordon starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly. In 1996, Egg
presented the award-winning French film Hate
(L’Haine) in the United States. Foster
and Egg Pictures also produced The
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2001).
Foster graduated
with honors from Yale University in 1985, earning a B.A. in literature.
SHARLTO COPLEY (Kruger) is
a South African actor, producer and director who has produced and co-directed
short films which have appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as
commercials and music videos. He made
his on screen debut as Wikus van de Merwe in the Oscar®-nominated science
fiction film District 9 for director
Neill Blomkamp and Sony Pictures. He is best known for his role of H.M.
Murdock in the 2010 adaptation of Fox’s The
A-Team for director Joe Carnahan.
Poised to have a breakout year, Copley also stars in several other upcoming films including Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy (opposite Josh
Brolin) out October 11th,
Disney’s Maleficent (with Angelina Jolie) as the male
lead, and international sci-fi Europa.
He also
recently finished shooting in Hungary, as the star of Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego’s
thriller Open Grave.
Brazilian born actress ALICE BRAGA (Frey) received critical
acclaim and international recognition for her stirring performance in 2002’s City of God which helped
catapult the film to multiple Golden Globe and Oscar® nominations.
Braga was last seen in the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s
On the Road directed by Walter Salles starring alongside Kristen
Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Amy Adams, and Garrett Hedlund. In 2011, she
starred in the Warner Bros. thriller The Rite opposite Anthony Hopkins
as a reporter attempting to uncover the secrets behind exorcism.
Braga also starred opposite Will Smith in the Warner Bros.
record-breaking box office hit I Am Legend, directed by Francis
Lawrence. In 2008, Braga reteamed with City of God director Fernando
Meirelles in Blindness, opposite Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.
Braga was also seen opposite Emily Mortimer in David Mamet’s Redbelt,
chronicling the life of a Jiu-jitsu master, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Following Redbelt, Braga joined an ensemble cast including Sean Penn and
Harrison Ford in Wayne Kramer’s film Crossing Over, which focused on the
lives of immigrants in Los Angeles and their efforts to achieve US citizenship.
In 2010, Braga starred opposite Jude Law and Forest Whitaker in the hit thriller, Repo Men. That same year, Braga
appeared opposite Adrien Brody in Nimrod Antal’s science fiction film, Predators.
Braga’s past credits include her portrayal of a carefree
art student opposite Diego Luna, in Sólo Dios Sabe (God Only Knows)
which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; A Journey to the End of the
Night, an independent film set against the backdrop of the Brazilian sex
trade industry with Mos Def and Brendan Fraser; Cidade Baixa (Lower City)
the riveting drama about the dangers of a love triangle, in which A.O. Scott
of the New York Times hailed Braga as “one of the most forthrightly and
powerfully sexual screen actresses in the world,” and the offbeat comedy Cheiro
do Ralo, O (Drained).
Braga is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
DIEGO LUNA (Julio) was introduced to worldwide audiences with his
starring role in the award-winning Y Tu
Mama Tambien alongside life-long friend Gael Garcia Bernal for director
Alfonso Cuaron.
Beginning
his professional acting career on stage at the age of seven and making his
television debut at age twelve in “El Abuelo Y Yo,” Luna has appeared on stage
in such theater productions as “De Pelicula, La Tarea” (based on Jame Hurnberto
Hermosillo’s movie of the same name), “Comedia Clandtina,” and “El Cantaro
Roto,” for which he accepted the 1996-1997 Masculine Revelation Award from the
Association of Theatre Reviewers. Under the direction of Antonio Serrano (“Sexo,
Pudor y Lagrimas”), he performed Sabina Berman’s “Moliere.” He
produced “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” in Mexico for which he won
the 2001-2002 Best Comic Actor award from the Association of Theatre
Reviewers.
Luna’s
additional feature films include award-winning Milk opposite Sean Penn for director Gus Van Sant, Carlos Cuaron’s Rudo y Cursi, Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, Before Night Falls
for director Julian Schnabel, Luis Estrada’s Ambar, Erwin Neumaier’s Un
Hilito De Sangre, Gabriel Retes’ Un
Dulce Olor A Meute, Marisa Sistach’s El
Cometa, Fernando Sarinana’s Todo El
Poder, Criminal for Stephen
Soderbergh and George Clooney’s Section Eight Productions, The Terminal for director Steven Spielberg, Solo Dios Sabe (What God
Knows), Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Open Range alongside director and star Kevin Costner, Frida opposite Salma Hayek for director
Julie Taymor, Carambola, Fidel (for Showtime), Ciudades Oscuras, and Soldados de Salamina for director David
Trueba. Additionally, Luna has starred in a number of short films made by
students at CUEC and CCC, including Javier Bourges’ El Ultimo Fin Del Ano, the Oscar®-winning short film.
He goes
behind the camera as a director for a second time with Abel, his fictional directorial debut. Abel is a heart-warming story about a peculiar young boy who
returns home to assume the role of the family man, soon enough his actions
start to have a positive impact on the family and their unity.
Previously,
he directed the documentary Chavez,
which premiered at 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The film
explores the life of legendary boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, whose rise from humble
circumstances to thirty-seven world title fights mirrored the struggle of his
people and allowed him to win the hearts of the world. Chavez was
created under the banner of Canana, the international film and television
production company based in Mexico City that Luna founded with Bernal and
Pablo Cruz. The company focuses on story-based projects of Latin
American origin, with a worldwide market perspective. Canana’s main objective is not only to
develop projects that serve their needs as actors, but also to open doors to
new talent and produce film and television projects with a contemporary
vision. Canana recently produced Luna’s film Abel and Bernal’s directorial debut. Canana’s Deficit premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2007.
He also
enjoyed a successful run on stage as an actor and producer last year in John
Malkovich’s “The Good Canary.”
WAGNER MOURA (Spider),
best known for his star making role as Captain Nascimento in the Elite Squad films (outgrossing Avatar in his native Brazil) is Brazil’s
preeminent actor. Moura was born and
raised in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, where he began his career
studying journalism before embarking on a career in drama, most notably with
his theatrical performance in the acclaimed A Máquina, bringing him to
the attention of Brazil’s larger film and television industry. Moura’s extraordinary and natural acting
talents quickly thrust him into the spotlight, where he made his feature film
debut opposite Penelope Cruz in Woman on
Top and a series of notable television roles in Brazil. Moura has gone on
to star in over twenty feature films over the last decade as well as bringing
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” to Brasil (where he personally translated and starred in
the title role) for a three-year run.
Moura was recently announced as the star of Fellini Black and White, where he’ll
play the famous Italian filmmaker. He’ll be supported by a pedigreed
ensemble that includes Abbie Cornish, Nina Arianda, William H. Macy, and Peter
Dinklage. Wagner Moura is quickly duplicating his homeland success here in the
U.S.
He resides in Rio de Janeiro with his wife Sandra (a
photographer and documentarian) and their three children, Bem, Salvador, and
José.
Having appeared
in a wide range of films along with television and theater roles over the
course of his career, WILLIAM FICHTNER (Carlyle) continues to carve out
a distinctive reputation as one of our most versatile and talented actors,
whether in comedy or drama, action or character study.
In the past year, Fichtner has
completed starring roles in director Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, opposite
Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney;
writer-director Todd Robinson’s thriller Phantom, opposite Ed Harris and
David Duchovny; and director-producer Danny DeVito’s thriller St. Sebastian.
In 2012, Fichtner starred in the
John Stockwell-directed Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden, based
on the true events surrounding the U.S. Navy SEALS mission to capture Osama bin
Laden. The film had its world premiere on the National Geographic
Channel.
In 2011, Fichtner starred opposite
Nicolas Cage in Drive Angry for director Patrick Lussier and alongside
Antonio Banderas in The Big Bang for director Tony Krantz.
In 2010, he starred opposite Steve Carell and Tina Fey in director Shawn Levy’s
Date Night.
Fichtner co-starred in
writer-director Paul Haggis’ Academy Award®-winning Crash. For his
performance in that film, he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best
Ensemble Cast in a Feature Film.
His additional film credits include
Blades of Glory with Will Ferrell; director Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight;
the remake of The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler; the comedy The
Amateurs with Jeff Bridges; two films that premiered in the same Sundance
Film Festival season, Rodrigo Garcia’s Nine Lives and Arie Posin’s The
Chumscrubber; Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down; What’s The Worst
Thing That Could Happen; Wolfgang Peterson’s The Perfect Storm; Drowning
Mona; Ultraviolet and Equilibrium, both for writer-director Kurt
Wimmer; Armageddon; Michael Mann’s Heat; Robert Zemeckis’ Contact;
Doug Liman’s Go; Katherine Bigelow’s Strange Days; Passion of
Mind; Steven Soderbergh’s The Underneath; Switchback;
Agnieszka Holland’s Julie Walking Home; The Settlement with John
C. Reilly; Kevin Spacey’s directorial debut Albino Alligator and First
Snow with Guy Pearce.
Segueing between television and
feature films, Fichtner most recently completed filming the international
television series “Crossing Lines,” created by Edward Allen Bernero, co-creator
of “Third Watch” and an executive producer of “Criminal Minds.” Fichtner
stars in the series opposite Donald Sutherland.
Fichtner had a recurring role on HBO’s “Entourage” from 2009-2011. He
played FBI Agent Alexander Mahone for three seasons on Fox’s hit drama series,
“Prison Break.” He also starred with Paul Newman and Ed Harris in HBO’s
critically acclaimed adaptation of Richard Russo’s “Empire Falls.” Other television
credits include roles on NBC’s “The West Wing” and ABC’s “Invasion.”
As a member of the Circle Repertory
Theatre, Fichtner won critical acclaim for his role in “The Fiery Furnace,” directed by Norman Rene. Other stage credits
include “Raft of the Medusa” at
the Minetta Lane Theatre, “The Years”
at the Manhattan Theatre Club, “Clothes
for a Summer Hotel” at the Williamstown Theatre festival and “Machinal” at The Public Theatre.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
NEILL BLOMKAMP’s
(Writer / Director / Producer) first feature film, District 9, earned over $200 million
worldwide and worldwide acclaim: four Academy Award® nominations, including
Best Picture and Best Screenplay (for Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell).
Born in South Africa,
Blomkamp moved to Canada at the age of 18, beginning his career as a visual
effects artist in the world of film and television. Garnering much recognition as one of the
brightest young talents in the industry, Blomkamp was nominated for an Emmy Award
for outstanding visual effects at the age of 21. Shortly afterwards, he made the move into
directing, serving first as a music video director and then transitioning into
the world of commercials. Blomkamp
quickly drew attention as a director with a unique talent for seamlessly
blending computer generated imagery with live action, while infusing elements
of emotion, humor, and mood.
Helming million-dollar
commercials for Nike, Citroen, Gatorade, Panasonic, and Namco, Blomkamp also
directed many celebrated short films, including the Wieden and Kennedy-financed
short, Tempbot, which garnered the coveted No Spot Short Film Festival
Best Overall Film.
In 2004, Blomkamp was
recognized as one of the Top 5 Directors to Watch at the First Boards Awards,
featured in the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes, and
short-listed at the Shark Awards. In
2005, Blomkamp received the award for Outstanding VFX in a commercial for
Citroen – Alive with Technology at the VES Awards in California. He has since been featured in Shots, Shoot,
Campaign, and Creativity magazines, and won three awards in London, England at
the BTAA award show.
BILL BLOCK (Producer) founded QED International in December 2005
where he leads day-to-day operations and strategy for the company. Between The Blair Witch Project and District 9, Block has produced,
financed, acquired, or distributed over 30 theatrical feature films, and has worked
with a broad array of filmmakers (Peter Jackson, Oliver Stone, Michael Mann,
Steven Soderbergh, Jon Favreau, David Koepp, Darren Aronofsky, Christopher
McQuarrie).
Previously, Block was President of
Artisan Entertainment. Along with Bain Capital, Block led the LBO of Live
Entertainment, a publicly traded video company, which became Artisan. He
recruited the management team, helped secure new production financing, and
turned Artisan into a competitive force in the independent acquisition and
distribution world.
At Artisan, Block supervised all
divisions – international, home entertainment, and television syndication to
quantify and offset risk with Artisan’s banking and distribution partners.
Among the projects that he produced or acquired include: The Blair Witch Project; The Buena Vista Social Club; Pi; Requiem
for a Dream; Belly; Hype; The Limey; The Ninth Gate; and Made.
At the 1999 Sundance Film Festival,
he acquired The Blair Witch Project, which became one of the most profitable
returns on investment in film history. Block also bought the Spanish-language
film Open Your Eyes, and sub-licensed the remake rights to Paramount, and
executive produced the remake, Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise.
Before this, Block was one of the
industry’s leading talent agents. As Head of West Coast Operations for
International Creative Management from 1992 to 1997 and founder of the Intertalent
Agency, Block’s clients included such artists as Kim Basinger, Samuel L.
Jackson, Steven Seagal, Charlie Sheen, John Travolta, and Forest Whitaker; and
filmmakers Sam Raimi, Roland Emmerich, William Friedkin, George Armitage,
Stephen Hopkins, Peter Hyams, and Herbert Ross.
SIMON KINBERG (Producer) began his career in Hollywood while still
at film school. His thesis project for school was the screenplay Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The film was
released in 2005 starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and went on to become
an international blockbuster, grossing over 475 million dollars.
In 2005, Kinberg was named by Premiere Magazine as New Screenwriter of the
Year, and given Movieline Magazine’s Breakthrough Award for screenwriting.
In 2006, he co-wrote X-Men:
The Last Stand, which opened on Memorial Day to box office records, and
became the most successful film in the franchise. In 2008, Kinberg wrote and
produced Doug Liman’s Jumper for New
Regency and 20th Century Fox. The film opened number one, and grossed over 220
million dollars worldwide.
In 2009, he wrote the film Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, directed
by Guy Ritchie. The film set the box office record for the biggest Christmas
opening in history, received a Golden Globe for Best Actor, and was nominated
for two Academy Awards®.
In 2011, he produced X-Men:
First Class directed by Matthew Vaughn. In 2012, he wrote and produced This Means War starring Reese
Witherspoon, Tom Hardy, and Chris Pine.
Currently, he is writing and producing X-Men: Days of Future Past, which unites the casts of all the
films, including Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Michael Fassbender,
James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence. He is also producing the live-action film
of Disney’s Cinderella, with Kenneth
Branagh directing, and Cate Blanchett starring. He is consulting on Star Wars: Episode VII, and will be
writing/producing one of the new Star Wars standalone films. His production
company, Kinberg Genre, has a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox.
SUE BADEN-POWELL (Executive Producer) most recently served as executive producer of The Apparition. Prior to that, she produced two movies for
Ricky Gervais: The Invention of Lying,
starring Gervais and Jennifer Garner, and the smaller English comedy Cemetery Junction, featuring Ralph
Fiennes, Emily Watson and Gervais, which Gervais also co-directed with his
creative partner Stephen Merchant.
Throughout her career, Baden-Powell has played numerous roles
behind the scenes in feature production. She produced the thriller Below, from writer/director David Twohy,
and The Public Eye, from
writer/director Howard Franklin. She executive produced the hit Eddie Murphy
comedy Doctor Doolittle, directed by
Betty Thomas; Franklin’s Larger Than Life,
starring Bill Murray; Matthew Warchus’ Simpatico,
starring Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges, based on the Sam Shepard play, and
writer/director Richard Kelly’s thriller The
Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, based on a short story by
Richard Matheson.
Baden-Powell also co-produced the features Equilibrium, Boys and Girls, Andre,
and Chattahoochee, was supervising
producer on Michael Fields’ Bright Angel,
and served as production manager or unit production manager on such films as Nomads, 1969, Earth Girls Are Easy,
and Radio Flyer. She began her career
in film as an executive in charge of production on Andrei Konchalovsky’s Runaway Train, starring Jon Voight, and
also worked in that capacity on Gregory Nava’s A Time of Destiny, starring William Hurt and Timothy Hutton.
TRENT OPALOCH
(Director of Photography) reteams with Neill Blomkamp after serving as director
of photography on District 9; his
work on that film earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography.
Opaloch began his career as
a director of photography shooting short films and over 100 music videos.
His award-winning work includes the Weiden & Kennedy-produced Tempbot (Best Overall Film – No Spot
Short Film Festival) for director Neill Blomkamp and the multiple award-winning
Terminus for director Trevor
Cawood.
His commercials include
work for Adidas, Bungie, Nike, Gatorade, Microsoft, Lucasfilm, Panasonic, and
the thirteen-spot Visa campaign for the 2008 Olympics, as well as commercials
for George Lucas’ The Clone Wars and
Blomkamp’s Halo – Combat, which won the coveted Grand Prix
award at the 2008 Cannes film festival.
Opaloch is currently
shooting Captain America: The Winter
Soldier.
PHILIP IVEY
(Production Designer) has worked in the film industry
for 22 years. He started his art department career as an assistant on Alison
McLean’s Crush and Leon Narbey’s The Footstep Man. He worked his way through the ranks to become
an art director on many local and international feature films. His art director credits include The Lord
of the Rings trilogy, Laundry Warrior, In My Father’s Den
(Winner, International Critics prize 2004 Toronto Film Festival), The Legend
of Zorro, Boogeyman, as well as 100 episodes of “Xena: Warrior Princess.” He served as production designer on Neill
Blomkamp’s first feature, District 9,
and was honored by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for his work; he
also received nominations for a BAFTA, an Art Directors Guild Award, and a
Saturn Award. Ivey has twice won the Art
Directors Guild’s Excellence in Production Design Award, for his work on The
Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Ivey was also responsible
for production design on Glenn Standring’s steam punk vampire film Perfect
Creature, Toa Fraser’s No. 2 (Winner, Audience Award, 2006 Sundance
Film Festival), and Robert Sarkies’ Out of the Blue.
Since graduating film school at the University of British
Columbia, JULIAN CLARKE, A.C.E. (Editor)
has been editing for
the last 12 years. After cutting his teeth on numerous independent projects in
Canada, Clarke collaborated with director Neill Blomkamp on District 9. For his work on District 9, Clarke was nominated for an
Oscar® for Best Achievement in Film Editing, an American Cinema Editors (ACE)
Eddie Award for Best Edited Film Feature (Dramatic) and a BAFTA Film Award for
Best Editing. Clarke’s other recent work includes The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz, and The Thing for Universal Pictures.
LEE SMITH, A.C.E. (Editor) earned Academy Award®, BAFTA Award and
Eddie Award nominations for his work on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and, more recently, a
BAFTA Award nomination for his work on Nolan’s Inception. He and Nolan also collaborated on Batman Begins, The Prestige,
and, most recently, The Dark Knight Rises.
Smith has also enjoyed a long
association with director Peter Weir, earning an Academy Award® nomination for
his editing work on Weir’s Master
and Commander: The Far Side of
the World, for which he also received a BAFTA and Eddie Award nomination.
Smith most recently reunited with Weir for the fact-based drama The Way Back. Smith had earlier
served as editor and sound designer on Weir’s
The Truman Show, Fearless and Green
Card; an additional editor on Dead
Poets Society; and an associate editor and sound designer on The Year of Living Dangerously,
which began their collaboration.
Hailing from Australia, Smith won
an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Editing on Gregor Jordan’s Two Hands, on which he was also the
sound designer. As a sound designer, he also won an AFI Award and earned a
BAFTA Award nomination for his work on Jane Campion’s The Piano, and won an AFI Award for Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm.
Smith’s credits as an editor also
include X-Men: First Class, The Rage in Placid Lake, Black and White, Buffalo Soldiers, Risk, Joey, RoboCop 2, Communion, and
Howling III.
PETER
MUYZERS (Visual
Effects Supervisor) drives the development of creative and technical
achievement at Image Engine. Muyzers began his career as a 3D artist working in
television commercials and identifications in 1995, with experience also
including large format Motion Ride and IMAX 2D and Stereoscopic films.
He has since worked at The Moving
Picture Company, UK as Computer Graphics Supervisor where he played a key part
in building the visual effects pipeline for the MPC film division. His credits
from this time encompass a variety of high profile feature films including Tim
Burton’s Corpse Bride, the first three Harry Potter films and Wallace
and Gromit: The Curse of the
Were-Rabbit.
Since joining Image Engine in 2006,
Muyzers has led the development of Image Engine’s robust film visual effects
pipeline and assembled its highly regarded visual effects R&D department.
This technical and creative development has been instrumental to the success of
District 9 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, where Muyzers also
played a key role as Digital Production Supervisor. For his work on District
9, Muyzers was honored with nominations for the Academy Award®, the BAFTA,
and the Visual Effects Society Award.
APRIL FERRY (Costume Designer) debuted as costume designer on John Carpenter’s 1986 actioner Big
Trouble in Little China and followed with Alan Rudolph’s romantic drama Made
in Heaven. A favorite of director Richard Donner, Ferry has designed the wardrobes
for four of his projects, including Radio
Flyer, Free Willy, Maverick (earning an Oscar® nomination as well as an Apex Award
nomination) and The Shadow Conspiracy. She has
also teamed three times with director Jonathan Mostow (Surrogates, Terminator
3: Rise of the Machines, and U-571), John Hughes (Planes, Trains
and Automobiles, She’s Having a Baby, and Flubber), and Jonathan Kaplan (Immediate Family, Unlawful Entry and Brokedown Palace.)
She has also worked on Arthur Hiller’s biopic The Babe, Peter Bogdanovich’s The Mask
and “Child’s Play, Three Fugitives, Bill Paxton’s directorial debut Frailty, 15 Minutes, National Security and Playing By Heart. She collaborated with
filmmaker Richard Kelly on three projects - the cult favorite Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, and The Box.
She also designed the period wear for the WWII romantic drama Edge of Love starring Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller, for which she was
honored with the BAFTA Cymru for Best Costume Design.
On the small screen, Ferry designed the
wardrobe for the TV miniseries “The Sophisticated Gents,” received an Emmy
nomination for the CBS/Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, “My Name Is Bill W,”
designed two “Rockford Files” telefilms (1995’s “Punishment and Crime” and 1996’s
“A Blessing in Disguise”) and the HBO biopic “Don King: Only in America.”
More recently, she spent four years on
location in Italy for the HBO series “Rome,” for which she won the 2006 Emmy Award and earned another nomination the
following year. She was also twice honored for the series by the Costume
Designers Guild for her period creations, with a third nomination in 2007.
She is currently designing the costumes for the upcoming film RoboCop.
She serves on the board of the Costume Designers Guild.
RYAN AMON (Music)
FRANCINE MAISLER (Casting)
“ACADEMY AWARD®” and “OSCAR®”
are the registered trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences.”
