BABYLON 2008

Consultant Profiles Babylon 2008

Marc Boothe (Producer/Consultant)

Marc Boothe is Founder and Managing Director of B3 Media, a media arts agency which supports, develops and nurtures emerging talent underrepresented by the mainstream. B3 explores fresh and practical approaches to producing and showcasing a diverse range of projects ranging from digital arts, moving image and short films created by black and minority ethnic artists and film-makers; Marc is also the Executive Producer of the award-winning UK-wide digital short scheme 'Blank Slate' (supported by the UK Film Council and the Arts Council England). Previously, Marc worked as a Senior Executive at the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund. He has also just produced Identities.tv an innovative series of shorts, made for digital cinemas, online and mobile phones, developed in collaboration with spoken word artists, visual artists, VJ's and filmmakers.

As an independent producer, Marc produced with Ruth Caleb, director Saul Dibb's acclaimed first feature film, Bullet Boy for which he was nominated for best British Producer by the London Film Critics Circle. He is currently developing B3's feature film slate in partnership with Film4 and has recently launched the B3 FeatureLab a collaboration with Film4, Binger Filmlab and Skillset. Marc also holds an MBA is the recipient of a NESTA Fellowship award (National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts).

Tony Dennis (Screenwriter/Producer/Consultant)

Tony is an innovative, award-winning writer/producer from London, England. His main credits include A Band Of Gold, which won a Cable Ace Award for Best Foreign Dramatic Series in addition to a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series. It aired on HBO in the US after playing to record audiences on ITV in the UK. Tony also produced BBC's acclaimed crime drama, Silent Witness, now in its eleventh year. As Head of Development at Inner City Films in Toronto, he was recently the series producer of Jozi H, for CBC and SABC, just airing on Sky.

Tony has a wealth of experience in the UK, North America, and Africa. But always at the heart of his work is a desire to explore the complexity and diversity of the human experience. As a writer and producer, he has a reputation for understanding mainstream audiences and refining complicated issues into compelling entertainment.

Fiona Howe (Screenwriter/Producer/Consultant)

has worked for many years in TV and film production at the BBC, as a script editor and development producer at Granada, and as a writer for German, French and British television. Credits include Medics for Granada UK, format and pilot 13 episodes of RTL series Sonntags Ge�ffnet; and TV Movies Un Cadeau la Vie (FR2) and Nicht Ohne Dich (ZDF). With Gareth Jones she runs Scenario Films, an independent production and consultancy company for whom she is currently producing several feature film projects, including low-budget youth music thriller Soho which is slated for production 2008. She has worked as a script consultant for ten years, and regularly gives screenwriting master classes around Europe. See www.scenariofilms.com for more details.

Gareth Jones (Screenwriter/Director/Consultant)

Son of a BBC foreign correspondent Gareth was partly raised in India and Lebanon and his work has been characterized by multicultural issues. Among his credits are Shalom Salaam (5x60mins BBC) a Jewish-Muslim coming of age story set in Leicester, awarded Best Actress and SACD Best Screenplay Awards, at FIPA 1988; Au Nom du M�me P�re (3x60 min documentary, Channel 4 and TF1, 1990) examined the fraught relationship between Christianity and Judaism. His feature film Bonhoeffer - die Letzte Stufe (ARD 2000) recognized the Nazi-resister and Jewish rescuer Dietrich Bonhoeffer, winning the Nymphe D'Or for Best Television Film at Monte Carlo; Deutsche Angestellengewerkschaft (DAG) Writer's Prize and Bronze Worldmedal at New York.

As producer of twice-weekly Albion Market (1985/6) he was the first to create wide casting opportunities for actors from British minority communities.

He has worked as script consultant for institutes and academies across Europe, including SOURCES, Sarajevo Film Festival's Cinelink programme and Euromed. He writes and consults in English, French, German and Italian.

He is currently co-writer and attached director on Scenario Films first feature film Soho, due for production 2008. See www.scenariofilms.com for more details.

Thierry Lenouvel (Producer, Distributor, Promotor)

Thierry founded his company Cin�-Sud Promotion to promote auteur cinema particularly of non-european origination, and has developed thecompany's production arm since 1999.

He was active in the organization of the Montpellier Film Festival till 1995, then the Amiens Film Festival, particularly the creation and administration of the Script Development Fund (Fonds d'Aide au D�veloppement du Sc�nario) for countries of the majority world, awarded annually at Amiens.

Cin�-Sud Promotion has acted as public relations representative for, amongst others, Gianni Amelio, Vicente Aranda, Yamina Bachir Chouikh, Bassek Ba Kobhio, Rachid Bouchareb, Mario Camus, Jean-Michel Carr�, Wang Chao, Malik Chibane, Jacques Davila, Guillermo Del Toro, Raymond Depardon, Djibril Diop Mambety, Flora Gomez, Omer Kavur, Christine Laurent, Miguel Littin, Christophe Loizillon, Francisco Lombardi, Goran Markovic, Rashid Masharawi, Julio Medem, Jafar Panahi, Manuel Poirier, Jean-Fran�ois Richet, Arturo Ripstein, Paulo Rocha, Christophe Ruggia, Carlos Saura, Silvio Soldini, Bela Tarr, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Jean-Philippe Toussaint.

Feature films produced include: L'ombre De La Ville by Jean Khalil Chamoun (France/Lebanon) - 2000/2001 ; Tirana, Annee Zero by Fatmir Koci (France/Albania/ Belgium) - 2001; Rachida by Yamina Bachir Chouikh (France/Algeria) - 2002 ; Au Feu ! (Gori Vatra) de Pjer Zalica (Bosnia/Austria/Turkey/France) - 2003 Mur de Simone Bitton (documentary feature) - 2004 ; Moolaade by Sembene Ousmane (S�n�gal) - 2004 ; Noce D'ete by Moktar Ladjimi (France/Tunisie) - 2004 ; Poste Frontiere by Rajko Grlic (Bosnia/Croatia/ Slovenia/Serbia/ Macedonia/ Kosovo/ Austria/Hungary/France) - 2005; Falafel by Michel Kammoun (Lebanon/France).

J�rgen Seidler (Script consultant, author)

J�rgen Seidler is the Managing Director of ScriptHouse, Germany's first script development agency, based in Berlin and active in the sector since 1997. ScriptHouse works for producers, TV editorial departments, film subsidy organisations, distributors and, of course, writers and directors.

J�rgen read sociology and politics in Freiburg and Berlin. He graduated from the directing department of the Zurich Drama School. Assistant director at the Freie Volksb�hne theatre in Berlin. From 1988 he worked as director at various theatres in Z�rich and Berlin. In 1989 he founded the firm Aufbruch Film Produktion together with Dagmar Benke. He produced stories for television, directed various films and acted as director of production. In this time he received a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service to study at UCLA in Los Angeles. From 1994 to 1997 he lectured in the production department of the School of Film and Television in Babelsberg near Berlin.

J�rgen Seidler's speciality areas are script development and co-productions.

Christoph Thoke (Producer/Consultant))

Christoph Thoke has primarily worked as on-air promotion producer for german broadcaster RTL 2 and german-french broadcaster arte. In 1996, he joined production and service company Taunusfilm and CineMedia, first as manager and later as executive for production and acquisition.

At Taunusfilm, he was overseeing all international production activities including LA office of Taunusfilm International, while at Cinemedia, he was involved in acquisition of film such as What Women Want starring Mel Gibson. Christoph's producing credits at that time included: critically acclaimed and Foreign Film Language Oscar selected Little Senegal (2001), Lubov and other Nightmares, Sundance 2002, Official Selection as well as Planet B, The Antman and Planet B, Detective Lovelorn, both Berlin 2002, Official Selection, Perspective of German Cinema.

In 2003, Christoph formed production company Thoke + Moebius Film (TMF) with Axel Moebius. To date, Christoph has produces/coproduced at TMF a slate of nine titles including: Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms (film), Venice 2003, Official Competition, Tropical Malady, Cannes 2004, Jury Price Winner Buffalo Boy, Vietnam's submission for Foreign Language Film Oscar, 2006 and Wedding Chest, Kyrgyzstan's submission for Foreign Language Film Oscar, 2007. In total, TMF's films have been officially selected for more than 330 festivals and garnered more than 70 awards around the globe. Christoph recently formed his own independent company, based in Frankfurt, Mogador Film.