SYNOPSIS

On the eve of a brutal serial killer's scheduled execution, a new murder bearing his signature takes place, raising doubts about his guilt and casting suspicion on Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino), the celebrated forensic psychiatrist whose testimony led to his conviction. When Gramm receives a cryptic phone call saying he has just 88 minutes to live, it ignites a race against the clock to identify the copycat killer from among a throng of possible suspects—including some of those closest to him.

A paranoia-fueled thrill ride that takes place virtually in real time, 88 Minutes goes inside the brilliant mind of a man whose business it is to suspect the worst in people. This tense psychological thriller follows an FBI profiler down a rabbit hole of violence, deception and intrigue. Directed by Jon Avnet (Up Close and Personal, Fried Green Tomatoes), 88 Minutes stars Academy Award® winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman, The Godfather trilogy), Alicia Witt (Last Holiday, Mr. Holland's Opus), Emmy® and Golden Globe nominee Leelee Sobieski ("Uprising," "Joan of Arc"), Emmy® and Golden Globe nominee Amy Brenneman ("Judging Amy," Nine Lives), Deborah Kara Unger (White Noise, Love Song for Bobby Long), Benjamin McKenzie ('The O.C.," Junebug) and Neal McDonough (Flags of Our Fathers, Minority Report).

TriStar Pictures and Millennium Films present 88 Minutes, a Randall Emmett/George Furla Production for Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH & KG III and Nu Image Entertainment GmbH. Directed by Jon Avnet, the film is written by Gary Scott Thompson and produced by Avnet and Thompson, along with Randall Emmett. The executive producers are Avi Lerner, Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short, John Thompson, George Furla, Boaz Davidson, Josef Lautenschlager, Andreas Thiesmeyer, Lawrence Bender and John Baldecchi. The creative team includes production designer Tracey Gallacher (Daltry Calhoun), director of photography Denis Lenoir, ASC, A.F.C. (Steal This Movie), costume designer Mary McLeod (Look Who's Talking Now), music by Edward Shearmur (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), editor Peter Berger, A.C.E. (Coach Carter), and casting by Rick Pagano, CSA (X-Men: The Last Stand).

88 Minutes has been rated R for "disturbing violent content, brief nudity and language." The running time is 1 hour, 45 minutes.

****

Famed forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jack Gramm has built a reputation for successfully profiling serial killers, including Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), who was sentenced to death primarily on the strength of Gramm's expert testimony. One night before Forster is scheduled to be executed, the city of Seattle is rocked by a killing that matches his crimes exactly—and the victim is one of Gramm's students.

Gramm is determined to prove the murder is the work of a copycat, but he soon finds himself contending with Forster's well-orchestrated public relations campaign to discredit him, a second copycat killing and a series of mysterious phone threats, starting with one that tells him that he has just 88 minutes to live.

Convinced that the threat and the murders are connected, Gramm turns to his assistant Shelly (Amy Brenneman) and his top graduate students for help in getting to the bottom of the mystery. As he is drawn deeper and deeper into the case, dark secrets from his past begin to emerge, forcing him to consider that the conspiracy is coming from his inner circle. Even his former contact at the FBI (William Forsythe) begins to doubt him, as Gramm's list of possible suspects lengthens and his remaining time dwindles.

As the calls continue the relentless countdown to his doom and Gramm's paranoia escalates, so do the very real attacks against him—until he has only himself and his finely honed instincts to discover the truth before his 88 minutes are up.

ABOUT 88 MINUTES

"This message is for Dr. Jack Gramm...You got the wrong man...
You have 88 minutes to live. 88 minutes, Dr. Gramm. Tick tock."

"There's one thing in every story that is literally the guts of the movie," says Jon Avnet, the director and producer of 88 Minutes. "In this case, the guts of the movie are Al's character, Jack Gramm."

The Academy Award®-winning actor's portrayal is a classic Al Pacino performance—mercurial, kinetic and charismatic. A respected forensic psychologist who is a frequent expert witness for the FBI and the Seattle police department, Gramm's powers of observation and deductive reasoning are pushed to their limits in the most intense hour and half of his life, as he tries to catch a killer before the killer catches up with him.

88 Minutes is the first collaboration between Pacino, the legendary star of such acclaimed films as The Godfather trilogy, Scarface and Heat, and filmmaker Avnet, whose numerous producing and directing credits include the Oscar® nominated Fried Green Tomatoes. Avnet acknowledges that two Hollywood powerhouses on the same set can be a potentially explosive combination.

"I wasn't sure whether our personalities would click or clash, since we're both kind of high-strung, opinionated people," says Avnet. "But, like any living person, I'm an admirer of his work. He may be the best working actor in the film business today. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to be aware of that, and not to wonder what it's going to be like to work with him."

Avnet's anxiety evaporated after their first meeting. "We hit it off pretty quickly. It was obvious to me he had a lot to offer and I think to him it was equally obvious that I knew what I was doing. The process of figuring out the best way to work together was a pretty interesting collaboration."

Randall Emmett, another of the film's producers, was sure the role of Dr. Gramm, the brilliant, impulsive and charming master criminologist, would be an ideal part for Pacino to sink his teeth into. "I think to find a character with this much depth and this much complexity in a real commercial thriller is a gem," he says. "We sent Al the script thinking, 'Wow, Al Pacino in this role would be magic.'"

After receiving an anonymous phone call telling him he has 88 minutes to live, Gramm turns his considerable resources toward tracking down the source of the call. At the same time, he is being taunted through the media by convicted serial killer Jon Forster, known as "The Seattle Strangler." Gramm's testimony in court sealed the Strangler's fate, but after two copycat killings take place within hours of when Forster is scheduled to die, he receives a stay of execution. Not only are Gramm's professional judgment and ethics suddenly called into question, but because of his connections to both victims, he is suspected by some of staging the murders himself. In the course of one morning, he is stripped of all his defenses and left to face his unseen assailant's threats in a state of pure, raw emotion.

"I'm always attracted to a story that has a hook you can pitch," says Emmett. "I started reading it and couldn't put it down. From first page to the last, it moved and that's what I'm always looking for as a producer—a story that really grabs you and has characters that you really feel for, and at the same time is a fun ride."

Avnet set to work tailoring the script to Pacino's talents. "Jack's inner demons are raging. Those are the kind of characters I think Pacino plays better than anybody. The movie's journey is not just the resolution of a plot, but the emotional evolution of a person who's been victimized. I think that will probably be the most surprising part of the movie. I think audiences will be surprised by who did what and how, but I think on an emotional level, Al's character and the revelation of who he really is will be quite powerful."

88 Minutes captures a single morning in the life of Gramm, who has trained as a physician, academic and attorney. As a professional "profiler," Gramm has carved out a prestigious niche for himself that puts all his skills and talent to use. But unknown even to those closest to him, he also uses his professional expertise to ward off his own deepest fears and regrets—until the day he becomes the hunted rather than the hunter and his carefully structured world begins to unravel.

That component of the story is exactly what attracted Pacino to the film. "I'm always looking for passion in a role," says the actor. "Something to make you feel. And this film has some scenes with quite a bit of emotion in them. The first goal with a movie like this is to entertain, to involve, to engage, to make people feel caught up. The movie is a thriller at its heart, but it has other interesting aspects. It's a simple story, but it speaks honestly about a couple of things. It's always fun if you can squeeze that into a picture."

After more than 40 years as an actor and almost 50 feature films, Pacino knows the people he chooses to collaborate with are integral to the process and outcome of the movie-making experience. He feels that he discovered a partner in Avnet. "Jon and I would meet on the set or go out to dinner and try to discover what the next day of shooting would be about. We would go into it together and invent. Jon did a lot of inventing right there while we were shooting. Even when I was not ready to do it, he would try to pull me out and get me to make suggestions, which I found very helpful."

Avnet says he was interested in 88 Minutes because the story is different from anything else he has directed. "I thought I could do something kind of compelling with it. The simplicity of the concept—a person gets a phone call telling him that he has 88 minutes to live—it's pretty easy to follow. If you got a phone call telling you had 88 minutes, 88 hours, eight days, eight months, what would you do? I think if most people got a call like that, they'd run around like a chicken without a head."

But when Gramm receives that call, he doesn't panic. Instead, the mysterious message galvanizes him and his investigative instincts kick in. As Jack rallies his best students and most trusted associates to help him, he channels his fear and anger into a breakneck race against time to discover who is behind the threats.

"He is a haunted character," says Pacino, "and there's this question of how much he really wants to live. I think he has a different relationship with death than most people. He's been threatened before, and he sort of assesses it and then tries to figure it out. He's in the business of evaluating threats. Once Jack's forewarned that his life's in danger, he becomes more concerned with finding out who it is than his life being in danger."

88 Minutes essentially unfolds in real time, as Gramm tears through the city of Seattle in search of answers. Avnet says he was less interested in the lightning fast pace of the story than the possibility of shooting a movie from the paranoid point of view of its main character. "Paranoia is not assuming that when you walk across the street you're going to get to the other side. It's assuming that when you're walking across the street, it's going to evaporate into an earthquake and you're going to be subsumed by it."

A forensic psychiatrist, Avnet observes, is often called upon to testify in cases to help determine whether someone is legally sane. "Jack is a professional paranoid," he says. "Imagine being thrust into a world where you're meeting people who have committed some of the most horrific and egregious crimes against humanity. And the one similarity between all these serial killers is that they can pass for sane. When they're caught, what does everyone say about them? 'Oh, they were so normal.' 'He was such a nice guy.'"

The disconnect between who these criminals appear to be and who they really are is so graphic, says the director, it's virtually incomprehensible. "So if your job is to hunt these people down, or to help convict them, or to find the truth about them, what's the nature of your perception process? It's not going to be normal."

But Pacino's character is even more deeply troubled by events that took place well before he emerged as one of the best known practitioners of forensic psychiatry. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to do it," says the actor. "Jon went deep into the character of Dr. Jack Gramm—why he is the way he is. What being victim to a horrific act does to people. Not just the people who die, but who they leave behind, the people who suffer and have to live with the loss."

"You should know what it feels like to be minutes from your own death.
To hear the ticking of the clock and know your time on earth
is drawing to a close. 88 minutes ring a bell to you?"

When casting a film, Avnet says he looks for actors with a strong point of view who will not just inhabit their characters, but help shape them. That approach pays off when the cameras start to roll, as actors are called on to bring all their instincts, life experience and research to bear on their performances.

"I don't rehearse the scenes that much, but I really work on the character with the actor," he says. "We had lots of readings beforehand. We talked about things, discussed things. But I like that kind of nervousness that takes place before you have to perform. I like the edginess and the unknown. I think the art of directing on film is to allow the actors to actually have a moment of discovery on camera.

Avnet's cast on this project includes a quartet of talented women known as much for their brains as their beauty. Kim, the professor's graduate assistant and all-around girl Friday is played by Alicia Witt, who got her start as an actress at the age of nine in David Lynch's sci-fi epic, Dune. Much younger than Jack, Kim harbors unrequited affection for her teacher. As she dives deep into the mystery at Jack's side, the line between personal and professional begins to blur and her unresolved feelings complicate her actions.

To prepare for her role, Witt threw herself into researching forensic psychiatry. "I read a number of books about it, because my character is a doctoral candidate. It's a rough field. It's dark and it's a world of suspicion and mistrust and dealing with the most psychotic minds that exist. I wanted to get into that a little bit and just understand what it is to assess someone."

Avnet says he was impressed by Witt's willingness to go the extra mile. "She went through a laborious audition process and she was very responsive in that sense, and somewhat fearless. She's a great spirit and took a pretty challenging part. She didn't let the fact that she's so smart get in the way of the emotions of the character. Her vulnerability allowed her to come up with a performance that I think is pretty special."

Avnet's collaborative approach to dealing with actors added to her confidence on set, says Witt. "He watches very closely and he notices a lot more than most people do. And he knows how to talk to an actor to get the result he's looking for, without making you feel like he's judging you. He is so receptive to ideas and feedback and he's really, really wonderful about listening to what other people have to say."

Leelee Sobieski plays Lauren Douglas, one of Gramm's most gifted students. The 24-year-old already has a resume full of impressive work, notably a star turn as Joan of Arc opposite a galaxy of established stars when she was only 16. She has been friendly with Avnet since working with him on the 1999 miniseries "Uprising." The director sent her a copy of the script and gave her an afternoon to read it.

"In the end, I had about three hours to make up my mind," she says. "It was like, if you want to do this, you better really want to do this, and you better be able to decide now. Jon wanted that passion and conviction. He wanted to know that everybody was going to work hard."

"Jon didn't really have to say very much to me," the actress continues. "He would just give me a little kernel and I turned it into a mountain of stuff to work with. Nothing was ever predetermined. There wasn't ever a moment in the script where I said, okay, this scene is going to go in this direction. We just came up with whatever we came up with in that moment, on the day—like in reality."

Avnet says that Sobieski is a very intuitive actress. "She had a pretty complicated role to put together," he points out. "People are going to be really impressed by what she brought to the character. She did quite a bit of research into forensics and about serial killers. She really immersed herself in a way, and when the movie was over, it was kind of difficult for her to get out of the character."

Deborah Kara Unger, who plays Carol Lynn Johnson, a college dean and one of Gramm's many past lovers, has worked with directors as diverse as David Cronenberg and Norman Jewison. She found working with Avnet to be an extraordinary experience. "If the world of a film is like a chessboard, whether you're a rook or a knight, or a queen or a king, being directed by Jon is like being directed by Bobby Fischer. It was fascinating to be part of the dynamic of an end game that is so clearly thought out and yet only revealed to you in the moment."

Unger says the script is an exhilarating adventure for the reader and believes Avnet's experience as both a writer and a director were the key to making the transition from the page to the screen successful. "It's a very fast-paced, complicated world. Because Jon is the creator in both arenas, I was confident it would be actualized with precision. That's what Jon is skilled at."

Even with more than three dozen films under her belt, Unger was amazed by the experience of working with Pacino. "Al gave me a greater gift than I even anticipated," she admits. "He reminds you why you love what you do. It's just as easy as breathing air with him. It's effortless, because he is completely present."

Amy Brenneman, probably best known as the star of the CBS series "Judging Amy," plays Shelley Barnes, Gramm's longtime assistant. Shelley is Jack's lifeline to the world, but despite her devotion, she has an ugly secret of her own that threatens to derail everything she and Jack have ever worked for.

Brenneman says she had a very simple reason for taking the role. "I wanted to be Al Pacino's sidekick," she says. "That sounded like a fun time to me. What appealed to me was I just really dug this character. I thought she was a wonderful combination of raunchy and fun, but also this little girl in a way."

Director Avnet says that Brenneman will surprise a lot of people in this role. "She is just so smart, and so good and so fearless. Among the actors, she'll be the one who's most unexpected on a certain level."

Benjamin McKenzie plays Mike Stempt, another of Gramm's dedicated students. The teen heartthrob, who starred on the popular television series "The O.C.," was impressed by the presence of a big screen superstar. "They said, you know, Al Pacino's doing this movie," the actor remembers. "You don't really say no to that opportunity."

When Stempt confronts his professor with what he believes to be incontrovertible evidence of his guilt in the murder of a classmate, Gramm explodes—in unforgettable Pacino fashion. That proved a challenge for the young actor. "For someone like me, who was in college four years ago studying his films and his performances, it's hard to stay in character when you're two feet away from him in the middle of a scene and he's yelling at you," McKenzie admits.

As the mounting evidence against Gramm begins to make him appear more and more guilty, even his longtime associates at the FBI begin to doubt his reliability. Dispatched to bring the doctor in, colleague and friend Agent Frank Parks, as played by William Forsythe, gives in to Gramm's plea for one last chance to clear his name.

After sharing the screen with Pacino in 1990 in Dick Tracy, Forsythe looked forward to a reunion with the Oscar® winner. "It's always great to have somebody in there that can make the level of work go a little notch above the norm."

The basic premise of 88 Minutes reminds Forsythe of the acclaimed western High Noon. "That's the classic example of a film where you've just got this set amount of time. That's always exciting. It adds to the pace. Every scene takes you to another place. Then suddenly when it looks like it's building to this one moment, where it looks like it's very clear what's going to happen, it gives you a left hook from hell."

Pacino is quick to give his castmates equal credit in the filmmaking process, noting that the members of the tight ensemble all contributed their ideas to the storyline, fleshing out their characters and refining the complex plot's myriad twists and turns.

"We would all go out at night and that was our rehearsal period, over dinner," says Pacino. "They were all really committed to this thing and that made it really fun. We were making up a story. The cast was very up for it and they enjoyed the adventure. And Jon is a very spirited guy, so he'd get you going. Nobody was sticking to the lines. We were analyzing them. I felt as though we weren't rehearsing, we were discovering and we were a part of something evolving. "

"Tick tock, Doc"

Throughout the story, bits of information begin to accrue that point Jack in many directions at once. As he tracks down one lead after another, it becomes clear that no one in his world is above suspicion. Without the support of his usual allies, Jack watches the clock run down as his chances of surviving get thinner.

For Pacino, putting together the pieces of the puzzle at the heart of 88 Minutes was the most satisfying part of the experience. "What Jon and I enjoyed most about working together was making this story believable. We were thinking on our feet. If this did happen, then what? Jon likes to have fun that way. He likes to play, and so we had this back and forth. We would say, 'Well, would he really do this? Would that really happen?'

"We were trying to make a thriller and at the same time make it logical and believable— always asking each other 'What if?' Extraordinary things happen in this picture. We might say, 'Well, that would never happen,' and then when we looked into it, we'd see it did happen."

"What might be the last 88 minutes of a man's life is what the movie's about," says Pacino. "Jack is a man who's had a life that not many of us would understand. He's a drinking person and he's also a man who has not found love. And he's not found happiness. He has not found pleasure, really. We discover a lot of things about him as that period ticks away, as his life is ticking away. And the plot takes a lot of twists and turns. It's open season. Everybody's a suspect and gradually you can understand why he feels that way."

For Avnet, however, the plot takes a back seat to larger questions. "I think the rule is that most people's lives begin a U-turn after an extraordinary accident or trauma," he says. "A lot of what the film is about on an emotional level is what do you do in that situation? What kind of person do you become? How do you live through an event that changes your life?

"Jack's life is what has basically determined his character," continues the director. "He has a sort of a shadow that enters the room before he does. He's been a victim, and he has a great deal of compassion for victims. The question for all victims is, can you recover? That's a very complicated one for most people.

88 Minutes shot in and around the Greater Vancouver, Canada area over 39 days.

ABOUT THE CAST

Al Pacino (Jack Gramm) is an eight-time Academy Award® nominee. He made his film debut in 1971 in The Panic In Needle Park. After having received Best Actor nominations for And Justice for All, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico (which also earned him a Golden Globe Award), Pacino won an Oscar® for Best Actor for his performance as Lt. Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman (for which he also won a Golden Globe Award).

After studying with Herbert Berghof and later with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio, Pacino made his professional acting debut in off-Broadway productions of The Connection and Hello, Out There. He then won an Obie Award for Israel Horovitz's The Indian Wants The Bronx.

He received three nominations as Best Supporting Actor for his roles as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, as Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy (he also won a 1990 American Comedy Award for this role), and as Ricky Roma in David Mamet's screen adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross.

In 2007, Pacino joined Matt Damon, George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 13, the final installment in the series.

In 2005, Pacino starred as Walter Abrams in Universal's Two for the Money, a thriller about the high-stakes world of sports betting co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo, and also as Shylock in the Shakespearean adaptation of Merchant of Venice, directed by Michael Radford.

In 2004, he won an Emmy® for his portrayal of Roy Cohn in HBO's television adaptation of Tony Kushner's play "Angels in America" for director Mike Nichols. Earlier that year he was seen on stage both off-Broadway in Brooklyn and on Broadway as King Herod in Oscar Wilde's "Salome" (a role which he reprised in 2006 at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles) and as Arturo Ui in Bertolt Brecht's "The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui" at Pace University.

In 2002 Pacino starred with Robin Williams and Hilary Swank in Christopher Nolan's Insomnia and in writer-director Andrew Niccol's Simone. In late 1999, he portrayed 60 Minutes reporter Lowell Bergman in Touchstone Pictures' The Insider. The film which was directed by Michael Mann also starred Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer, received 7 Academy Award® nominations. Pacino also starred in Oliver Stone's football saga, Any Given Sunday, where he portrayed a football coach and starred opposite Cameron Diaz, James Woods, and Dennis Quaid.

In 2000 Pacino completed his second directorial effort, Chinese Coffee, a film which he also produced and starred in. This film is based on a play written by Ira Lewis that Pacino performed at Circle in the Square in 1992. The story revolves around a conversation between a Greenwich Village writer and his friend, as they talk about friendship, love, and dreams.

He also directed and starred in Looking for Richard, a meditation on Shakespeare's Richard III, which he conceived and directed (and for which he received the Outstanding Directorial Achievement for a Documentary award from the Director's Guild of America). The film also starred Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, and Aidan Quinn.

Pacino produced, starred in and co-directed the independent film adaptation of the play The Local Stigmatic, presented in March 1990 at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Public Theatre. In 2007, 20th Century Fox released "An Actor's Vision", a four-DVD set compromised of Chinese Coffee, The Local Stigmatic, Looking for Richard, and Babbleonia, an overview of Pacino's career, his body of work and his perspectives on acting.

Pacino's other film credits include Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco, a film which co-starred Johnny Depp; The Devil's Advocate, with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron; Miramax's Two Bits, with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; Heat, with Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer, directed by Michael Mann; City Hall, which also starred John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, and Danny Aiello; Brian de Palma's Carlito's Way; Miramax Film's People I Know for director Dan Algrant, and Disney's The Recruit in which he starred with Colin Farrell.

Additional films include Frankie & Johnny, The Godfather, Part III, Sea Of Love, Revolution, Scarface, Author! Author!, Bobby Deerfield, and Scarecrow, for which he received the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973.

Pacino has won two Tony Awards for his starring roles in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Does A Tiger Wear A Necktie? He is a longtime member of David Wheeler's Experimental Theatre Company of Boston, where he has performed in Richard III and in Bertolt Brecht's Arturo Ui. In New York and London, he acted in David Mamet's American Buffalo. Also in New York, he appeared in Richard III and as Marc Antony in Julius Caesar at the late Joseph Papp's Public Theatre.

During the spring and summer of 1994, Pacino appeared in repertory at Circle in the Square. He presented the New York debut of Oscar Wilde's Salome and the premiere presentation of Ira Lewis' Chinese Coffee. He directed and starred in Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, which opened in early July 1996 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and moved to Circle in the Square in New York in mid-July where it continued its run through the end of August.

Pacino won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Independent Feature Project (IFP) at their 1996 Gotham Awards. In 2000, he was honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. In addition, he received the Cecil B. De Mille Award by the Hollywood Foreign Press in 2001 and the American Cinematheque Award in 2005. In June of 2007, he received AFI's highest honor for a career in Film, the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pacino is currently directing an independent documentary based on Oscar Wilde's Salome, titled Salomaybe. This mixture of documentary, fiction, and improvisation is based on behind-the-scenes footage from his stage show.

He recently starred in Righteous Kill, a gritty and sophisticated New York City crime thriller which also stars Robert De Niro. The film, directed by Jon Avnet, is slated for release in 2008.

Alicia Witt (Kim Cummings) Working with acclaimed directors such as David Lynch, Cameron Crowe and John Waters, the multi-talented actress Witt has shown her versatility whether it is on screen, television, or stage.

Witt can currently be seen on USA Network/NBC drama "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" as detective Nola Falacci opposite Chris Noth. She is temporarily replacing Julianne Nicholson, in an eight episode arc.

Alicia made her film debut in David Lynch's Dune and by the age of fourteen, received her high school diploma and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time. Once in Los Angeles, Lynch cast her in his cult classic television series, "Twin Peaks" as Gersten Hayward, a part that he had written specifically for Witt. Following this, Lynch utilized Alicia's talents once again in his HBO trilogy, "Hotel Room," in which she portrayed a young woman with multiple personality disorder.

In 1994, Witt appeared in the critically acclaimed Fun, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, directed by Rafal Zielinski, depicts a tale of two disturbed young girls whose quest for fun leads them to murder. Witt received the "Special Jury Recognition" Award at Sundance and a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award.

Witt combined her acting talents with her skills as a classically trained pianist in the romantic comedy, Playing Mona Lisa. For this role, she won a Best Actress Award at the US Comedy Arts Festival. Alicia recently completed her directorial debut with the short film Belinda's Swan Song, which she also wrote. The film premiered at the 2006 Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Additional film credits include Paramount's Last Holiday with Queen Latifah, the critically acclaimed film The Upside of Anger, the romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice, opposite Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, John Waters' film Cecil B. Demented, Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky opposite Tom Cruise, Mr. Holland's Opus, opposite Richard Dreyfuss, Quentin Tarantino's Four Rooms with Tim Roth, Madonna, and Lili Taylor. Other film credits include American Girl, Mike Figgis' Liebstraum, Bodies, Rest and Motion, starring Tim Roth and Bridget Fonda, and Bongwater opposite Luke Wilson.

On television, Witt has made guest appearances on the phenomenally successful HBO series, "The Sopranos" and the Emmy® award winning "Ally McBeal." She previously starred for four seasons as Cybill Shepherd's daughter Zoey on the hit sitcom "Cybill."

On stage, Witt made her London West End debut in Spring 2004 in Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things" and appeared on-stage at London's Royal Court Theatre in Terry Johnson's "Piano/Forte" in the Fall of 2006.

Over the past year and half, Alicia has begun writing and performing original music on stage in New York and Los Angeles. Her songs can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/aliciawittmusic.

Witt currently lives in Los Angeles.

Leelee Sobieski (Lauren Douglas) At the age of 24, Sobieski has become a breakout actress of her generation. She most recently starred in the big-budget feature adaptation of the sword and sorcery video game In the Name of the King: Dungeon Siege with Jason Statham, and appeared alongside Nicolas Cage in Neil LaBute's remake of Wicker Man for Warner Bros.

Other recent productions include the comedy film Finding Bliss with Denise Richards, the thriller Night Train with Danny Glover and Steve Zahn, the independent feature Heaven's Fall with Timothy Hutton and David Strathairn which screened at the SXSW Film Festival; Lying with Chloe Sevigny which premiered at Cannes; In a Dark Place, the modern adaptation of Henry James' Turn of the Shrew; the romantic-comedy The Optomist in which she stars with Shane West, and the comedy caper Walk All Over Me which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Prior to having spent much of the last few years studying fine arts and literature at Brown University, Sobieski starred for director John Dahl in FOX's acclaimed psychological thriller Joy Ride, in producer Neil Moritz's Sony thriller The Glass House, and opposite Albert Brooks in Paramount Classics' tender My First Mister for director Christine Lahti as a misunderstood goth chick. She also starred opposite John Cusack in Lions Gate's Max which tells the story of an art dealer who befriends an aspiring artist named Adolf Hitler. In France, she starred in the French-language film L'IDOLE, and opposite Catherine Deneuve in an adaptation of the novel DANGEROUS LIAISONS that filmed in both French and English.

Sobieski also garnered a Golden Globe nomination for "Uprising," the NBC Sweeps mini-series for filmmaker Jon Avnet. Her previous foray into television garnered both a Golden Globe and an Emmy® nomination for the portrayal of legendary Joan of Arc in the top-rated, $20 million CBS mini-series "Joan of Arc."

She previously treated audiences to a variety of performances including a young nymphet opposite Tom Cruise in legendary director Stanley Kubrick's top-grossing Eyes Wide Shut for Warner Bros., received rave reviews opposite Drew Barrymore in FOX 2000's Never Been Kissed, and lead the Merchant-Ivory production, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries which also called for Sobieski to exercise her fluent French. She also starred with Josh Hartnett in director Mark Piznarski's FOX 2000 romantic drama, Here on Earth.

Discovered by a casting director who suggested she try acting after spotting her in her New York City school cafeteria, she shortly thereafter landed starring roles in the telefilms Reunion with Marlo Thomas and Peter Strauss, and A Horse for Danny with Robert Urich. The series "Charlie Grace" soon followed in which she portrayed Mark Harmon's daughter.

Her feature film debut featured Sobieski as Martin Short's daughter in the Tim Allen starrer Jungle 2 Jungle for Disney. She also starred opposite Elijah Wood in Mimi Leder's action thriller Deep Impact for Paramount / Dreamworks SKG.

Sobieski has also spent much of the last few years studying fine arts and literature at Brown University.

Amy Brenneman (Shelly Barnes) Possessed with an approachable sensuality, infectious charm and sharp wit, Brenneman is on an undeniable journey to stardom. In 2005, she concluded her final season as star, producer and co-creator of, the smash hit CBS drama series "Judging Amy." Her role as 'Judge Amy Gray' has garnered her two TV Guide Awards, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Emmy Award® nominations and a People's Choice Award nomination, as well as her most recent nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. Brenneman can currently be seen in the hit ABC drama "Private Practice" co-starring Kate Walsh and Taye Diggs from creator Shonda Rhimes.

Brenneman was most recently seen in The Jane Austen Book Club, directed by Robin Swicord, this film is a story about six Californians who start a club to discuss the works of Jane Austen, only to find their relationships -- both old and new -- begin to resemble 21st century versions of her novels. Amy will next be seen in Downloading Nancy, a thriller directed by Johan Renck, co-starring Mario Bello and Jason Patric. This film made its US debut at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Brenneman's other film credits include Nine Lives, directed by Rodrigo García, looks inside the travails and disappointments of nine women's lives; Michael Mann's Heat opposite Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, the Universal thriller Daylight starring opposite Sylvester Stallone, and Neil LaBute's Your Friends and Neighbors opposite Jason Patric and Ben Stiller. In addition, she starred in the independent film Nevada with Gabrielle Anwar, Angus MacFayden and Kathy Najimy and in The Suburbans opposite Ben Stiller and Robert Loggia. She most recently appeared in Showtime Network's Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her, opposite Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart, Kathy Baker, and Holly Hunter, and was last be seen in the independent feature, opposite Joan Allen and Sam Elliott, Off the Map.

Other film credits include Fear opposite Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg, Steven Spielberg's Casper, Twentieth Century Fox's romantic comedy Bye Bye Love and October Films' Lesser Prophets opposite Scott Glenn, Jimmy Smits and Elizabeth Perkins.

America first took notice of Brenneman with her Emmy Award® -nominated performance in "NYPD Blue" in the role of 'Janice Licalsi'. She continued her role on the hit television series for a year as a recurring regular, which again earned her an Emmy® nomination, allowing her the time to do feature film work. She was also a series regular on the CBS critically acclaimed series, "Middle Ages."

Born in New London, Connecticut on June 22nd and raised in the Hartford suburb of Glastonbury, Brenneman stems from a close-knit, traditional family. Her father is an environmental attorney and her mother a superior court judge, and Brenneman follows in a long line of accomplished family members. At the early age of eleven, after singing in the chorus of The Music Man, her interest in performing began to blossom. An 'A' student throughout her academic life, she enrolled in Harvard University with the intention of graduating with a B.A. in Comparative Religions.

During her freshman year, Brenneman teamed up with a director, a set designer, a composer and a couple of actors to form the Cornerstone Theater Company. This unique company of professional actors took on the task of customizing the classics and taking them to the back roads of America. With each production they would integrate professional actors with local townspeople in some of the most treasured classics such as Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Three Sisters, and Our Town to name just a few.

Consuming over five years of her life, Brenneman is very proud of her hard work with the company. She says, "We would adapt a classic to be about that particular community in which we were performing. In one small town in Mississippi, I played Juliet and we cast a young black kid who was a senior in high school to play Romeo. All the Capulets were white and all the Montagues were black. What inevitably happened is that it got really political, really dicey and really fun."

Cornerstone has been celebrated again and again in the national media, including "60 Minutes", The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and American Theatre magazine.

Brenneman's college experience also included a semester abroad in Nepal where she studied sacred dances with an indigenous priest. In doing so she became one of only two or three westerners to learn the dances. She also found time to live in Paris for 7 months where she earned her living as an au pair for two autistic children.

Upon completion of her studies at Harvard, Brenneman would continue her work with Cornerstone and in 1990 she moved to New York where she would take a shot at the New York Theater scene. As a result she nabbed juicy roles in "The Learned Ladies," opposite Jean Stapleton at the CSC Repertory, Mac Wellman's "Sincerity Forever" at the BACA Downtown, and "The Video Store Owner's Significant Other." Additionally Amy has performed at the Yale Repertory Company in the role of St. Joan in Bertolt Brecht's "St. Joan of the Stockyards" and starred in the Lincoln Center production of "God's Heart," directed by Joe Montello ("Love! Valour! Compassion!").

Deborah Kara Unger (Carol Lynn Johnson) was recently seen starring opposite Michael Keaton in White Noise, alongside Thomas Jane in Bronwen Hughes' critically acclaimed Stander, co-starring with John Travolta in A Love Song for Bobby Long and opposite Sir Ian McKellen in Emile, for which Unger received the 2004 Geraldine Page Best Actress Award at the American Method Festival.

Born in Vancouver, Unger was the first Canadian accepted into the prestigious Australian National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney, Australia. Upon graduation and while still in Australia, she acted in the award-winning television drama "Bangkok Hilton" with Nicole Kidman and Denholm Elliot. Unger made her feature film debut in the AFI nominated Blood Oath, with Bryan Brown and Russell Crowe, followed by her critically acclaimed performance in Whispers in the Dark, opposite Alan Alda and Annabella Sciorra.

Additional credits include Hotel Room, No Way Home, Keys to Tulsa, Crash, The Game and the made-for-TV movie "The Rat Pack." She also starred in Payback, Sunshine, Hurricane, Thirteen, The Salton Sea, Signs and Wonders, Leo, Fear X, Luminous Motion, The Weekend, Silent Hill, Alibi and The Things that Hang from Trees.

Benjamin McKenzie (Mike Stempt) was born and raised in Texas. Following his graduation from the University of Virginia where he was a Foreign Affairs and Economics Major, he moved to New York to pursue acting. While in New York he appeared off-Broadway in "Life is a Dream" at the Soho Rep. Additionally, he performed in numerous productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, including "Street Scene" and "The Blue Bird," and at the University of Virginia, in "Measure for Measure" and "Zoo Story" before moving to Los Angeles where he landed the lead role in the Fox series "The O.C."

Most recently, McKenzie starred in the critically acclaimed indie ensemble drama Junebug.

Neal McDonough (Jon Forster) Displaying astonishing versatility with a wide range of roles in film, television and theatre, McDonough joins a select group of actors who combine a leading man's profile with a character actor's art.

McDonough has been busy filming back to back projects during the last two years. He recently completed production on Overture Film's Traitor opposite Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. Michael Caleo's The Last Time, also starring Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser, Paul Kampf's American Gothic with Patrick Wilson, and the indie film Forever Strong, for director Ryan Little.

Most recently, McDonough was seen in the Sci Fi Channel's six hour miniseries "Tin Man," opposite Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cummings. He also starred in the Tri Star Pictures' thriller I Know Who Killed Me, opposite Lindsay Lohan and Julia Ormond and Rogue Pictures' The Hitcher, with Sophia Bush. Last fall, McDonough starred in Clint Eastwood's award-nominated Flags of our Fathers, and played the protégé to Kevin Costner's character in The Guardian, a Buena Vista film about a Coast Guard rescue swimmer haunted by tragedy.

It was McDonough's starring role in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, with Tom Cruise, that first drew audience attention. McDonough also starred in Timeline, with Paul Walker, Walking Tall, with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and in Jeff Hare's A Perfect Little Man, which earned him the Best Actor Award at the 2000 Atlantic City Film Festival.

In the Golden Globe and Emmy® -winning HBO mini-series "Band of Brothers," produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, McDonough starred as Buck Compton, a rugged World War II hero whose all-American veneer is cracked by the horrors of war.

McDonough's television credits include a starring role on NBC's drama "Medical Investigation" as Dr. Stephen Connor, the head of a highly skilled team of specialists who investigate mysterious illnesses. McDonough is perhaps best known as Deputy District Attorney David McNorris in the acclaimed NBC drama series "Boomtown." He was praised for his performance and recognized by the Television Critics Association with a nomination for Individual Achievement in Drama.

His stage credits include "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Always Alone," the latter earning him a Dramalogue Best Actor award.

Raised in Cape Cod, Mass., McDonough attended Syracuse University and later trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Ruvé, son, Morgan and daughter, Catherine.

ABOUT THE FILMMMAKERS

Jon Avnet (Director/Producer) has directed, written and produced more than 60 motion pictures, television movies and Broadway plays over the last 25 years, from box office hits like Risky Business and Fried Green Tomatoes to the critically acclaimed "Uprising" and "The Burning Bed" for television, and The Tony Award-winning "The History Boys" and "Spamalot" on Broadway. His work has won or been nominated for multiple Oscars®, Emmy®, Golden Globes, Directors Guild of America awards, as well as Writers Guild of America awards, the Peabody, the Humanitas, Tonys, and CableACE awards. His career has taken him literally all over the world. Some of the highlights include: working with Nelson Mandela in South Africa while he was in Polsmor prison and interviewing him in his home in Soweto in the days following his release; dealing with and aiding Chinese dissidents in Beijing shortly after Tieneman Square as preparation for his film with Richard Gere, Red Corner; interviewing most of the principals of the Civil Rights movement for Taylor Branch's Pulitzer Prize winning "Parting the Waters"; and studying with leading Holocaust experts all over the world and personally interviewing over 200 survivors in preparation for his film about the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Mr. Avnet most recently directed Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and 50 Cent in Righteous Kill, which was shot in New York City. Prior to Righteous Kill, he directed and executive produced "The Starter Wife", a six-hour limited series for the USA Network, which was shot in Australia, starring Debra Messing, Joe Mantegna, Miranda Otto and Judy Davis. Based on the novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer, it aired May 31st as the highest rated limited series on cable that year. "The Starter Wife" received ten Emmy® nominations as well as Directors Guild of America and Producer's Guild of America nominations for Mr. Avnet. On Broadway, he produced the Tony Award winning "Spamalot," "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett, which won six Tonys including Best Play. He also produced "The Pillowman," by Martin McDonough, which was also nominated for Best Play by the Tonys. Avnet also produced "Inherit the Wind," starring Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer, which garnered 4 Tony nominations, including Best Revival.

Currently, Mr. Avnet is a producer on "The Seafarer" by Connor McPherson. His next venture on Broadway is the Mike Nichols directed "Country Girl," starring Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand.

In 2004, Avnet produced and co-financed with Aurelio DeLaurentiis Paramount's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie. This film was shot entirely on a blue screen stage in London and was comprised of 2200 CGI shots.

In 2002 and 2003, Avnet executive produced with Graham Yost and directed "Boomtown" on NBC. The series received a Peabody award, an AFI award, a Humanitas Award, and the Television Critics Association Award for best drama and best new drama. In 2001, Avnet directed, co-wrote, with Paul Brickman, and produced the miniseries "Uprising" for NBC, which won raves from the critics as the first motion picture to deal with the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, specifically the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It was shot on location in Poland, Slovakia and Austria. Starring Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria, David Schwimmer, Jon Voight, and Donald Sutherland, "Uprising" was nominated for a Golden Globe and a DGA Award and won the ASC Award for Cinematography and an Emmy®. Additionally, he received a Christopher Award for this film, as well as the prestigious Janus Korchak Educational Award.

Prior to "Uprising," Avnet directed and produced Red Corner for MGM, starring Richard Gere for which he was honored with the National Board of Review's Human Rights award. He also directed and produced Up Close and Personal for Disney starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Previously, he directed, produced and co-wrote the highly acclaimed Fried Green Tomatoes for Universal starring Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Louise Parker, and Mary Stuart Masterson. It received multiple Oscar®, Golden Globe, and Writers Guild nominations. His first directing outing (which he also co-wrote and produced) was the TV movie "Between Two Women," starring Colleen Dewhurst and Farrah Fawcett, which earned Dewhurst an Emmy® for her performance.

In 1984, Avnet produced Paul Brickman's film Risky Business, which launched Tom Cruise's career. Avnet also produced Brickman's next film, Men Don't Leave, starring Jessica Lange, Joan Cusack, Arliss Howard, and Chris O'Donnell. In 1985, Avnet produced "The Burning Bed," starring Farrah Fawcett, which garnered eight Emmy® nominations and remains the highest-rated television movie ever aired on NBC. Along with Jordan Kerner, Avnet produced Less Than Zero, When a Man Loves a Woman, Miami Rhapsody, the Mighty Ducks films and George of the Jungle, to name a few, as well as Mama Flora's Family, based on the Alex Haley novel.

Mr. Avnet attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. After working with director Wilford Leach at the La Mama ETC theatre company, he made his first film with a then unknown actor, Richard Gere. On the strength of that film, he received a fellowship in directing at the Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at the American film Institute

Today, Mr. Avnet is Chairman of the Board of Directors at the American Film Institute where he has been a guiding force for over 20 years. He is also a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, and the Screen Actors Guild. In addition, he serves on the Board of Overseers of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Avnet participates as a mentor in the Director's Lab at Sundance and its sister program Emergence in France. He also lectures at numerous universities worldwide and has supported a diverse range of charitable organizations.

Mr. Avnet lives in Topanga Canyon, California, with his wife, artist Barbara Brody. He has three children, Alexandra, who works as an associate producer at CBS in the election unit.; Jacob, who received his master's degree from USC's Peter Stark Graduate Program and has begun his own producing career; and Lily, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written a rather hilarious first screenplay.

Gary Scott Thompson's (Writer/Producer) feature film writing credits include The Fast and the Furious starring Vin Diesel and its sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious for UniversalPictures, and Hollow Man starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue for Columbia Pictures. He also wrote K-911 and K-9 P.I., both starring James Belushi for Universal Pictures, White Ghost, The Underachievers, and wrote and co-produced Timecop: The Berlin Decision as well as wrote and associate produced Split Second, starring Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall.

Thompson is also Creator and Exec Producer of the TV series "Las Vegas" for which he has also written and directed numerous episodes.

Combining his financial sensibility with an eye for filmmaking, Randall Emmett (Producer) has produced over 50 feature films in less than 10 years. With a reputation for packaging movies and getting them made – no small feat in a town full of good intentions – Emmett's films have been seen around the world, debuting at such festivals as Sundance, Berlin and Toronto, with many being nominated for Independent Spirit Awards. Emmett is a partner with George Furla and owner of Emmett/Furla Films, a production company with a distribution and financing deal with Nu Image/Millennium Films, that rolled into the publicly traded company, Family Room Entertainment, for which they serve as co-chairmen.

Emmett's most recent films include King Of California, starring Academy Award®-winner Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood, and Home Of The Brave, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel and 50 Cent and John Rambo, starring Sylvester Stallone. He also produced the upcoming Major Movie Star, starring Jessica Simpson, The Code, starring Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas, and Righteous Kill, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, all due for release this year. He's currently in pre-production with Red Sonja.

Other features that Emmett has brought to the big screen include The Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage, 16 Blocks, starring Bruce Willis, Edison, starring Justin Timberlake, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and LL Cool J., Bruce Beresford's The Contract, starring John Cusack and Morgan Freeman, and Borderland, a crime drama with Sean Astin.

As Executive Producer, Emmett is responsible for the critically acclaimed Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer and Kate Bosworth, A Love Song For Bobby Long, starring John Travolta, and Narc, starring Ray Liotta. He also co-executive produced The Amityville Horror, and Alec Baldwin's The Devil and Daniel Webster. Emmett started producing in 1995 with Eyes Beyond Seeing.

Emmett was raised in Miami and graduated from the prestigious performing arts high school, New World School of The Arts. From there he headed to New York to attend The School of Visual Arts for film school with a major in producing. Among his many public speaking engagements, he served as keynote speaker at his high school alma mater commencement ceremony in 2002, and as guest speaker at the Miami Film Festival and UCLA Extension ("Indie Film Business: Getting It Made, Getting It Sold").

Josef Lautenschlager (Executive Producer) can look back on many years of experience in the field of closed funds and financial management. His career began in the mid-'80s as a management consultant for various media, real estate and ship-building fund initiators and, since that time he has worked for and with several leading investment companies. In 2001, he joined Equity Pictures as CFO. As a result of his fund management expertise, he was instrumental in developing Equity Pictures' mediafund investment framework. Due to this solid and financially sound concept, the Equity Pictures Media Fund, in the four years since its incorporation, has seen a healthy and steady investment growth. Equity partnered with Nu Image/Millennium Films on a number of pictures including The Black Dahlia, Wicker Man, 16 Blocks and Lonely Hearts.

Andreas Thiesmeyer (Executive Producer) started his career as a distribution and A&R manager for Deutsche Grammophon/Polydor (Polygram). From 1982 through 2001, Thiesmeyer was with Bavaria Film, Munich, as a managing director of subsidiary company Bavaria Entertainment and producer of television features and series. He developed and produced a stream of highly successful music shows as well as variety shows, sitcoms and quiz and game shows for German television. In 2001, Thiesmeyer, along with Manfred Speidel, Josef Lautenschlager and Gerd Koechlin, founded Equity Pictures AG. Equity Pictures has partnered with Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films on a number of pictures, including The Black Dahlia, The Wicker Man, 16 Blocks, Lonely Hearts, Rambo IV and Brillian.

Lawrence Bender (Executive Producer), renowned producer and political activist, boasts an illustrious career spanning more than twenty years in the entertainment industry. His films to date, among them influential mega-hits Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, Anna and the King, Jackie Brown, and Reservoir Dogs, have been honored with twenty one Academy Award® nominations, including two for Best Picture.

Bender's most recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore's lifelong dedication to reversing the effects of global climate change. An environmental advocate, Bender along with his team worked with director Davis Guggenheim to produce this gripping and engaging rallying cry that calls for all Americans to protect the earth we share. The film was honored with the 2007 Academy Award® for Best Documentary and Best Original Song for Melissa Etheridge's I Need To Wake Up.

Prior to An Inconvenient Truth, Bender's Innocent Voices was released in October 2005. The film, inspired by a true story, chronicles the experiences of 11-year-old Chava, who loses his innocence during the War in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Innocent Voices represented Mexico for the Academy Awards® and received the 2005 Producers' Guild Stanley Kramer Award as well as the National Board of Review's Freedom and Expression Award in January 2006.

Bender was nominated for a Producer's Guild Award and a Golden Satellite Award for the 1998 film Good Will Hunting, which received a total of nine nominations and won Oscars® for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor.

Pulp Fiction, which received seven Academy Award® nominations, including a win for Best Screenplay, marked Bender's second collaboration with Quentin Tarantino. The film was also nominated for a Producers Guild Award, a BAFTA Award for Best Film, and won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

Bender and Tarantino first teamed on Reservoir Dogs, which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature, in 1992. The film also won Italy's Raymond Chandler Award and was voted Best Picture by the Australian Film Critics. In addition to executive producing Tarantino's and Robert Rodriquez's From Dusk Till Dawn, Bender produced Tarantino's Jackie Brown, for which Robert Forster earned an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Bender holds the distinction of being the only producer to have two films in simultaneous competition at the Berlin Film Festival: Good Will Hunting and Jackie Brown.

Bender's other producing credits include Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2 starring Diego Luna and Romola Garai; Knockaround Guys starring John Malkovich, Dennis Hopper and Vin Diesel; The Mexican with Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini; Anna and the King, which starred Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat and was nominated for two Academy Awards® for costume and production design; A Price Above Rubies; White Man's Burden; Killing Zoe and Fresh, which was in the Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival.

In television, Bender has produced for all the major broadcast and cable networks, including Dr. Vegas, starring Rob Lowe, Joey Pantoliano and Tom Sizemore, for CBS, and The Legend of Earthsea for the Sci-Fi Channel in association with Hallmark Entertainment. The four-hour miniseries starring Isabella Rosellini and Danny Glover aired in December 2004 and was Sci-Fi Channel's most watched show of the year. Bender was also nominated for a GLAAD Award as executive producer for MTV's Anatomy of a Hate Crime, about the murder of Matthew Shepard.

Bender began his production career as a production assistant at the American Film Institute in 1985. Three years later, he made his producing debut on the horror film The Intruder, on which he shared story credits with writer/director Scott Spiegel. In addition to his feature film and television work, Bender has enjoyed success in producing commercials and music videos with his production company, A Band Apart.

Bender is also a passionate social and political activist. In 2003, Bender co-founded the Detroit Project, targeting the gas-guzzling SUV. He also traveled to the Middle East with the Israeli Policy Forum. While there, Bender met with members of the Keneset in Israel, with President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and with the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Bender is a member of the Executive Forum for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), sits on the Board of Trustees of the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and is a member of the Pacific Council. He is also on the Advisory Board to the Dean at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and serves on the board of The Creative Coalition. He is a recent recipient of the Torch of Liberty Award from the ACLU and spends much of his time throwing fundraisers for political and social causes in Los Angeles, where he calls home.

His new philanthropic effort is called 18 Seconds. With the EPA and the DOE, he has created a campaign with a network of different groups, including ThinkLA, the Muppets, Yahoo, Wal-Mart, and many other academic, religious, and political groups. The idea is to use the iconic symbol of the energy star compact fluorescent light bulb to get people to take the first step in becoming part of the solution for global warming. In regards to this, he has met with many other fortune 500 groups, including GM, Home Depot, Simon & Company, along with helping to create Wal-Mart's first sustainability day at the headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

John Baldecchi (Executive Producer) In 2006, Baldecchi produced Ultraviolet, an action-drama for Sony/Screen Gems. The movie stars Milla Jovovich and was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium). The film was shot entirely on location in Hong Kong and Shanghai and used state of the art Sony Hi-Def cameras. Baldecchi began his film career after graduating from UCLA with a degree in economics and finance. He first landed at Moffit-Lee Productions as an intern, which eventually led to independent film production. Baldecchi took his first development job with Wizan/Black Films as a Creative Executive, later moving on to Laurence Mark Productions as Director of Development. Promoted to Vice President and then President and Producer, Baldecchi co-produced Disney's The Adventures of Huck Finn, which was directed by Stephen Sommers' (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) and stars Elijah Wood. He then co-produced the Miramax film, Gunmen, starring Christopher Lambert and Mario Van Peebles. For Walt Disney Pictures, Baldecchi produced Tom & Huck, starring Brad Renfro and Jonathan Taylor Thomas with Peter Hewitt (The Borrowers) directing. The next feature Baldecchi produced was Deep Rising. This action-thriller, released by Hollywood Pictures, stars Treat Williams and Famke Janssen and was written and directed by Stephen Sommers. Baldecchi's first foray into television resulted in ABC's "Oliver Twist," starring Richard Dreyfuss and Elijah Wood. He was the executive producer and Tony Bill (Flyboys) directed. This acclaimed television movie aired during the November 1997 sweeps. Baldecchi also executive produced Simon Birch inspired by the novel "A Prayer For Owen Meany" by John Irving. The film stars Ashley Judd, Jim Carrey, Oliver Platt and David Straithairn, directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Ghost Rider) and was released through Hollywood Pictures. Next up for Baldecchi was the action-comedy, The Mexican, for DreamWorks Pictures. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2 and 3), the movie was the first on-screen pairing of Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. The cast also includes James Gandolfini and Gene Hackman. On the directing front, Baldecchi helmed portions of the second unit on Simon Birch. For television, he directed segments for the Fox drama, "Beyond Belief." John Baldecchi currently oversees a development slate which includes features, hour dramas and mini-series. He is a member of the WGA, DGA, PGA and resides in Los Angeles with his daughter.

Avi Lerner (Executive Producer) With over 300 films to his credit, Lerner, co-chairman of Nu Image, Inc. and Millennium Films, Inc., is one of the most experienced producers and distributors of independent films in the international motion picture industry. He was born in 1947 in Haifa, Israel and studied economics at the University of Tel Aviv and served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Army. After a short period in the banking industry Lerner entered the film business in 1972 when he established the first and only Drive-In cinema in Tel Aviv. He went on to develop a chain of six movie theatres in Israel and in the late 1970's was the first to recognize the potential of the Home Video market and he effectively cornered the Israeli home video market acquiring rights to over 7,000 pictures for Israel. He sold his Home Video and Cinema company in 1984, and between 1980 and 1984, Lerner produced six pictures in Israel. In 1984 he went to South Africa to produce the remake of King Solomon's Mines, starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone for the Cameron Group. The success of the film led to a sequel, Alan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold, and Lerner's decision to sell his Israeli company and relocate to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Between 1984 and 1992 he produced over 40 pictures in South Africa for his company Nu Metro Production and sold them all over the world.

In 1986, Lerner acquired the Metro cinema chain in South Africa from CIC International and the South African Home Video operations of Thorn EMI. Over the next four years in South Africa Lerner built the Nu Metro Entertainment group which developed into one of the largest and most aggressive entertainment companies in Africa. Nu Metro Entertainment included 4 different companies that covered, theaters, video, distribution, and production. The cinema chain under the name Nu Image Theatres was developed from 33 screens in 1986 to 160 screens in 1992.

Nu Metro Distribution licensed film distribution rights for Southern Africa which were then exploited through its own cinema chain, its own video distribution operations and which were thereafter licensed to Southern African Pay (TivM-Nett) and Free TV broadcasters, representing companies like W.B., Disney, Fox, MGM, and most of the independent distributors.

In 1991 and 1992, partly as a result of the political instability facing South Africa and partly because of a desire to establish an LA based production/distribution company, Nu Metro Ltd (excluding the film production operations) was sold to CAN Gallo Ltd. The proceeds of the sale were used partly to produce the first five pictures for the new group and partly to establish Nu Image in Los Angeles. In 1992 Lerner moved to America and established Nu Image together with Danny Dimbort and Trevor Short.

In 1996 Nu Image formed Millennium Films to address the market's growing need for quality theatrical films and higher budget action features, while Nu Image continued to cater to the lucrative world home video market. Between the two divisions, over 230 films have been produced since 1992. Today Mr. Lerner is one of the most respected and prolific independent film producers in the industry. He is a member of the Board of Directors of both the Independent Producers Association and the American Film Marketing Association. His company Nu Image/Millennium Films currently produces between 14 and 15 independent pictures a year.

Under the Millennium films label Lerner has produced numerous titles and has begun producing theatrical type films such as Lonely Hearts starring John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek; Black Dahlia with Hilary Swank, Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson under the direction of Brian DePalma, 16 Blocks starring Bruce Willis and Mos Def under the direction of Richard Donner; 88 Minutes directed by Jon Avnet and starring Al Pacino with Alicia Witt and Leelee Sobieski; Day of the Dead directed by Steve Miner and starring Christa Campbell, Nick Cannon, Mena Suvari and Ving Rhames; The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage; Rambo 4 with Sylvester Stallone; and Mad Money with Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, and Diane Keaton. Millennium is currently in production on The Contract with Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, and the just announced Righteous Kill starring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, directed by Jon Avnet.

Danny Dimbort (Executive Producer) was born and educated in Tel Aviv, Israel. He entered the film industry in 1964 as a distribution executive for Golan Globus Films in Israel where he was responsible for the marketing, and exploitation of the company's film rights in the Israeli market. Within 2 years he was appointed Managing Director of the company which position he retained for 14 years being responsible for all facets of film distribution.

In 1980 Danny moved to Los Angeles where he became head of international sales for Cannon Films, one of the most prolific and flamboyant film production/distribution companies of the Home Video era. At Cannon, Dimbort held the title of Executive Vice President and developed his reputation as one of the most successful international film salesmen in the business.

With the merger of Cannon and Pathe in 1988, Mr. Dimbort became Head of International sales for the expanded company and when Cannon/Pathe took over MGM in 1990 he became President of international distribution for MGM, a position he held until 1992 when he left MGM to start and co-chair, with Avi Lerner, Nu Image Inc., an international distribution company.

Nu Image, since its inception, has developed and maintained a solid reputation as a producer and distributor of high quality action pictures for both the international and domestic markets.

Nu Image titles include several extremely successful Creature, Sci-Fi and Disaster films as well as a number of Action/Hero titles starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren.

In 1996, Dimbort and Nu Image formed Millennium Films to address the market's growing need for quality theatrical films and higher budget action features, while Nu Image continued to cater to the lucrative world home video market. Between the two divisions, over 200 films have been produced since 1992. Under the Millennium films label Dimbort and his partners have produced and distributed numerous titles including theatrical quality films such as The Black Dahlia with Hilary Swank, Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson under the direction of Brian DePalma, 16 Blocks starring Bruce Willis and Mos Def under the direction of Richard Donner and The Wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage under the direction of Neil LaBute.

Mr. Dimbort and Nu Image/Millennium Films currently develop, finance, produce and distribute approximately 15-18 pictures a year with budgets ranging from 3 to 60 million dollars while shooting in locations all over the world.

As both a producer and distributor of films, Nu Image draws heavily on Dimbort's input as to the revenue potential for each picture in the market place before establishing a budget for the production and before "greenlighting". The company's success over the years has been its ability to avoid spending more on its productions then what they can actually be sold for. This ability results primarily from Mr. Dimbort's ability to research the appetite for different films amongst his buyers and to predict the revenues he is likely to obtain once the picture is offered for sale.

Danny Dimbort is perhaps the most experienced film salesmen in the industry. He has been involved directly in international film sales for over 30 years and he has been intimately involved in film distribution generally for 42 years. He knows the industry both as a territorial distributor and as an international salesman. His negotiating skills in the international film community are legendary and he has an uncanny ability to sense the real price potential of his product for each territory in the world.

Trevor Short (Executive Producer) was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and he obtained his Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Rhodesia and an MBA from the University of Cape Town. In 1980 he entered the merchant banking industry with Standard Chartered Merchant Bank in Zimbabwe where he became head of the Corporate Finance department, responsible for takeovers, mergers and IPO's. In 1984 he moved to South Africa and joined Hill Samuel Merchant Bank in Johannesburg.

Trevor developed a tax based financing scheme for movies in South Africa which was successful in raising over $200 million from South African private investors to fund the production of international feature films in South Africa.

In 1986 Trevor moved from Hill Samuel to Investec Merchant Bank as head of Corporate Finance. He was responsible for 8 IPO's on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, numerous mergers and acquisitions and also continued to secure private financing for motion pictures, most of which were produced by Avi Lerner's Nu Metro Productions for international film companies. He also became the primary consultant to the Government of South Africa regarding film investment and taxation legislation.

In 1989 Trevor left the banking sector and joined Avi Lerner as a shareholder in and Chief Executive of the Nu Metro Entertainment group in Johannesburg. He continued to arrange financing for the group's film production activities and was directly involved in the planning, design, financing and construction of the group's growing cinema chain. In 1991, Lerner and Short negotiated the sale of the Nu Metro group to CNA Gallo.

Since 1992 Trevor has been one of the three principals and the CFO of the Nu Image group. In 1995 he moved to Los Angeles where he is primarily responsible for the legal, financing and administrative operations of Nu Image, including the use of various tax and subsidy schemes in many parts of the world and relations between Nu Image and its domestic and international banks.

John Thompson (Executive Producer) grew up in Rome where his fine body of work in the Italian film industry throughout the 1980's and 90's includes Franco Zeffirelli's Otello two Oscar® nominations; Cannes main competition; American Critics Award, Claude D'anna's Oscar Wilde's Salome Cannes main competition, Lina Wertmuller's Camorra four Donatello Awards, Berlin Film Fest official entry, Liliana Cavani's Berlin Interior Donatello Awards, Berlin official selection, Paul Schrader's Comfort of Strangers Cannes official selection, Ivan Passer's Haunted Summer Venice Film Festival official selection, Jerzy Skolimowski's Torrents of Spring Cannes official selection and Giuseppe Tornatore's Everybody's Fine Cannes official selection.

Thompson returned to Los Angeles to helm production for Avi Lerner's Millennium Films in 1998. With Millennium, he has produced or co-produced Paul Chart's American Perfekt Cannes official selection, Susanna Styron's Shadrach Venice official selection and Rory Kelly's Some Girls LA Independent Film Festival winner for Best Director, Audrey Wells' Guinevere, George Hickenlooper's Big Brass Ring as well as Prozac Nation, Nobody's Baby, The Replicant, Try Seventeen, Undisputed, The Wicker Man and other successful productions.

George Furla (Executive Producer) entered the entertainment industry by way of Wall Street. A Chicago native, Furla graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science degree, beginning his business career as an equity securities trader at the internationally renowned firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He moved to Jones and Associates for three years, exiting in 1988, to run a hedge fun which he established. In 1998 he partnered with Randall Emmett to form a production/finance company, Emmet/Furla Films.

Emmett and Furla's first film together was Speedway Junky, starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jesse Bradford and Daryl Hannah, executive produced by Academy Award® nominee Gus Van Sant. The company went on to produce 16 Blocks, starring Bruce Willis and Mos Def, The Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage, Home of the Brave, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel, Day of the Dead, starring Nick Cannon, and Rambo, starring Sylvester Stallone.

Boaz Davidson (Executive Producer) born in Tel Aviv, Israel, started off writing poems and short stories for youth magazines in his teens. After his Israeli military service, he expanded his writing career to filmmaking and left for the London Film School where he majored in directing and writing. Davidson returned to Israel after his studies where he wrote and directed many successful Israeli films, one of which is his biographic film Lemon Popsicle that still holds the #1 box office numbers of all-time in Israel this very day. Lemon Popsicle was also the first Israeli film to break out around the world, and due to its huge success, there were nine sequels made. Among other famous Israeli films are Charlie and a Half, Snooker, and Alex Love Sick.

In 1980, Davidson moved to the United States and teamed up again with Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the original producers of Lemon Popsicle, at the prolific company Canon Films, and made many films, such as the hit 80s film, The Last American Virgin.

In 1992, Davidson ventured to Nu Image, which just started their first production company based in Los Angeles, with Avi Lerner, Danny Dimbort, and Trevor Short where he continued to write and direct many films such as Looking for Lola.

Overall, Davidson has produced some 75 motion pictures, written and directed over 40 films. He now devotes more of his time overseeing the production, serving as the company¹s Head of Production and Creative Affairs. Recent credits include 16 Blocks, The Black Dahlia, Lonely Hearts, Wicker Man, Home of the Brave, King of California, Mad Money, and John Rambo.

Gerd Koechlin (Co-Producer) Director of Production Development & Acquisitions for Equity Pictures AG, Gerd Koechlin has twenty-five years of experience in motion picture production and distribution. As the link between Equity Pictures and the production community, Koechlin is responsible for securing high-quality and commercial film and television projects that fulfil the financial and creative paradigms required by the media fund he founded with partners Andreas Thiesmeyer, Josef Lautenschlager and Manfred Speidel in 2002.

Koechlin started his career in the entertainment industry in 1967 as a television graphic designer for Baton Broadcasting CFTO-TV in Toronto, Canada. After an interlude managing a modern dance company in Toronto, Koechlin went on to work a number of years as a freelance assistant director and production manager for various film and television production companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Upon Koechlin's return to Germany in 1977, he joined 20th Century Fox of Germany as their press and marketing assistant, a position which led to other positions at a number of leading German film distributors, as Marketing Chief for Senator Film, Marketing Manager with CBS-Fox Video and Marketing Manager & Home Office Representative for Orion Pictures Int. in co-op with 20th Century Fox.

From 1990 to 1993, Koechlin served as Columbia TriStar's Marketing Manager for German-speaking territories, during the company's most successful period in Germany up to that date. He represented such films Terminator 2, Look Who's Talking 2, Hook, a number of Woody Allen films, and many more hits which earned the Goldene Linewand Golden Screen Award for more than 3 million admissions. In 1992 Koechlin established a small film-marketing agency, representing such film distributors as Columbia TriStar, Apollo Film and Ascot Film. In co-operation with VCL-Virgin Communications, his clients also included Warner Bros., Filmwelt and Concorde. Koechlin has also worked in theatre, and was marketing associate for Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical production of Sunset Boulevard in Frankfurt.

Manfred Heid (Co-Producer) has executive produced many films, including The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage, The Black Dahlia starring Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart, The Death and Life of Bobby Z starring Paul Walker, and the upcoming My Mom's New Boyfriend starring Colin Hanks and Meg Ryan. He also co-produced the recent thriller One Missed Call starring Ed Burns.

Jochen Kamlah (Co-Producer) is a merchant and attorney at law in Europe and the U.S. Previously, he was Managing Director & Consultant at Constantin Film AG in Munich and Los Angeles.

Kamlah studied law at Gottingen, Munich and London, and served in the military as a First Lieutenant. He currently resides in Munich.

Michael Flannigan (Co-Producer) has worked in various capacities in film and television for over a decade. He began his film career as a casting assistant and later became a production manager before he produced his first project.

His most recent feature film credits include The Black Dahlia and Submerged starring Steven Segal. His television credits include "The Snake King"and he also produced a series of video releases: Nature Unleashed: Fire, Nature Unleashed: Earthquake, Nature Unleashed: Tornado. Other credits include Special Forces, Vlad, Undisputed, Double Bang, Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in the Hood, Dangerous Curves, Stray Bullet II, The White Pony, The Haunting of Hell House, The Ghostly, Operation Splitsville and Love Shack.

Shawn Williamson (Line Producer) a native of Vancouver, partnered with Stephen Hegyes in 2001 to form Brightlight Pictures Inc. He has produced on over 60 films, Television movies and series over the last decade and a half. Along with 88 Minutes, Williamson, producer is currently in post production on In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale starring Ray Liotta and Leelee Sobieski, Deadly Water for Brightlight Pictures Inc., and The Wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage and Lee Sobieski (Millennium/Nu Image, Emmett/Furla Films, Equity Pictures and Brightlight Pictures Inc.). He is currently producing Hunter: The Reckoning and White Noise 2: The Light, the latterto be distributed by Universal Pictures.

Williamson served as Executive Producer on the films, Severed, Pink Ludoos, Lies Like Truth, Punch, all for Brightlight Pictures Inc.and Sea. Other producing film credits include Slither and Hellion, both distributed by Universal Pictures, BloodRayne starring Kristanna Lokken, Edison starring Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, LL Cool J and Justin Timberlake, The Long Weekend starring Chris Klein, Alone in the Dark starring Christian Slater, White Noise starring Michael Keaton and Deborah Kara Unger and Jiminy Glick in Lalawood starring Martin Short. He has also executive produced for television and those credits include Johnny Tootall, Cable Beach, Alienated, and Leo's Journey, amongst numerous other television credits.

Williamson has also production managed numerous productions for film and television. Hisup coming projects include Far Cry, and The Waiting.

Tracey Gallacher (Production Designer) Born and bred in Glasgow, Scotland, Tracey Gallacher has worked on well known Scottish film productions such as Trainspotting directed by Danny Boyle and based on the Irvine Welsh novel about heroin addicts living in Edinburgh, starring Ewan McGregor and for which she art directed. Other film credits also include another familiar Scottish movie Shallow Grave, also starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston.

Gallacher's film production design credits include the recent Miramax Films production of Daltry Calhoun starring Johnny Knoxville, Grilled starring Ray Romano and Kevin James, distributed by New Line Cinema, November starring Courteney Cox and Red Diaper Baby. She also production designed Metropolis for 20th Century Fox Television.

Gallacher also art directed on the films The Final Curtain starring legendary actor Peter O'Toole, the romantic comedy starring Penélope Cruz- Woman on Top, Down to You starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Around the Fire, A Life Less Ordinary starring Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz, Loved Up (BBC) and Open Fire. Her other film credits include the John Cusack starrer Serendipity, L.A. Without a Map, Funny Bones for Hollywood Pictures and The Woodlanders.

Denis Lenoir, ASC, AFC (Director of Photography) After completing high school Denis Lenoir, a native Parisian, began studying medicine, but with very little success as it was during this time that he discovered the Cinémathèque Française. During the following two years, he managed to see one thousand films projected, fascinated as much by the Hollywood classics as the European avant-garde of the late sixties. To make a profession out of his passion he then joined the École Louis Lumière ("Vaugirard" at the time, named after the street where it was located) and studied there for two years. After film school he became a camera assistant, working with French cinematographers Bernard Lutic and Ricardo Aronovich.

At age 27, Lenoir decided to become a lighting cameraman and started soon after to film corporate movies. At the same time, he filmed shorts and was lucky enough to work for Olivier Assayas, then a Cahier du Cinéma critic, who became a friend.

In 1986 Assayas directed his first feature and asked Lenoir to light and operate the camera for it. It was the beginning of a long and still vital collaboration, amounting to seven films together to date, the last one, Demonlover, earned Denis Lenoir the Bronze Frog at Camerimage 2002. Soon after, Lenoir worked with Patrice Leconte on Monsieur Hire, and Bertrand Tavernier on Daddy Nostalgie. Meanwhile he studied Art History at the École du Louvre and, because he wanted to interact with other DPs, he initiated, with two colleagues, the creation of the French cinematographers association, the A.F.C. where he later served for three years as treasurer and another three years as vice-president.

In 1989 he met by chance (in an airplane) Australian director Rolf De Heer and the following year shot Dingo (nominated for best cinematography at the Australian film Institute), partly in France and partly in the Australian outback, the first of a series of films in English. Two years in a row, Lenoir was invited to the Australian Film School in Sydney to conduct cinematography workshops from which tapes have been released. A genuine taste for the English language and more English films led him to work in 1994 for screenwriter and first-time director Christopher Hampton on Carrington followed the next year by Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

Already represented in the United States but always postponing the move, Lenoir finally shot in Chicago his first American feature Since You've Been Gone where he met local actress Joy Gregory (now a TV writer and his wife) and they decided to move together to southern California. Since 1997 Lenoir has lived in Los Angeles and has become a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, the A.S.C.. He has worked on the American features Thursday, Steal This Movie and The Clearing, the miniseries "Uprising" (2002 ASC Award for Best Cinematography, Emmy® Nomination) but regularly flies back to France to visit family and friends and to film commercials or work with Assayas or De Heer. It is his work with the latter on The Old Man Who Read Love Stories that brought him the Kodak Prize for "Outstanding Contribution to Image Development" at the Madridimagem 2001 Film Festival. He has shot twenty-eight theater released films and dozens of commercials and music videos. He is also a recognized still photographer and the author of the first book in French on film director John Cassavetes, published in Paris in 1986.

Lenoir, a knight of the Ordre National du Mérite, has three children. He enjoys hiking and cooking.

Mary McLeod (Costume Designer) Toronto-native Mary McLeod began working in the film business in the mid-seventies as the costume supervisor on the television movie Grandpa and Frank starring Henry Fonda. Since then she has amassed several feature film and television credits and has dressed hundreds of actors.

McLeod made her feature film debut as costume designer on Porky's and went on to design Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Driven, 3000 Miles to Graceland, Wild America, The Boondock Saints, Gold Diggers: The Secrets of Bear Mountain, Trapped in Paradise, Look Who's Talking Now and A Christmas Story.

In television, McLeod's work can be seen "Guilty Hearts," "Catch a Falling Star," "Indefensible: The Truth About Edward Brannigan," "Bye Bye Birdie," "A Child Is Missing" and "Spoils of War."

McLeod recently wrapped the indie feature Venus and Vegas that shot in Los Angeles where she now resides with her production designer husband Richard Hudolin.

Edward Shearmur (Music by) The score for 88 Minutes marks the fourth collaboration between Grammy Award® winning composer Edward Shearmur and Producer/Director Jon Avnet. Their previous work together includes the sweeping orchestral score for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the sly comedy of The Starter Wife.

Shearmur, whose work has long been known for an innovative blend of electronics and orchestra, is classically trained, but has worked with many rock and pop artists including Led Zeppelin icons Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

Shearmur's musical output is as stylistically broad as the films he has scored; from historical dramas (The Wings of the Dove), and comedies (Charlie's Angels, Johnny English) to Sci Fi spectaculars (Reign of Fire) and small independent dramas (Dedication).

He has recently finished the music for Disney's College Road Trip and is currently working on another film with Jon Avnet, Righteous Kill, starring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro.

Peter Berger, A.C.E. (Editor) has amassed over forty film credits as an editor in his over three decades in the film industry. Recent credits include the action crime thriller Loaded and Coach Carter starring box office gold Samuel L. Jackson for MTV Films, distributed by Paramount Pictures.

His very long list of credits as an editor also includes four of the films in the popular Star Trek series, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Insurrection.

He has also edited a diverse group of movies that include based on cartoon strip Garfield, the family basketball movie Like Mike, Clockstoppers, a teenager sci-fi thriller, the romantic drama Save the Last Dance, All Forgotten starring Kirsten Dunst, the thriller Red Corner directed by Jon Avnet and starring Richard Gere and Ling Bai, Metro starring Eddie Murphy, the animal adventure Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, director Peter Hyams' Stay Tuned, the mystery drama Dead Again, Less Than Zero starring Robert Downy Jr., Fatal Attraction, the movie that showed the world how dangerous affairs could be and stars Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, Mommie Dearest starring Faye Dunaway and based on the life of Joan Crawford, and Oh God Book II starring the late George Burns to name a few.

Amongst Berger's many television credits are "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" for the Avnet/Kerner Company, "Heart of a Champion: The Ray Mancini Story" starring Robert Blake for CBS Television and "Hobson's Choice"starring Richard Thomas also for CBS Television.

Rick Pagano, CSA (Casting by) Since 1985, Pagano has worked as President and CEO of Pagano/Manwiller, Inc. His company has cast more than 70 feature films, including X Men 3, Hotel Rwanda, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Rudy, Drugstore Cowboy, Alien Resurrection, Point Break, Gas, Food & Lodging, Say Anything, Stardust, Nobel Son, and What Love Is. His company has also worked in television, casting such hit shows as "24", "Picket Fences", and "Chicago Hope", winning two Emmy's® for casting. Pagano/Manwiller has also cast over 100 productions for theater around the U.S. including the Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, Lincoln Center, and Broadway, including the original Tony-Award-winning production of BIG RIVER.

Mr. Pagano has a B.A. from Middlebury College and completed his doctoral studies in dramatic literature from Columbia University. He has taught writing and literature at Columbia and New York Universities.

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"Emmy®" is the registered trademark of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.