Guy X : Crew Biographies


SAUL METZSTEIN – DIRECTOR


Saul Metzstein was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1970. He studied Architecture at Robinson College, Cambridge University (1989-1992), and in 1992, attended a summer course at New York University, where he received his only formal film training.

Saul then worked as a Runner and Location Assistant on feature films, including Shallow Grave, Small Faces and Trainspotting

From this time onwards, he was also making short films, commercials and documentaries, including a film about James Stewart and a look at the Danish Dogme 95 cinema movement.

Prior to making Guy X, Saul directed Late Night Shopping, for Ideal World Films & FilmFour. The film had its World Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it was awarded the C.I.A.C.E. prize. It has also been awarded the Young Jury Prize at the Gijón Film Festival, Best Actress for Kate Ashfield at the British Independent Film Awards, three Scottish BAFTAs among many others. It received nominations for the BAFTAs, the London Film Critics Circle, the Evening Standard Awards and others, and was released theatrically in the UK and internationally.

“One of the big decisions of the film is that it’s set in the three seasons so it’s starts in summer then it goes to autumn then it goes to winter. We thought it was a fun way of having different sort of looks in the film that we could sew together or not sew together. One of the things was that we start the beginning of the film using quite classical film-making, we use frames and the character acts within the frame. Generally wide lenses, and as the film goes on we get to long lenses and the camera work gets, not exactly erratic but it loosens up.

Jason’s character is in every single scene and so much of the film depends on him. If anything the story is quite disparate, lots of elements cuts across each other and the only thing that’s constant throughout is Jason, so we worked very extensively together on how we’d construct the whole thing.”


SAM TAYLOR – PRODUCER

Sam Taylor is director and joint-owner of Film and Music Entertainment.

She began her career as head of international sales at Jeremy Thomas' and Chris Blackwell's company Oasis and was responsible for selling a range of titles including Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief His Wife and Her Lover. She then went to St Petersburg to work as 2nd Assistant Director on an Anglo-Russian co-production Contact before producing the short film My Little Eye for C4.

Her first feature as producer was Milcho Manchevski's Oscar nominated Before the Rain which won the Golden Lion in Venice. After that, she produced Benjamin Ross' feature debut The Young Poisoner's Handbook , then Sweet Angel Mine and the Greek language Under the Stars. She formed F&ME with Mike Downey in 2001.

Sam’s most recent productions include Deathwatch directed by Michael Bassett and starring Jamie Bell, Venice competition entry Sjaj U Ocima (Loving Glances), Falcons and Niceland by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Peter Timm's My Brother is a Dog, Hillmar Oddson's Cold Light, and Strings by Anders Ronnow Klarlund. In 2005 she completed The Headsman directed by Swiss director Simon Aeby, the Icelandic production Eleven Men Out by Robert Douglas, Murk by Denmark's Jannick Johansen and the UK/Polish/German adaptation of the Gunter Grass novel Unkenrufe (Call Of The Toad) directed by Robert Glinski..

Films for 2005 include Anasteszi – The Great Silence by Spanish director Miguel Alacantud, Killer On The Road by James Ellroy, Cassandra At The Wedding by Saul Metzstein and The Border Post by Rajko Grlic.


MIKE DOWNEY – PRODUCER

Mike Downey founded UK-based independent production house Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME)in 1990 along with Sam Taylor . Educated at Warwick University, the Sorbonne and the Universite de Paris X (Nanterre),he spent most of the eighties as a theatre director and producer in France, Germany, the former Yugoslavia and the U.K., as well as working as a publisher, contributor and critic for various international publications including Variety, Screen International and Moving Pictures Internaional.

Mike’s most recent productions include Deathwatch directed by Michael Bassett and starring Jamie Bell, Venice competition entry Sjaj U Ocima (Loving Glances), Falcons and Niceland by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Peter Timm's My Brother is a Dog, Hillmar Oddson's Cold Light, and Strings by Anders Ronnow Klarlund. In 2005 he completed The Headsman directed by Swiss director Simon Aeby, the Icelandic production Eleven Men Out by Robert Douglas, Murk by Denmark's Jannick Johansen and the UK/Polish/German adaptation of the Gunter Grass novel Unkenrufe (Call Of The Toad) directed by Robert Glinski..

Films for 2005 include Anasteszi – The Great Silence by Spanish director Miguel Alacantud, Killer On The Road by James Ellroy, Cassandra At The Wedding by Saul Metzstein and The Border Post by Rajko Grlic.

Downey is a tutor on Sheffield University's Creative Writing for Film course, is Thomas Ewing Visiting Professor of Film at Ohio University, a member of the board of advisors in the Film School of Oklahoma University and the President of the Board of Advisors of the Motovun International Film Festival in Croatia.

He currently also works in an advisory capacity with Amnesty International establishing humanitarian film prizes at festivals around the world, and became last year , along with actress Brenda Blethyn and Director of the National Film and Television School Nik Powell, the UK representative of the Board of the European Film Academy.

“It’s a very interesting co-production between Iceland, Canada – Quebec specifically, and the UK. Naturally the film would tend to be co-produced by a Nordic country if were trying to replicate Greenland for somewhere. It’s pretty much impossible to shoot in Greenland but we’ve made several films in Iceland before. We’ve made four or five films in Iceland with one specific Icelandic partner, the Icelandic Film Corporation: so they naturally became our partner to shoot in Iceland for GUY X. And also because they are a very credible company they were able to bring the Icelandic National Film fund into the project and also there are very, very generous tax benefits for shooting in Iceland. It was a very happy situation.”


MICHAEL L. COWAN & JASON PIETTE - PRODUCERS

Combining their creative backgrounds as screenwriters with a flair for business and good eye for commercial opportunities, Michael Cowan and Jason Piette founded Brighton-based Spice Factory in 1995 and have since produced an impressive and varied slate of films.

With access to production financing, international sales and distribution, and worldwide film funds, they have become leaders in the field of international co-productions, working with industry giants and first-class talent from around the world. In the last five years they have produced over US$450M worth of film production.

Included in their list of accomplishments as producers and financiers are films such as The Merchant Of Venice starring Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes and Jeremy Irons, The Bridge Of San Luis Rey with Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Gabriel Byrne, Cannes competition entry Strayed (a.k.a. Les Égarés) directed by André Téchiné, the multi award winning Mr In-Between and quirky romantic comedy Plots With A View (a.k.a. Undertaking Betty) starring Brenda Blethyn, Christopher Walken, Alfred Molina and Naomi Watts.


JOHN PAUL CHAPPLE – WRITER

John Paul Chapple started his career at Quintet Films as development producer working on a number of productions including Jack Gold’s The Chain. In 1986, he joined Portman Productions as a producer and sales executive where he was involved in such productions as Mike Leigh’s High Hopes and, in 1989, produced Michael Bogdanov’s Wars of the Roses. He became UK Production Head for Windmill Lane Productions in 1990 where he executive produced Peter Chelsom’s Hear My Song.

His subsequent film and television credits as producer include Scavengers for 20th Century Fox/Carlton and The Human Bomb for Showtime/Yorkshire TV.

He has also written extensively for television, including on the BBC’s landmark live millenium broadcast, 2000 Today. Recent film writing credits include Falling (with Alice Krige, Angela Bettis and Jill Clayburgh) and Billy Zane’s directorial debut Big Kiss. Following Guy X, he wrote and produced the filmed elements and wrote the script for Intial/DR’s TV show celebrating the life and work of Hans Christian Andersen, Once Upon a Time.


STEVE ATTRIDGE – WRITER

Steve Attridge has been writing professionally for television and the cinema since 1988, and for the stage since 1981. He has also written numerous works of children’s fiction. His film credits include Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Niceland (2002) and Simon Aeby’s The Headsman (2004). His television credits include The Queen’s Nose (1993-96), for which he won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama Series, The Boot Street Band (1993-4) for which he received a BAFTA nomination, Harry’s Mad (1995), for which he won the Golden Award for Best Drama Series, Harbour Lights (1998-99), The Scarlet Pimpernel (2000), George Eliot (2002) and The Brontés (2003).

Steve has run various courses in Creative Writing and Screenplay Writing for various institutions in the UK, Europe and Asia, and designed the MA in Sreenwriting at Sheffield University which he ran from 1999 to 2003.