Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Mortensen previously starred for Eastern Promises director David Cronenberg in A History of Violence.

Since his screen debut in Peter Weir's award-winning Witness, Mr. Mortensen's film career has encompassed diverse portrayals in over three dozen features.

With his fellow actors from Peter Jackson's Academy Award-winning The Lord of the Rings epic trilogy, he shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, among other honors.

Mr. Mortensen's other films include Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (opposite David Morse and Patricia Arquette); Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (with Al Pacino); Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (opposite Nicole Kidman); Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (with Demi Moore); Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon (opposite Diane Lane); Augustín Díaz Yanes's Alatriste; and Vicente Amorim's upcoming Good.

The native New Yorker spent several years living in Venezuela, Argentina, and Denmark before beginning his acting career back in NYC. There, he studied with Warren Robertson and acted in plays while also beginning to work in movies.

Mr. Mortensen is also an accomplished poet, photographer, and painter. In 2002, he founded Perceval Press, an independent publishing house specializing in art, poetry, and critical writing. Perceval's mission is to publish texts, images, and recordings by artists that might not otherwise be presented.

He recently exhibited the photographic series "The Nature of Landscape and Independent Perception" with George Guni at the Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, where he had twice shown mixed media previously, in 1999 and 2002. In 2008, he will have photographic and painting exhibitions in Iceland and Denmark. His past shows include "Miyelo," at both the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and the Addison Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C. Mr. Mortensen has also shown his work at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City; as well as in Cuba, New Zealand, and Denmark.

Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts's performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (also for Focus Features) brought her Academy Award as well as BAFTA, Critics's Choice, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, among other honors. Following the film's world premiere at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, she received the Audience Award (Lion of the Public) for Best Actress.

She earlier earned global acclaim for her double role in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which world-premiered at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival. The portrayal earned her Best Actress awards from a number of critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics and the Chicago Film Critics Association. She was named the Female Star of Tomorrow at the ShoWest film industry honors, received the Hollywood Discovery Award for Breakthrough Acting at the Hollywood Film Festival, and won the Breakthrough Actress award from the National Board of Review.

Ms. Watts's other films include Peter Jackson's King Kong, for which she was named Actress of the Year by the London Film Critics Circle; Gore Verbinski's The Ring; Merchant Ivory's Le Divorce; John Curran's We Don't Live Here Anymore and The Painted Veil, which she also produced and co-produced, respectively; Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon (again starring opposite her fellow 21 Grams actor, Sean Penn); David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees; and Michael Haneke's soon-to-be-released Funny Games, which she also executive-produced.

Born in England, Ms. Watts moved to Australia at the age of 14. Her first major film role came in John Duigan's Flirting.

She produced and starred in the short film Ellie Parker, which screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and reteamed in those same capacities with writer/director Scott Coffey for a feature expansion that debuted at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Vincent Cassel

One of France's most prominent and prolific actors (whose father, the late Jean-Pierre Cassel, was another), Vincent Cassel was born and raised in Paris.

He began his career at age 17, as a ballet dancer and student at The FratelliniCircus School. After a period of street acting, his admiration for the American cinema of the 1970s led him to the Actor's Institute in New York City. There, he continued his training as a dancer and also as an actor. At age 20, he returned to France and began working in classical theater, under legendary director Jean-Louis Barrault.

Mr. Cassel's breakthrough film debuted at the 1995 Cannes International Film Festival; his work in La Haîne [a.k.a. Hate] (for writer/director Mathieu Kassovitz, whom he had previously starred for in Métisse [a.k.a. Café au Lait]) would later earn him the first-ever double César Award nominations as both Best Actor and Most Promising Actor. He was soon starring in films in France and around the world. Among them have been Jan Kounen's Dobermann and Blueberry; Christophe Gans's Le Pacte des loups [a.k.a. Brotherhood of the Wolf];Gilles Mimouni's award-winning L'Appartement; Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth, opposite Cate Blanchett; Mathieu Kassovitz' Les Rivières pourpres.

[The Crimson Rivers]; one of the most talked-about films of recent years, Gaspar Noé's Irréversible; Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson's Shrek (in voiceover); Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen; and Jacques Audiard's Sur mes lèvres [a.k.a. Read My Lips], for which he received Best Actor nominations from both the César and European Film Awards.

Mr. Cassel heads his own production company, 120 FILMS, which recently produced rising filmmaker Kim Chapiron's Sheitan [a.k.a. Satan], in which he starred.

He recently filmed Jean-Jacques Annaud's Sa majéste Minor; and is currently at work starring in two films on the life and times of famed French criminal Jacques Mesrine, both being directed by Jean-François Ríchet. The first film, costarring Cécile de France and Gérard Depardieu, is titled The Death Instinct; the second, costarring Ludivine Sagnier and Gérard Lanvin, is titled Public Enemy #1.

Armin Mueller Stahl

For his performance in Scott Hicks's Shine, Armin Mueller-Stahl was an Academy Award nominee as well as (with his fellow actors from the film) a Screen Actors Guild Award nominee.

Mr. Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, and raised in East Berlin. He is an actor, musician, painter, writer, and director. Following his studies, he made his theatrical debut in 1952, performing in classical plays at Berlin's Volksbühne. He then began working in television and film, making his screen debut in Gustav von Wangenheim's Heimliche Ehen.

He starred in several features for Frank Beyer, among them Jacob the Liar (1975), Five Cartridges, and Royal Children; and earned critical acclaim for his portrayals in Egon Günther's The Third and Roland Gräf's The Flight.

After moving to West Berlin in 1979, Mr. Mueller-Stahl starred for Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Lola and Veronika Voss; in Niklaus Schilling's Der Westen leuchtet; and won the Best Actor Award at the 1985 Montréal World Film Festival for his work in Agnieszka Holland's Angry Harvest.

His many other films include Patrice Chéreau's L'Homme blessé; István Szabó's Colonel Redl;Costa-Gavras's Music Box;Barry Levinson's Avalon;George Sluizer's Utz, for which he was named Best Actor at the 1992 Berlin International Film Festival; Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth;Steven Soderbergh's Kafka; Rob Bowman's The X Files; Peter Kassovitz' Jakob the Liar (1999); Agnieszka Holland's The Third Miracle; and Conversation with the Beast, which he directed, co-wrote, and starred in as Adolf Hitler. Reuniting with Eastern Promises leading lady Naomi Watts, he next begins work on Tom Tykwer's The International, starring Clive Owen.

Mr. Mueller-Stahl has published Drehtage (1991), a reflection of his life and work; Unterwegs nach Hause (1996); In Gedanken an Marie Louise (1998); the short story Hannah (2004); the novella Venice (2005), containing diary entries and sketches; and, in 2006, Armin Mueller-Stahl Portraits: Painting and Drawing.

At the 2007 Lolas, Germany's equivalent of the Oscars, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sinead Cusack

Irish-born Sinéad Cusack made her feature film debut in Clive Donner's Alfred the Great, starring David Hemmings, and followed it with the starring role alongside Peter Sellers in Alvin Rakoff's Hoffman.

She began her acting career at the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin. She subsequently made a name for herself on the London stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth; Katerina in The Taming of the Shrew; and Portia in The Merchant of Venice. She later starred on Broadway as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, which earned her a Tony Award nomination, and Cyrano de Bergerac, both of which were also RSC stagings.

In 1990, Ms. Cusack starred on London's West End in an acclaimed revival of Chekhov's Three Sisters, with her father, noted actor Cyril Cusack, as well as her sisters Sorcha and Niamh. In 1998, she won Best Actress awards from both The Evening Standard and the London Critics Circle for her role in Our Lady of Sligo, which she later starred in off-Broadway. More recently, she has starred in the RSC's Antony and Cleopatra; A Lie of the Mind; The Mercy Seat; and Tom Stoppard's award-winning play, Rock'n'Roll, which earned her an Evening Standard Theatre Award nomination. She will again star in the show, this time on Broadway, in the fall of 2007.

Her other films include Stephen Gyllenhaal's Waterland and Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, both with her husband Jeremy Irons; Marty Feldman's The Last Remake of Beau Geste; Daniel Petrie's Rocket Gibraltar; Les Blair's Bad Behaviour; Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden;James McTeigue's V for Vendetta; and John Boorman's The Tiger's Tail, forwhich she was an Irish Film and Television (IFTA) Award nominee.

Ms. Cusack's many U.K. television credits include Paul Seed's miniseries Have Your Cake and Eat It, for which won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress.

Jerzy Skolimowski

Jerzy Skolimowski is the Polish-born director, writer, painter, and actor. Since graduating from the country's prestigious Film School in Lódz, he has directed more than 20 films.

At college, he took up boxing, which also became the subject of a 1961 feature he directed; and an onscreen sport for him in Andrzej Wajda's Innocent Sorcerers, which he also co-wrote. He also wrote and published several books of poems, short stories, and a play before working on screenplays, including Roman Polanski's 1962 classic Knife in the Water.

Following his early documentaries and short films, feature films that Mr. Skolimowski has directed and/or written include Moonlighting, starring Jeremy Irons, for which he was honored with the Best Screenplay award at the 1982 Cannes International Film Festival; Le Départ, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, which won the Golden Bear Award at the 1967 Berlin International Film Festival; Deep End, starring Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown; King, Queen, Knave, starring David Niven and Gina Lollobrigida; Success is the Best Revenge, starring Michael York; The Shout, starring Alan Bates and Susannah York, which won the Grand Prix at the 1978 Cannes International Film Festival; and The Lightship, starring Robert Duvall and Klaus Maria Brandauer, which won a Special Jury Prize at the 1985 Venice International Film Festival, as well as the Best Actor award for Mr. Duvall.

While he has appeared in some of his own films, he has also acted for other filmmakers. Among his notable movies as actor have been Taylor Hackford's White Nights; Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!; and Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls.

Mr. Skolimowski's paintings have been exhibited across Europe and in the United States, and he has taken part in the Venice Biennale His work has been acquired by contemporary art museums in Poland and Greece; and by private collectors in the U.S., the U.K., France, Italy, among other countries.

David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg's body of work includes the following films as screenwriter and director; Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash,and eXistenZ. The films he has directed from screenplays by other writers are The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider, A History of Violence (which he also produced), and now Eastern Promises.

The Toronto native's films have won him awards and recognition worldwide. In June 2001, he received an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree from the University of Toronto. In 1990, France bestowed upon him the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, and then in 1997 the Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2005, he was named a GQ "Man of the Year"; received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival; was given the Billy Wilder Award by the National Board of Review; and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Stockholm Film Festival. In July 2006, he guest-curated the exhibition "Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964"for the Art Gallery of Toronto.

Retrospectives of Mr. Cronenberg's work have been held in Japan, the U.S., the U.K., France, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, and Canada. Books on him and his films include The Shape of Rage – the Films of David Cronenberg, The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, Cronenberg on Cronenberg, and a collection of interviews published by Cahiers du Cinema.

He studied at the University of Toronto, where he became interested in film and made two 16mm shorts, Transfer and From the Drain. His first films in 35mm were Stereo and Crimes of the Future, both shot in the late 1960s. In those works, he established and explored some of the themes and concerns that would characterize and define much of his later work – including violence and sexuality, reality and altered reality, and social satire and biological horror.

Mr. Cronenberg's first commercial featurewas 1975's Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within or The Parasite Murders), which became one of the fastest-recouping movies in the history of Canadian film. Within a decade, he was making more ambitious films, such as Videodrome and The Dead Zone, for major studios. The latter won three out of the five prizes at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival as well as seven Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations.

His next films were The Fly, a remake of the 1958 horror classic, which won the Academy Award for Best Makeup; and Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons, which earned Mr. Cronenberg the Best Director award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Mr. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (adapted and reconceived from William S. Burroughs's novel and works) brought him the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Director, as well as that group and the New York Film Critics Circle's citations for Best Screenplay. The film also won eight Genie Awards [Canada's equivalent of the Academy Award], including Best Picture and Best Director.

Among his more recent films, Crash brought him a Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes International Film Festival, in addition to multiple Genie Awards; eXistenZ won the Silver Bear Award at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival; and A History of Violence, starring his Eastern Promises leading man Viggo Mortensen, received a host of accolades, including Best Director and Best Film on the Village Voice Film Critics Poll as well as two Academy Award nominations.

Among his recent short films are Camera and At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World. The latter was made for the Chacun son cinema collection of films commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the Cannes International Film Festival.

Mr. Cronenberg starred in the latter short, but has also acted in a number of films for other directors as a way to reconnect with being part of a film shoot after the isolation of writing screenplays. His films as actor include Gus Van Sant's To Die For, Clive Barker's Nightbreed, and Don McKellar's Last Night.

In 2008, he will be directing a new opera based on his film The Fly, at Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet and the Los Angeles Opera. Howard Shore is composing the music, and David Henry Hwang is writing the libretto.

Steve Knight

Steve Knight's first screenplay, Dirty Pretty Things, was made into a film directed by Stephen Frears. Upon its premiere at the 2002 Venice International Film Festival, the film attracted critical acclaim from around the world. A host of prestigious awards followed, including four British Independent Film Awards (among them Best Screenplay); and Best Film and Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) prizes at the Evening Standard British Film Awards. Mr. Knight was also honored with the Humanitas Prize; the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay; the Best British Screenwriter citation at the London Film Critics Circle; and Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and WGA Award nominations.

The Birmingham, England native attended University College London, where he studied English Literature. Upon graduation, he worked as a copywriter/producer for a Birmingham advertising agency and then as a copywriter/producer at Capital Radio.

In 1988, Mr. Knight and Mike Whitehill started a freelance writing partnership providing material for television. Based at Celador Productions, they wrote for Commercial Breakdown and The Detectives, among other programs.

Mr. Knight co-created, and Celador produced, the television series Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The program has won awards around the globe – including a BAFTA Award, National Television Award, Silver Rose of Montreux, and the Queen's Award for Enterprise – and a worldwide following.

He has had three novels published; The Movie House, which won the WH Smith Fresh Talent Award, Alphabet City, and Out of the Blue. Alphabet City is slated for a film adaptation.

Mr. Knight's first stage play, The President of an Empty Room, was directed by Howard Davies and staged at London's National Theatre in 2005. He is currently working on a second play.

His most recent screenplay, Amazing Grace, was directed by Michael Apted and starred Ioan Gruffudd as the British anti-slavery activist and politician William Wilberforce. The script earned him a Humanitas Prize nomination.

Mr. Knight is currently at work adapting, for Focus Features and Random House Films, a feature based on Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Bob Drogin's nonfiction book Curveball, named after the code name for the Iraqi informant whose deceptive information about biological weapons was used by the U.S. government to justify the war in Iraq.

Paul Webster

Paul Webster is an independent film producer based in London. In 2004, he launched the feature film division of Kudos Film & Television Ltd., one of Britain's premier television production companies, founded by joint managing directors Jane Featherstone and Stephen Garrett.

Eastern Promises is the first project for the new division to reach movie screens. Since its inception in 1992, Kudos has produced such notable projects as the hit caper series Hustle; the BAFTA Award-nominated cop fantasy series Life on Mars; Paul Lynch's International Emmy Award-winning The Magician's House; Grant Gee's Grammy Award-nominated feature documentary on Radiohead, Meeting People is Easy; and the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama series Spooks (titled MI-5 in the U.S.), which gave Matthew Macfadyen his breakout role.

Mr. Webster worked with the latter actor as producer of the award-winning Focus Features release Pride & Prejudice, starring Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley. Reuniting with the latter actress as well as Focus, director Joe Wright, and production company Working Title Films, Mr. Webster recently produced Atonement. That highly anticipated film, which also stars James McAvoy and Romola Garai, will be released in the fall of 2007.

Also for Focus Features, Mr. Webster is executive-producing Kudos's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams and directed by Bharat Nalluri, whose most recent credit was Kudos's miniseries Tsunami: The Aftermath. That film is currently in post-production for a 2008 release. Rounding out the current Kudos slate of features in production under Mr. Webster is the documentary The Crimson Wing, co-directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward, for Walt Disney Pictures.

Mr. Webster was executive producer of Walter Salles's award-winning The Motorcycle Diaries (also a Focus release).

As the creator and head of FilmFour, the feature film arm of the U.K.'s Channel Four, he oversaw a slate of original productions from 1998 through 2002 that included such movies as Gregor Jordan's Buffalo Soldiers; Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl; Gillian Armstrong's Charlotte Gray; and Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast (for which Sir Ben Kingsley received an Academy Award nomination).

Prior to forming FilmFour, Mr. Webster was head of production at Miramax Films for over two years. In that capacity, he supervised such Academy Award-winning films as Anthony Minghella's The English Patient, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love.

He had previously worked as a producer, both independently and with Working Title Films, during which time he produced such films as Mel Smith's The Tall Guy; Peter Medak's Romeo is Bleeding; and James Gray's Little Odessa, which won the Silver Lion Award at the 1994 Venice International Film Festival. He subsequently reteamed with the latter filmmaker as producer of The Yards.

Prior to segueing into his producing career, he ran Palace Pictures, the theatrical distribution arm of the U.K. production company Palace. Mr. Webster began working in the film industry in the mid-1970s, clerking at the (Notting Hill) Gate cinema.

Robert Lantos

Eastern Promises marks producer Robert Lantos's third collaboration with director David Cronenberg, following Crash (winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival) and eXistenZ (winner of a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival).

The producer's other new film, Fugitive Pieces, from director Jeremy Podeswa, is the Opening Night Gala at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Mr. Lantos founded and built Canada's leading film and television company Alliance Communications, of which he was Chairman and CEO. In 1998, he sold his controlling interest in Alliance, and now produces films through his production company Serendipity Point Films.

Beginning with his first credit as producer – L'Ange et la femme (1976), directed by Gilles Carle and the winner of the International Critics Prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival – Mr. Lantos has made over 30 feature films.

Mr. Lantos has established longstanding creative relationships with several of the world's pre-eminent directors. His many credits include István Szabó's Being Julia, for which Annette Bening earned an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Award and the National Board of Review award for Best Actress; and Sunshine, which earned three Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture. He has also produced Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (Cannes Grand Prix winner; nominated for two Academy Awards), Where the Truth Lies (Official Selection, Cannes International Film Festival; a Toronto International Film Festival Gala), and Ararat (Official Selection, Cannes International Film Festival; a Toronto International Film Festival Gala).

His other features include In Praise of Older Women,directed byGeorgeKaczender (Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival); Joshua Then and Now, directed by Ted Kotcheff (In Competition, Cannes International Film Festival); Black Robe, directed by Bruce Beresford (Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival; Genie Award for Best Picture); Whale Music, directed byRichard Lewis (four Genie Awards); Johnny Mnemonic, directed by Robert Longo; Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey (In Competition, Cannes International Film Festival; Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival); Denys Arcand's Stardom (Closing Night, Cannes International Film Festival; Opening Night Gala, Toronto International Film Festival) and the Canadian domestic boxoffice phenomenon Men with Brooms.

Mr. Lantos's extensive television credits include the drama series Due South and E.N.G.; and such telefilms and miniseries as Shot Through the Heart, The Hunchback, Sword of Gideon, Family of Strangers, and Woman on the Run.

He is a member of the Order of Canada and a member of the Board of Indigo Books & Music. Mr. Lantos holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from McGill University.

Stephen Garrett

Stephen Garrett is joint managing director, with Jane Featherstone, of Kudos Film & Television Ltd., one of Britain's premier television production companies. Eastern Promises is the first project for the company's new film division, headed by Paul Webster, to reach movie screens.

Since its inception in 1992, Kudos has produced such notable projects as the hit caper series Hustle; the BAFTA Award-nominated cop fantasy series Life on Mars; Paul Lynch's International Emmy Award-winning The Magician's House; Grant Gee's Grammy Award-nominated feature documentary on Radiohead, Meeting People is Easy; and the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama series Spooks (titled MI-5 in the U.S.), which gave Matthew Macfadyen his breakout role.

Also for Focus Features, Mr. Garrett is producing Kudos's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Frances McDormand and directed by Bharat Nalluri, whose most recent credit was Kudos's miniseries Tsunami: The Aftermath (which was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards). Rounding out the current Kudos slate of features is the documentary The Crimson Wing, co-directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward.

Mr. Garrett's producing credits also include Gillies MacKinnon's Pure, starring Keira Knightley; and Sam Miller's Among Giants, starring Pete Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths.

David M. Thompson

David M. Thompson began his career at the BBC as a documentary maker. He began producing drama while working for the BBC's Everyman documentary series, where he produced the original Shadowlands (directed by Norman Stone), which won the British Academy Award for Best Drama and an International Emmy Award. Subsequent productions included the BAFTA Award-winning Safe, directed by Antonia Bird, and Alan Clarke's The Firm and Road.

Mr. Thompson was appointed Head of BBC Films in May 1997, overseeing a slate of films for cinema and television. Past BBC Films productions include John Madden's acclaimed Mrs. Brown; Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot (the company's most successful film to date, which took in over $100 million worldwide, and which won three BAFTA Awards and was nominated for three Academy Awards); Richard Eyre's Iris, starring Dame Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, and Jim Broadbent, who won the Academy Award for his performance; Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things, written by Eastern Promises screenwriter Steve Knight; Michael Winterbottom's In This World (BAFTA Award winner, and winner of the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival), Code 46, and [Tristram Shandy:] A Cock and Bull Story; Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar; Roger Michell's The Mother; Christine Jeffs's Sylvia (also a Focus Features release); Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen; Pawel Pawlikowski's Last Resort and My Summer of Love (also a Focus Features release); Danny Boyle's Millions; Stephen Frears's Mrs. Henderson Presents; Michael Caton-Jones's Shooting Dogs (a.k.a. Beyond the Gates); Andrea Arnold's Red Road, which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival; Nicholas Hytner's The History Boys; and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal, which received four Academy Award nominations.

Upcoming releases include Justin Chadwick's The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, and Eric Bana; Gareth Carrivick's Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel; James Honeyborne's documentary feature Meerkats; Julian Jarrold's Brideshead Revisited, starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, and Hayley Atwell; John Maybury's The Edge of Love, starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Rhys, Sienna Miller, and Cillian Murphy; Jane Campion's Bright Star, starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish; and Sam Mendes's highly anticipated Revolutionary Road, reuniting Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Jeff Abberley

In August 2002, Jeff Abberley and Julia Blackman established Scion Films. This filmmaking partnership was initiated with the aim of financing and producing British feature films of significance.

Eastern Promises marks Scion's fourth collaboration with Focus Features, following Phillip Noyce's acclaimed Catch a Fire, starring Tim Robbins and Derek Luke; Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, starring Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley; and Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener. For the latter film, Rachel Weisz won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, and Mr. Meirelles was a Golden Globe Award nominee.

Upcoming for Focus release, on behalf of Scion Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman are executive-producing Academy Award-winning writer/director Martin McDonagh's suspense thriller In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. The film is currently in post-production.

Scion's slate of films in release or due soon also includes Julian Jarrold's Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy; and Mary McGuckian's Intervention, starring Jennifer Tilly, Andie MacDowell, and Ian Hart.

The company's previous projects include Michael Winterbottom's [Tristram Shandy:] A Cock and Bull Story; Joel Schumacher's worldwide success The Phantom of the Opera; Antoine de Caunes's Monsieur N.; Nick Hurran's It's a Boy Girl Thing; Mary McGuckian's The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Rag Tale; and Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah.

Immediately prior to forming Scion, Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman together for two-and-one-half years ran the film financing arm of Future Film Group (FFG) which was involved in U.K. film financing, production distribution, and post-production. Mr. Abberley was one of the founding partners of the company and was director of the group with Ms. Blackman, who was also a lawyer for FFG. The company was involved in the financing and production of, among other films, Gurinder Chadha's sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham; Fred Schepisi's all-star Last Orders; Mike Barker's To Kill a King; Nick Hurran's Undertaking Betty; and Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game.

Mr. Abberley previously was an advisor on production financing for film and television projects. Ms. Blackman previously was a lawyer who advised on film financing structures and tax issues for clients with film and television projects. Both also recently executive-produced Richard Attenborough's Closing the Ring.

Tracey Seaward

Tracey Seaward most recently produced Stephen Frears's The Queen, for which Dame Helen Mirren won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the BAFTA Award, among many other honors she and/or the picture received around the world. As producer, Ms. Seaward received a BAFTA Award when the picture was cited as Best Film of the Year, and was similarly an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominee.

She had previously worked with Mr. Frears as producer of Dirty Pretty Things, which earned Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and WGA Award nominations for Eastern Promises screenwriter Steve Knight's original screenplay. The film won several awards, including the London Evening Standard Award for Best British Film; the San Diego Film Critics Society award for Best Picture; and the top prize at the British Independent Film Awards.

Ms. Seaward's first feature film producing credit was on John Irvin's Widow's Peak, as co-producer. She then produced Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal, for which Ian Hart was cited as Best Supporting Actor at the 1995 Venice International Film Festival.

Ms. Seaward's subsequent films as producer have included Pat Murphy's Nora, starring Ewan McGregor as James Joyce. She was co-producer of Neil Jordan's The Good Thief and Danny Boyle's Millions, as well as (also for Focus Features) Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener. For the latter film, Rachel Weisz won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, among many other honors she and/or the picture received around the world.

Peter Suschitzky

Eastern Promises marks Peter Suschitzky's eighth film with director David Cronenberg, three of which have won Mr. Suschitzky Genie Awards for Best Cinematography; Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch,and Crash. Their other collaborations to date are A History of Violence, Spider, eXistenZ,and M. Butterfly.

The son of cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky, Peter Suschitzky was born and raised in London. Although music was his passion, he decided that cinematography would become his profession. After studying his trade in Paris at IDHEC, he became a clapper boy at age 19 and a cameraman at 21, spending a year in South America shooting documentaries before shooting his first feature film at age 22 – making him the youngest cinematographer ever to lens a feature picture (Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's It Happened Here) in Britain.

Since then, he has worked with filmmakers all over the world, as director of photography on such memorable movies as Irvin Kershner's The Empire Strikes Back; Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show; and Peter Watkins's Privilege and The Peace Game. In addition to Mr. Cronenberg, Peter Suschitzky has enjoyed multiple collaborations with John Boorman (on Leo the Last and Where the Heart Is, which earned him the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Cinematography) and Ken Russell (on Lisztomania and Valentino, which earned him BAFTA and British Society of Cinematography Award nominations), among other directors.

Among the other notable films that he has shot are Albert Finney's Charlie Bubbles; Ulu Grosbard's Falling in Love; Howard Franklin's The Public Eye; George Sluizer's The Vanishing (1993); Bernard Rose's Immortal Beloved; Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!; Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask; and Anand Tucker's Shopgirl.

Carol Spier

Eastern Promises continues Carol Spier's longtime association with director David Cronenberg, which has encompassed A History of Violence, eXistenz, Crash, M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, The Fly, The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Scanners, The Brood, and Fast Company as well as two television docudramas for the CBC's (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Scales of Justice and the short film Camera. She won Genie Awards for Naked Lunch and Dead Ringers, and was additionally nominated for The Brood, Videodrome, Scanners,and eXistenZ.

The native Canadian studied Interior Design at the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Architecture. She began her career as an interior designer in Winnipeg. During this period, she also worked as a set and costume designer with various theater groups, including the Manitoba Theater Center.

Ms. Spier's first movie work was on Leonard Yakir's The Mourning Suit, on which she served as set designer, set dresser, and property master. She then worked as an assistant art director on several feature films, including Sidney Lumet's Equus, and was later art director on such films as Norman Jewison's Agnes of God and John Schlesinger's The Believers.

Her many film credits as production designer include John Boorman's Where the Heart Is; Alan J. Pakula's Consenting Adults; John Pasquin's The Santa Clause; Guillermo del Toro's Blade II and Mimic; Stephen Norrington's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; and Christophe Gans's Silent Hill.

For television, Ms. Spier has notably designed the PBS/CBC series Anne of Green Gables, for which she won a Gemini Award [Canada's equivalent of the Emmy Award] for Best Art Direction; Lloyd Fonvielle's telefilm Gotham, for which she received a CableACE Award nomination; Kathy Bates's telefilm Dash and Lilly; and Rod Holcomb's miniseries Thanks of a Grateful Nation.

Ronald Sanders

Eastern Promises is Ronald Sanders's fourteenth film for David Cronenberg. He previously edited A History of Violence, Spider, eXistenZ, Crash, M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, The Fly, The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Scanners, Fast Company, and the short Camera for the director.

Born in Winnipeg, Mr. Sanders was exposed to film at an early age since his father worked as a projectionist. After graduating with a B.A. from St. John's College, University of Manitoba, he moved to Toronto where he edited documentaries and began working on features as a sound editor.

Among his feature credits as editor are Mark L. Lester's Firestarter; Yves Simoneau's Perfectly Normal; Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic; and Anais Granofsky's The Limb Salesman.

Mr. Sanders has also edited such notable telefilms as Norman Jewison's Dinner with Friends; Steven Hilliard Stern's The Park is Mine; Daniel Petrie Jr.'s Dead Silence; and Lamont Johnson's All the Winters That Have Been.

Denise Cronenberg

Denise Cronenberg has been the costume designer on eight of her brother David Cronenberg's features; The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, eXistenZ, Crash, Spider, A History of Violence, and now Eastern Promises, earning three Genie Award nominations over the years. She also costume-designed his short Camera; and previously worked with him as wardrobe trainee on Videodrome and wardrobe mistress on The Dead Zone.

After studying ballet in her native Toronto, she majored in radio and television arts at Ryerson Polytech. Following graduation, she trained with The American Ballet Theatre before joining the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. She also danced on CBC variety shows. Switching careers, she designed her own line of clothing before moving on to costume-designing.

Ms. Cronenberg has designed the costumes for such features as David Anspaugh's Moonlight and Valentino; John N. Smith's A Cool, Dry Place and telefilm Sugartime; Eriq La Salle's telefilm Rebound: The Legend of Earl "The Goat" Manigault; Agnieszka Holland's The Third Miracle; Kasi Lemmons's The Caveman's Valentine; James Wan's Dead Silence; Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead; and Michael Davis's Shoot 'Em Up.

She is currently at work as costume designer on Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, and William Hurt.

Howard Shore

Howard Shore has collaborated with David Cronenberg on a number of groundbreaking films. Their works together to date are The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers (for which Mr. Shore won a Genie Award), Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, Crash, eXistenZ, the short Camera, Spider, A History of Violence, and now Eastern Promises.

Mr. Shore is among the most respected and active film composers and music conductors at work today. He won three Academy Awards for his work on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy; these were for The Fellowship of the Ring, The Return of the King, and the song "Into the West." The trilogy also earned him four Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. He received his third Golden Globe Award for his score of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. He has earned the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Henry Mancini Award; the National Board of Review's Career Achievement Award; the Hollywood Film Festival's Outstanding Achievement in Music in Film award; and, twice, the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award, among other honors.

Mr. Shore began his career as a founding member of the group Lighthouse, with whom he recorded and toured with from 1969 to 1972. He then went on to serve as the original musical director of Saturday Night Live, conductingthe show's live broadcasts from 1975 to 1980 and writing the show's theme.

His many film scores include the ones for Martin Scorsese's The Departed, Gangs of New York,and After Hours;Tim Burton's Ed Wood; Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia; David Fincher's Panic Room, The Game, and Se7en; Penny Marshall's Big; and Chris Columbus's Mrs. Doubtfire. In addition to his film projects, Mr. Shore is currently writing The Fly, an opera commissioned by Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Los Angeles Opera, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang and David Cronenberg to direct.

Stephan Dupuis

Stephan Dupuis began working with David Cronenberg on Scanners.Prior to Eastern Promises, their subsequent projects together included Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenz, Spider, A History of Violence and The Fly, for which Mr. Dupuis was nominated for a BAFTA Award and won an Academy Award (shared with Chris Walas).

He has earned three Emmy Award nominations, for his make-up on Ivan Passer's Stalin, starring Robert Duval; Robert Dornhelm's Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, starring James Woods; and Robert Allan Ackerman's The Reagans, starring James Brolin.

Among Mr. Dupuis's film credits are Wolfgang Petersen's Enemy Mine; Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop and Total Recall; Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear; Mel Gibson's The Man Without a Face; Chris Columbus's Mrs. Doubtfire;George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind;Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon; and Francis Lawrence's soon-to-be-released I Am Legend.

Self-taught, he began experimenting with foam latex make-up in his parents's basement in his native Montreal. While attending university, he was hired to assist the head make-up artist on Alvin Rakoff's City on Fire, and ultimately captained the FX make-up department on the project.

After graduating from Sir George Williams Campus with a Masters Degree in Cinema Fine Arts, his work was spotted by make-up artistry icon Dick Smith, who invited him to collaborate in New York. Mr. Dupuis next worked on the Academy Award-winning make-up for Jean-Jacques Annaud's Quest for Fire,and teamed with Mr. Walas for Mr. Cronenberg's Scanners.

Julia Blackman

In August 2002, Jeff Abberley and Julia Blackman established Scion Films. This filmmaking partnership was initiated with the aim of financing and producing British feature films of significance.

Eastern Promises marks Scion's fourth collaboration with Focus Features, following Phillip Noyce's acclaimed Catch a Fire, starring Tim Robbins and Derek Luke; Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, starring Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley; and Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener. For the latter film, Rachel Weisz won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award, and Mr. Meirelles was a Golden Globe Award nominee.

Upcoming for Focus release, on behalf of Scion Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman are executive-producing Academy Award-winning writer/director Martin McDonagh's suspense thriller In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. The film is currently in post-production.

Scion's slate of films in release or due soon also includes Julian Jarrold's Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy; and Mary McGuckian's Intervention, starring Jennifer Tilly, Andie MacDowell, and Ian Hart.

The company's previous projects include Michael Winterbottom's [Tristram Shandy:] A Cock and Bull Story; Joel Schumacher's worldwide success The Phantom of the Opera; Antoine de Caunes's Monsieur N.; Nick Hurran's It's a Boy Girl Thing; Mary McGuckian's The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Rag Tale; and Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah.

Immediately prior to forming Scion, Mr. Abberley and Ms. Blackman together for two-and-one-half years ran the film financing arm of Future Film Group (FFG) which was involved in U.K. film financing, production distribution, and post-production. Mr. Abberley was one of the founding partners of the company and was director of the group with Ms. Blackman, who was also a lawyer for FFG. The company was involved in the financing and production of, among other films, Gurinder Chadha's sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham; Fred Schepisi's all-star Last Orders; Mike Barker's To Kill a King; Nick Hurran's Undertaking Betty; and Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game.

Mr. Abberley previously was an advisor on production financing for film and television projects. Ms. Blackman previously was a lawyer who advised on film financing structures and tax issues for clients with film and television projects. Both also recently executive-produced Richard Attenborough's Closing the Ring.