A European Film
Development Initiative
celebrating Europe's cultural diversity
Consultant Profiles Babylon 2009
Tony is an innovative, award-winning writer/producer from London, England. His main credits include A Band Of Gold, which won a Cable Ace Award for Best Foreign Dramatic Series in addition to a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series. It aired on HBO in the US after playing to record audiences on ITV in the UK. Tony also produced BBC's acclaimed crime drama, Silent Witness, now in its eleventh year. As Head of Development at Inner City Films in Toronto, he was recently the series producer of Jozi H, for CBC and SABC, recently aired on Sky TV.
Tony has a wealth of experience in the UK, North America, and Africa. But always at the heart of his work is a desire to explore the complexity and diversity of the human experience. As a writer and producer, he has a reputation for understanding mainstream audiences and refining complicated issues into compelling entertainment.
has worked for many years in TV and film production at the BBC, as a script editor and development producer at Granada, and as a writer for German, French and British television. Credits include Medics for Granada UK, format and pilot 13 episodes of RTL series Sonntags Geöffnet; and TV Movies Un Cadeau la Vie (FR2) and Nicht Ohne Dich (ZDF). With Gareth Jones she runs Scenario Films, an independent production and consultancy company for whom she is currently producing several feature film projects, including musical love story Soho which is slated for production autumn 2009, and steamy psychodrama Desire starring Oscar Pearce and Tella Kpomahou which was completed April 2009. She has worked as a script consultant for ten years, and regularly gives screenwriting master classes around Europe. See www.scenariofilms.com for more details.
Son of a BBC foreign correspondent Gareth was partly raised in India and Lebanon and his work has been characterized by multicultural issues. Among his credits are Shalom Salaam (5x60mins BBC) a Jewish-Muslim coming of age story set in Leicester, awarded Best Actress and SACD Best Screenplay Awards, at FIPA 1988; Au Nom du Même Père (3x60 min documentary, Channel 4 and TF1, 1990) examined the fraught relationship between Christianity and Judaism. His feature film Bonhoeffer - die Letzte Stufe (ARD 2000) recognized the Nazi-resister and Jewish rescuer Dietrich Bonhoeffer, winning the Nymphe D'Or for Best Television Film at Monte Carlo; Deutsche Angestellengewerkschaft (DAG) Writer's Prize and Bronze Worldmedal at New York.
As producer of twice-weekly Albion Market (1985/6) he was the first to create wide casting opportunities for actors from British minority communities.
He has worked as script consultant for institutes and academies across Europe, including SOURCES, Sarajevo Film Festival's Cinelink programme and Euromed. He writes and consults in English, French, German and Italian.
For his own production company Scenario Films he has just completed feature film Desire starring Oscar Pearce and Tella Kpomahou, and is co-writer and attached director on Soho, due for production autumn 2009. See www.scenariofilms.com for more details.
Thierry founded his company Ciné-Sud Promotion to promote auteur cinema particularly of non-european origination, and has developed thecompany's production arm since 1999.
He was active in the organization of the Montpellier Film Festival till 1995, then the Amiens Film Festival, particularly the creation and administration of the Script Development Fund (Fonds d'Aide au Développement du Scénario) for countries of the majority world, awarded annually at Amiens.
Ciné-Sud Promotion has acted as public relations representative for, amongst others, Gianni Amelio, Vicente Aranda, Yamina Bachir Chouikh, Bassek Ba Kobhio, Rachid Bouchareb, Mario Camus, Jean-Michel Carré, Wang Chao, Malik Chibane, Jacques Davila, Guillermo Del Toro, Raymond Depardon, Djibril Diop Mambety, Flora Gomez, Omer Kavur, Christine Laurent, Miguel Littin, Christophe Loizillon, Francisco Lombardi, Goran Markovic, Rashid Masharawi, Julio Medem, Jafar Panahi, Manuel Poirier, Jean-François Richet, Arturo Ripstein, Paulo Rocha, Christophe Ruggia, Carlos Saura, Silvio Soldini, Bela Tarr, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Jean-Philippe Toussaint.
Feature films produced include: L'ombre De La Ville by Jean Khalil Chamoun (France/Lebanon) - 2000/2001 ; Tirana, Annee Zero by Fatmir Koci (France/Albania/ Belgium) - 2001; Rachida by Yamina Bachir Chouikh (France/Algeria) - 2002 ; Au Feu ! (Gori Vatra) de Pjer Zalica (Bosnia/Austria/Turkey/France) - 2003 Mur de Simone Bitton (documentary feature) - 2004 ; Moolaade by Sembene Ousmane (Sénégal) - 2004 ; Noce D'ete by Moktar Ladjimi (France/Tunisie) - 2004 ; Poste Frontiere by Rajko Grlic (Bosnia/Croatia/ Slovenia/Serbia/ Macedonia/ Kosovo/ Austria/Hungary/France) - 2005; Falafel by Michel Kammoun (Lebanon/France).
Jürgen Seidler is the Managing Director of ScriptHouse, Germany's first script development agency, based in Berlin and active in the sector since 1997. ScriptHouse works for producers, TV editorial departments, film subsidy organisations, distributors and, of course, writers and directors.
Jürgen read sociology and politics in Freiburg and Berlin. He graduated from the directing department of the Zurich Drama School. Assistant director at the Freie Volksbühne theatre in Berlin. From 1988 he worked as director at various theatres in Zürich and Berlin. In 1989 he founded the firm Aufbruch Film Produktion together with Dagmar Benke. He produced stories for television, directed various films and acted as director of production. In this time he received a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service to study at UCLA in Los Angeles. From 1994 to 1997 he lectured in the production department of the School of Film and Television in Babelsberg near Berlin.
Jürgen Seidler's speciality areas are script development and co-productions.
Christoph Thoke is a German film producer, based in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main/Germany.
He has worked with acclaimed directors such as Rachid Bouchareb, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Bruno Dumont and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
His films have been officially selected for main competition in Cannes, Venice and Berlin and have been candidates for the Golden Globe Award and the Foreign Oscar nomination.
In total, Christoph's films were invited to more than 440 film festivals and garnered more than 95 awards around the globe.
He recently founded Mogador Film, from where he is going to produce for the local and international market.
Christoph has an extensive experience as tutor, moderator and consultant in teaching programmes and media training, he is member of the German Film Academy and just recently has served on the main jury of the 5th Dubai International Film Festival.
"Exceptional films are those that make us think, that provoke us, move us deeply, or lead us to experience something we've not yet imagined, and those that take us captive and expose us to things we'd otherwise not deal with; but most of all, movies that tell a good story - and thus find resonance within ourselves in ways we've never before conceived."
Since 1995 Ursula has freelanced in various activities in the film industry, at first predominantly on the organisational side, but since 2000 increasingly concerned with creative activities including, most recently, scriptwriting.
From 2004 to 2007 with Lotus-Film GmbH, she was responsible for script development, dramatic consultancy, submissions and financing of Austrian projects and international coproductions.
Since 2008 she has handled freelance work in the areas of script development/dramatic consultancy/producing.
She has been active on various juries, including in the project commission of the Austrian Film Institute.
She also worked on the development of film education programs for children aged 8 to 12 for the Austrian Film Museum.
BABYLON 2017-18 PARTNER LOGOS
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BABYLON ACADEMIC ASSOCIATES
Babylon collaborates regularly with partner orgnanisations, including AHRC-funded Migrant and Diasporic Cinema Research Network
Migrant and Diasporic Cinema Network
Podcast: Gareth Jones/Thierry Lenouvel
Podcast: Gareth Jones/Sarita Malik/Leslee Udwin