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Eva Birthistle
Eva Birthistle was born in 1974 in Dublin. Her family
moved to Northern Ireland for a few years but she returned
to Dublin for her acting training at The Gaiety School of
Acting. Although the school concentrated mainly on theatre
acting, upon graduating, Eva worked in short films and got
a part in one of Ireland's long running TV soaps, Glenroe.
Other TV work followed, until she was offered her first feature
film in 1997 All Soul's Day by Alan Gilsenan, closely
followed by more feature films and TV. She has been based
in London since 2000 and has also starred in David Blair's
MYSTICS alongside Milo O'Shea and David Kelly. She
has just completed playing the lead, Roisin, in Ken Loach's
Ae Fond Kiss, which filmed in Glasgow. She has also
recently teamed up with director Alan Gilsenan on Timbuktu,
their second film together.
Karl Geary
Owner of such trendy downtown night spots as "The
Scratcher" and the now defunct "Sin-E",
Karl migrated to the U.S. at the age of 15 and later won a
green card in the visa lottery. Karl has extensive TV experience
ranging from SEX &THE CITY for HBO to THE
PAINTED LADY for Granada television. While living in
New York Karl has also worked in theatre (WHAT THE BUTLER
SAW) and is a founding member of the Dublin Booksellers
Theatre Company. His film career has seen him teaming up with
director Michael Almereyda for a number of productions including
NADJA, TRANCE and the Miramax production of HAMLET.
Karl has just completed Alan Gilsenan's feature TIMBUKTU.
George Jackos
A talented actor equally at home on stage and screen George
Jackos has extensive television experience and has worked
for the BBC (Silent Witness, Judge John Deed), Yorkshire
Television (Heartbeat) and Granada (Runaway Bay)
in the UK. He has enjoyed a successful film career to date
starring opposite Charlie Sheen in NAVY SEALS and
Sean Bean in ESSEX BOYS. Most recently George has
completed TIMBUKTU a feature set in Morocco and directed by
Alan Gilsenan. His theatre credits to date include among many
others a role in A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE at the
Crucible theatre.
Sean Campion
Sean Campion has enjoyed considerable success as a theatre
actor on both sides of the Atlantic for over ten years. From
early roles in Macbeth at the Abbey Sean went on to tour with
STONES IN HIS POCKETS for which he was nominated
for a Tony award in 2001. His television career has include
work for Channel 4 (Lifeguard) and RTE (Glenroe).
More recently Sean has starred in a number of features including
GOLDFISH MEMORY and Alan Gilsenan's TIMBUKTU
the opening film of the Dublin International Film Festival
2004.
Liam Ó Maonlai
Liam Ó Maonlai is best known as a singer with the internationally
renowned music group Hothouse flowers. He is a recognized
exponent of the sean nos style of singing native to Ireland.
He is a fluent speaker of the old language. He has explored
the music and traditions of other ancient cultures in particular
those of the aboriginal people of Australia and the Koteka
of West Papua. His acting experience comes from school and
university days. He starred in 'Án Gial' Brendan Behan,
produced and directed by Fiach Mac Congaile. He appeared in
'the Burke enigma' - an early RTE detective series with
John Kavanagh and Ray MacAnally. He is soon to appear in a
new American production 'the Busker' by Stephen Croake
and also in the feature film TIMBUKTU directed by Alan Gilsenan.
Alan Gilsenan: (Writer/Director)
Gilsenan initially made a number of award-winning documentary
films about Ireland: THE ROAD TO GOD KNOWS WHERE (Special
Jury Prize, 1989 European Film Awards), STORIES FROM THE
SILENCE (both of which won two Jacobs Television Awards),
PROPHET SONGS and BETWEEN HEAVEN AND WOOLWORTHS.
Next he made the documentary series GOD BLESS AMERICA
for ITV Network. These were six hour-long, highly personal
portraits of U.S. cities through the eyes of American authors
- Gore Vidal's Washington DC, Neil Simon's New York, Scott
Turow's Chicago, Marsha Hunt's Philadelphia,
Patricia Cornwell's Richmond and Garrison Keillor's Minneapolis
and Saint Paul.
Last year, Alan Gilsenan won an IFTA (Irish Film & Television
Academy) Award and Best Feature Documentary at the Celtic
Film Festival for THE GHOST OF ROGER CASEMENT, a
documentary on the life of English knight and executed Irish
rebel Roger Casement, which revealed the results of a forensic
examination into the infamous Black Diaries.
Gilsenan's film drama includes Samuel Beckett's EH
JOE, the award-winning short film ZULU 9, and an experimental
feature film ALL SOULS' DAY, both of which he also wrote.
He has just completed a new feature film shot in North Africa
entitled TIMBUKTU.
Gilsenan also directs for the theatre. His productions include
the world premiere of Tom Murphy's THE PATRIOT GAME
and ON THE OUTSIDE/ON THE INSIDE for the Abbey; the
Irish premieres of Jean Genet's THE BALCONY and Tennessee
Williams' SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS; and most recently
his own adaptation of John Banville's novel THE BOOK OF
EVIDENCE at the Gate Theatre.
Alan Gilsenan is Chairperson of the IRISH FILM INSTITUTE,
and a member of the IRISH FILM BOARD.
Paul Freaney (Writer)
Paul Freaney has worked in documentary. He has written a number
of screenplays. He runs the Masters Programme in Scriptwriting
at the National Film School at Dun Laoire Institute. He lives
in his own head, where his lovely wife and children often
visit him.
Martin Mahon (Producer)
Martin Mahon graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1984.
He then worked as film critic and journalist with The Sunday
Tribune, The Irish Times and In Dublin magazine amongst others.
In 1986, he founded Yellow Asylum Films with Alan Gilsenan
and has produced all Yellow Asylum's creative documentaries
to date: The Road To God Knows Where, Prophet Songs, Between
Heaven And Woolworths and Stories From The Silence. The
films have been described by The Irish Times as "stunning
poetic documentaries which have shattered Irish taboos with
incredible accuracy". The films have twice won Jacobs
Awards and have been broadcast on television throughout the
world and seen at Festivals ranging from Derry to New Dehli,
San Francisco to Berlin.
Martin was the Programme Director of the Dublin Film Festival
from 1992 to 1997, during which time he brought to Dublin
film-makers such as Krzysztof Kieslowski, Theo Angelopoulos,
Oliver Stone, Bertrand Tavernier, Terry Gilliam, Aki Kaurismaki,
Abel Ferrara and Chuck Jones.
He made his directing debut in 1996 with the short drama
The Condom (which he also wrote), described as "witty
and well-sustained" by The Irish Times and "brilliantly
executed" by Film Ireland, and since then has directed
three other 35mm. short films, The Big Match, Another
Day and Happy Birthday To Me, the latter selected
for Official Competition in the 1998 Cannes Film Festival,
the first Irish film to ever receive this accolade.
He also wrote the screenplay for a feature-film, Hill
16, developed with the support of Bord Scannan
na hÉireann/Irish Film Board, then finished two more
feature scripts, Dirty Talk and Swan Song, and most recently Nutcraker and Parnell Street.
Timbuktu is his first feature as producer.
John McDonnell (Producer)
John McDonnell has had a varied career in the areas of Film,
Television and music over the last 20 years, having worked
as Producer, Production Manager, Production Supervisor, Assistant
Director and Location Manager.
His credits range from 'My Left Foot' to 'Braveheart',
'In the Name of the Father' to 'The Devil's Own'.
Fantastic Films was set in the year 2000
to develop and produce Feature films, Short films and television
series. The company's first production was 'The Making
of A Prodigy', a short film for The Irish Film Board/RTE,
which has gone on to win seven international awards. John's
first feature film as a producer is 'Song for a Raggy
Boy', directed by Aisling Walsh. 'Raggy Boy'
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and has gone on to
win ten international awards including the Golden Swan for
best film at the Copenhagen Film Festival and both the Jury
and Audience Award for best film at the Amiens Film Festival.
Fantastic Films recently completed 'The Struggle', a 1 hour
documentary broadcast on RTE as part of the Hidden History
strand.
John recently produced Alan Gilsenan's 'Timbuktu' and the
short film 'Close' due for completion in March 2004. Fantastic
Films currently has a slate of four feature films in development.
Emma Scott (Producer)
Emma co-founded the production company Liquid Films in Dublin
in 1992, with an aim to develop high quality feature films
for the international market. During that time she successfully
raised development and production funding from The Irish Film
Board as well as script and company development loans from
Media and Scale. Liquid Films first feature film production
entitled "Micha" was filmed in St Petersburg,
Russia. This was followed by another feature, a Kees Kasander
co-production entitled "Crushproof". Liquid
Films went on to produce "I Could Read The Sky"
which won considerable critical acclaim.
In conjunction with feature film production, Emma also ran
a very successful stills advertising company, producing international
fashion and commercial shoots for, amongst others, Vogue,
Marie Claire, RayBan, Armani, Selfridges, Mango, Ralph Lauren
and many others.
Emma then went on to work independently on feature film productions
for companies such as Hallmark, Universal, BSkyB Films and
on Neil Jordan's epic "Michael Collins".
She has worked with many international stars including Mike
Myers and the Oscar-nominated actress Joan Allen.
In 2000 Emma became Head of Production in a busy Dublin production
house, where she oversaw completion on "When The
Sky Falls" (starring Pete Postlethwaite), and production
on the Fruit Salad/Irish Screen feature "SW9"
shot on location in Brixton. In 2002 Emma joined MR Film Productions
and co-produced the recently released feature film "Mystics",
starring Eva Birthistle, Milo O'Shea and David Kelly.
Emma also produced the feature "Timbuktu" which
shot on location in Morocco in 2003. She is now in development
on several projects for MR Films.
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