Final Portrait Release Plan

A Sony Pictures Classics Release

Final Portrait

About

SYNOPSIS

In 1964, while on a short trip to Paris, the American writer and art-lover James Lord is asked by his friend, the world-renowned artist Alberto Giacometti, to sit for a portrait. The process, Giacometti assures Lord, will take only a few days. Flattered and intrigued, Lord agrees.

So begins not only the story of a touching and offbeat friendship, but, seen through the eyes of Lord, a uniquely revealing insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and, at times, downright chaos of the artistic process. FINAL PORTRAIT is a bewitching portrait of a genius, and of a friendship between two men who are utterly different, yet increasingly bonded through a single, ever-evolving act of creativity. It is a film which shines a light on the artistic process itself, by turns exhilarating, exasperating and bewildering, questioning whether the gift of a great artist is a blessing or a curse.

ABOUT ALBERTO GIACOMETTI

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI sculptor, painter, draughtsman and printmaker, was born near the Italian border of Switzerland in 1901. Giacometti’s father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-impressionist painter who instilled an interest of art in Alberto and his three siblings from a young age. After graduating from the Geneva School of Fine Arts, Giacometti moved to Paris in 1922 to study under Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Here he specialised in surrealism, and rose to success quickly, exhibiting for the first time in 1925. Around this time, it is noted that he began to find the task of copying received reality impossible which became a key theme in his works of art.

In 1927, Giacometti moved into a studio at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron, which was to become his permanent home. His brother Diego joined him there and became his right-hand man. Following his first solo exhibition in 1932, Giacometti began distancing himself from the surrealist movement. His subsequent works from 1936–1940 were primarily sculptures of the human head and sitter’s gaze. These pieces were characterised by having a singular, isolated subject, and being based on models who Giacometti knew personally, such as Diego, friend and artist Isabelle Rawsthorne (née Delber) and his sister, Ottilia. It is said that his sculptures were paper thin because he continually carved away at them trying to make them exactly as he envisioned, a goal he often found to be unachievable.

During World War II, Giacometti left Paris and moved to Geneva where he met his wife Annette Arm in 1943. Upon his return to Paris in 1945, Giacometti began to sculpt his subjective view of the world producing his renowned elongated sculpted figures in 1946 and 1947. Giacometti achieved an international profile between 1948 and 1956. He held exhibitions in London, Paris, Zurich and Basel, he was asked to commission a large public work for the city of New York (which he declined), and he developed his ‘dark heads’ series, which became his quintessential contribution to 20th Century art and the so-called ‘generic’ man concept. In 1956, Giacometti went through an artistic crisis, triggered by his sessions with Isaku Yanihara, a Japanese philosopher who modelled for him. This period lasted for two years until Giacometti met Yvonne Poiraudeau, the prostitute known as Caroline. This marks the start of the final era of Giacometti’s legacy, referred to as the ‘last portraits’.

From 1958 until 1960 Giacometti painted nearly 30 portraits of Caroline. It was in 1964 that the American writer and art dealer James Lord sat for a portrait with Giacometti. The following year, Giacometti made his last sculpture of Diego. His final work was a 150-piece lithograph of all the places that he had lived during in his life.

Alberto Giacometti died in 1966 leaving behind countless half completed paintings and a room described by one reporter as a “repository of repeated failure”.

ABOUT JAMES LORD

JAMES LORD was an American author made famous by his biographies of both Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Born in 1922 to an upper class family, Lord had a difficult upbringing. Despite his articulate writing, his ambitious were often mocked by his classmates and he was expelled from one boarding school. He came out as a homosexual to his father whose response was to send him to a psychiatrist. In 1942, Lord enlisted in the US army and served in the Intelligence Unit before being stationed in Paris after D-day, where a bold phone call led Lord to meet Picasso and his then mistress, Dora Maar.

This was the beginning of a long-time acquaintance between Lord, Picasso and Maar. When Lord returned home following the war, he started at Wesleyn University, but by 1947 he had returned to Paris without a degree. In Europe, Lord resumed his contact with Picasso and spent his time travelling, dealing art and socialising. Lord first met Giacometti in 1952 in Paris’s Deux Magots café. A decade later, Giacometti asked him to sit for a portrait. Lord and Giacometti met for over 18 sittings to both create the portrait, and set the stage for Lord’s memoir, ‘A Giacometti Portrait’, which he published in 1965. In 1966, Giacometti’s death inspired Lord to write a full-biography of the artist, and in 1986, nearly 20 years after Giacometti’s death, Lord published a lengthy biography praising the complicated artist.

Lord died in Paris in 2009.

Cast

Geoffrey Rush

Geoffrey Rush

Alberto Giacometti

Geoffrey Rush, an acclaimed actor who started his career in Australian theater, has appeared in over 70 theatrical productions and more than 20 feature films. The multiple award winning actor, Rush, was catapulted to fame with his starring role in director Scott Hicks' feature Shine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, Film Critics’ Circle of Australia Award, Broadcast Film Critics, AFI and New York and Los Angeles Film Critics’ Awards.

In addition, Rush won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award for his captivating performance as the title character in HBO Films’ The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Philip Kaufman’s Quills, in addition to the Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe nomination for his role in Shakespeare in Love. In 2010, Rush starred in and served as Executive Producer on the Weinstein Company’s The King’s Speech. He won the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor and earned an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and a SAG nomination. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The following year, Rush received an AACTA nomination for Best Actor and FFCA Awards for his performance in The Eye of the Storm. Rush’s upcoming films include the highly anticipated sixth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. He is currently in production on National Geographic’s first scripted series Genius, in which he’ll star as Albert Einstein.

Other film credits include The Daughter, The Book Thief, The Best Offer, Minions, The Warrior’s Way, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, Munich, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Candy, Intolerable Cruelty, Finding Nemo, Ned Kelly, Lantana, Frida, The Tailor of Panama, House on Haunted Hill, Mystery Men, Les Miserables, A Little Bit of Soul, Children of the Revolution, On Our Selection, Twelfth Night, Oscar and Lucinda, Starstruck and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Rush received a degree in English at the University of Queensland then studied at the Jacques Lecoq School of Mime, Movement and Theatre in Paris. Returning to Australia, he starred in the theatre production of ‘King Lear’. He also co-starred with Mel Gibson in ‘Waiting for Godot’. In 2009, Rush won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his acclaimed performance as the ailing king in Ionesco's comedy ‘Exit the King’. Rush recently returned to the stage in Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ at the Sydney Theatre Company. His previous performances include, ‘The Diary of a Madman’ at The Brooklyn Academy of Music, ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’ at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne, and the ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, all of which received rave reviews.

Rush was a principle member of Jim Sharman’s pioneering Lighthouse Ensemble in the early 1980s playing leading roles in many classics. His work on stage was honoured with the Sydney Critics’ Circle Award for Most Outstanding Performance, the Variety Club Award for Best Actor and the 1990 Victorian Green Room Award for his performance in Neil Armfield’s ‘The Diary of a Madman’. He also received Best Actor nominations from the Sydney Critics’ Circle Awards for his starring roles in Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’, Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ and Mamet’s ‘Oleanna’. In 1994 he received the prestigious Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for his work in theatre.

In 2010, Rush founded the Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts Awards for which he currently serves as President. In its fifth year, the awards are considered the Australian Oscars. The voting is decided by members of the Australian Academy, making them the highest achievements in Australian screen society. In 2012, Rush was named Australian of the Year for his contribution to the arts, in addition to being part of the ‘big 4’ in Australia, the four living Oscar Winners. Rush is a nominee for the 30th Annual Green Room Award. Rush is an ambassador for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and UNICEF Australia, as well as patron of the Melbourne International Film Festival. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and their two children.

Armie Hammer

Armie Hammer

James Lord

Armie Hammer has received rave reviews for his role in Luca Guadagnino’s film Call Me By Your Name, opposite Timothée Chalamet. Hammer recently wrapped production on Boots Riley’s film Sorry to Bother You and is currently in production for Mimi Leder’s film On The Basis Of Sex, opposite Felicity Jones.

Earlier this year, Hammer voiced the role of “Jackson Storm” for Cars 3 which released in June. He also starred in Ben Wheatley’s film Free Fire alongside Cillian Murphy and Brie Larson. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, earning the People’s Choice Award for ‘Midnight Madness,’ the film was released on April 21st.

In 2016, Hammer appeared in Tom Ford’s critically acclaimed film Nocturnal Animals alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon, released on November 18, 2016.

In 2015, Hammer starred with Henry Cavill in the spy thriller The Man from U.N.C.L.E., playing Russian spy Illya Kuryakin and American agent Napoleon Solo, respectively. The film was released on August 14, 2015. In 2013, Hammer starred as the title character in The Lone Ranger, alongside Johnny Depp, directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Hammer earned a 2012 SAG Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Clyde Tolson in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar Hoover biopic J. Edgar, with a script by Dustin Lance Black. Hammer starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. The film was released on November 11, 2011.

His performance as the Winklevoss twins in the award-winning film The Social Network garnered him critical praise and positioned him as one of Hollywood’s breakouts of 2010. Hammer was nominated Most Promising Performer by the Chicago Film Critics Association, and awarded Best Supporting Actor by the Toronto Film Critics Association. The film received a SAG nomination for Best Ensemble, as well as a Best Picture Golden Globe. It was also recognized by both Los Angeles and New York Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, National Board of Review and named one of the AFI’s Top 10 Films of the Year.

Tony Shalhoub

Tony Shalhoub

Diego Giacometti

Tony Shalhoub is a Golden Globe Award winning actor with a diverse résumé of roles. He is perhaps best known for his starring role as the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk in the popular television series Monk, for which he won a Golden Globe award and three Primetime Emmy awards.

Additional television credits include Nurse Jackie, Too Big to Fail and Wings, and he will soon be seen in the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel airing in November.

Shalhoub's feature film credits include Big Night, The Siege, Galaxy Quest, Men in Black, Men in Black II, Pain & Gain and The Assignment, opposite Sigourney Weaver. Shalhoub voiced the character of Luigi in the animated films Cars, Cars II and Cars III. Also, he voiced the role of Splinter in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film franchise.

Shalhoub appeared in the theatrical productions of Act One and Golden Boy on Broadway, receiving Tony Award nominations for both. In late 2015 he appeared on Broadway in The Mystery of Love & Sex with Diane Lane, and can currently be seen in The Band’s Visit on Broadway.

Shalhoub currently lives in New York City.

Sylvie Testud

Sylvie Testud

Annette Giacometti

Sylvie Testud is an award-winning, critically acclaimed actress who has been a key figure in French cinema, television and theatre for over 20 years. Testud is currently working on Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria, alongside Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz, as well as Reem Kherici’s Jour J.

Testud has numerous film credits to her name, including roles in the following films: La Vie en Rose (2007) alongside Marion Cotillard, directed by Oliver Dahan; Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes (2009); Diane Kurys’s Sagan (2008); Alain Corneau’s Fear and Trembling (2003); Jean-Pierre Denis’s Murderous Maid (2000); Thomas Vincent’s Karnaval (1999) and Caroline Link’s Beyond Silence (1996). Other film credits include Cera Glagoleva’s Two Women (2014); Audrey Dana’s Sous les Jupes des Filles (2014); Frédéric Schoendoerffer’ 96 Heures (2013); Roselyne Bosch’s La Rafle (2009); Eleonore Faucher’s Gamines (2008); and Niko Brucher’s Maries’ Lied (1994).

Additionally, Testud is an accomplished television actress. On the small-screen she has appeared in Der Lautlose Schrei (2016), Fais Pas Ci, Fes Pas Ca (2014), Les Deferlantes (2013), Les Mains De Roxana (2012) and Lousie Michel (2008).

A published writer with two novels to her name, ‘Cacao’ and ‘Tout un Poeme’, Sylvie Testud has also had an extensive theatre career in France, performing in Le Remplacant at Théâtre Anthéa; L’Amour, La Mort, Les Fringues at Théâtre Marigny; Casimir et Caroline at Théâtre de la Ville; Biographie Sans Antoinette at Max Frisch and La Pitie Dangereuse (Stephan Zweig) at Théâtre de la Croix Rousse. Testud has twice been honoured by the French César Awards, firstly for most promising newcomer in the year 2000 and then again as Best Actress in 2003 for Fear and Trembling. She also took the European Film Award for Best Actress in 2009 for her performance in Lourdes.

Clémence Poésy

Clémence Poésy

Caroline

Clémence Poésy, a native of France, works in the international arena, taking roles on the stage, behind the camera and on the screen.

Recently, Poésy completed two Italian projects, Tito Il Piccolo, directed by Paola Randi, and 7 Minuti, directed by Michele Placido. She made her directorial debut with A Bout Portés, a short film about ballet dancers and was in the cast of Two is a Family, a film directed by Hugo Gélin.

Other past works include Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe’s Le Grand Meaulnes, Olivier Panchot’s Sans Moi, Eric Forestier’s La Troisième Partie du Monde and Denys Granier-Deferre’s Une Pièce Montée. Poésy also starred as Lumi in Ilan Duran Cohen’s Les Amants Du Flore in 2006, Joan of Arc in Philippe Ramos’ historical film Jeanne Captive in 2011, and with André Dussolier and Melvil Poupaud in Nicolas Pariser’s Le Grand Jeu in 2015.

Poésy’s English language film roles include David Farr’s The Ones Below, Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges and on the Canal + sky Atlantic series The Tunnel, opposite Stephen Dillane. She has also appeared alongside Jim Sturgess in Heartless directed by Philip Ridley, James Franco in Danny Boyles' 127 Hours, and Forest Whitaker and Rupert Friend in Lullaby For Pi directed by Benoit Philippon. Recently, Poésy has worked with Michael Caine in Last Love directed by Sandra Nettelbeck, as well as Marina Hands and élodie Bouchez in Laetitia Masson’s GHB. In 2012, Poésy acted alongside Ben Wishaw in Rupert Goold’s BBC adaptation of Richard II and alongside Eddie Redmayne in Philip Martin’s adaptation of Birdsong. The same year, she made her English language stage debut in Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway before appearing in Paris as the sole performer in a one-woman play Je Danse Toujours in 2013.

Poésy first appeared on stage in 1996 when she was 14. She then began studying drama at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Paris in 1998. Poésy launched her career in France with her performance of Carole Bouquet and André Wilms in the comedy Bienvenue Chez Les Rozes in 2003. It was her performance as Mary Stuart in Gillies MacKinnon’s BBC mini-series Gunpowder, Treason and Plot in 2004 that launched her international career, later leading to her role of Fleur Delacour in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

In addition to acting, Poésy has been an active supporter of Women’s World Wide Web (W4), an online organization dedicated to empowering girls and women around the world; the co-founder of 5x15 Paris, a series of cultural exchanges adopted from the British series of the same name; a contributing author and photographer for the bi-annual British magazine Violet and the face of Chloé's fragrance "Love Story".

Filmmakers

Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci

Writer/Director

Academy Award nominee Stanley Tucci has appeared in over 90 films and countless television shows. He has appeared in more than a dozen plays, on and off Broadway, and has been behind the camera working as a writer, director, and producer. Tucci reached his widest audience yet in the role of Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games franchise. A box office sensation and critical success, the fourth and final installment of the series (Mocking Jay) was released in late 2015.

Tucci was seen on screen in spring 2017 in Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast alongside Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, Luke Evans, Dan Stevens, Emma Thompson and Ian McKellan, where he played Cadenza the grand piano – a new character to the realm, described as a neurotic maestro. Other upcoming projects for Tucci are Feud, an anthology TV series, developed by Ryan Murphy. Feud will center on the rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis during the production of their film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Tucci will play Jack L. Warner, the Canadian-American film executive and president of Warner Bros. Studio; Transformers: the Last Knight, where Tucci will reprise his role as Joshua Joyce; Patient Zero, alongside Natalie Dormer and Clive Standen; and Blue Angel, alongside Addison Timlin and Kyra Sedgwick.

Tucci was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, SAG Award and received a Broadcast Film Critics nomination for his performance in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Furthermore, Tucci won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role in the TV movie Winchell. His performance as the fast-talking tattler, who exposed secrets and scandals, left audience and critics alike singing his praises. Winchell, directed by Paul Mazurksy, provided Tucci with one of the juiciest roles of his diverse career. He also received a Golden Globe for his role in HBO’s Conspiracy. His portrayal of Lt. Colonel Adolf Eichmann delivered a truly petrifying experience, where he often deceived others with his all but friendly smile.

Tucci is also a writer, director and producer. He produced The Canal and was the Executive Producer for Behind the Sun. He premiered the film Blind Date at the Sundance Film Festival – directing, starring, and co-writing this remake of Theo van Gogh’s film of the same name. Another directorial endeavor was USA Films’ Joe Gould’s Secret, which starred Ian Holm as bohemian writer Joe Gould and Tucci as Joseph Mitchell, the famed writer for The New Yorker. The film, set in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1940s, tells the story of the strange meeting with long lasting friendship between Gould and Mitchell, as well as the stories Mitchell wrote about Gould and his life.

Big Night, Tucci’s first effort as co-director, co-screenwriter, and actor on the same film, earned him numerous accolades, including the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, a recognition of excellence by the National Board of Review, an Independent Spirit Award, The Critics Prize at the 1996 Deauville Film Festival, and honors from the New York Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

His second project, The Imposters, a film which he wrote, directed, co-produced and starred in, showed in Official Selection at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures later that year. The 1930s farce starred Tucci and Oliver Platt as a pair of out-of-work actors who find themselves aboard a cruise ship passenger-ed by Steve Buscemi, Alfred Molina, Lili Taylor and Hope Davis.

His work on television includes BoJack Horseman, Metropolis, Fortitude, Bull, Equal Justice, Wiseguy, The Equalizer, thirtysomething and The Street. He also played Captain Hook in ITV’s two-hour drama, Peter & Wendy, alongside Laura Fraser and Paloma Faith. Tucci received Emmy nominations for his work in Murder One, and ER, and an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Monk.

Tucci’s theatre work includes ‘Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune’, ‘Execution of Hope’, ‘The Iceman Cometh’, ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ and ‘The Misanthrope’. He has also performed in a number of off-Broadway plays, at Yale Repertory Theater and SUNY Purchase, where he first studied acting. Tucci made his directorial debut on Broadway with a revival of Ken Ludwig’s ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ starring Tony Shalhoub. The production received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play.

Tucci’s additional film credits include Spotlight, A Little Chaos, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Wild Card, Muppets Most Wanted, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Some Velvet Morning, The Fifth Estate, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, The Company You Keep, Jack The Giant Slayer, Captain America: The First Avenger, Margin Call, Burlesque, Easy A, Julie & Julia, The Tale of Despereaux, Kit Kitteredge: An American Girl, Swing Vote, What Just Happened, The Devil Wears Prada, Shall We Dance, The Terminal, The Life And Death of Peter Sellers, Spin, Road To Perdition, America’s Sweethearts, Sidewalks of New York, A Mid Summer Nights Dream, The Alarmist, Deconstructing Harry, The Daytrippers, Big Trouble, A Life Less Ordinary, Kiss of Death, Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle, It Could Happen To You, The Pelican Brief, Prelude To A Kiss, In The Soup, Billy Bathgate and Slaves Of New York.

The Tucci Cookbook was released in October of 2012 where it reached the New York Times Best Sellers List. Tucci released his second cookbook, The Tucci Table: Cooking with Family and Friends in 2014. The family-focused cookbook includes recipes from Tucci’s traditional Italian roots as well as those of his British wife, Felicity Blunt. Tucci serves on the Board of Directors of The Food Bank for New York City. He resides in London with his family.

Gail Egan

Producer

Gail Egan is a qualified barrister and practiced commercial law at Lincoln's Inn before joining Price Waterhouse Corporate Finance. She later worked for the International Media Group Carlton Communications. In 2000 she formed the independent production company Potboiler Productions with Simon Channing Williams. In 2009 Potboiler Productions joined forces with Slate Films, run by Andrea Calderwood.

Egan has produced or executive produced 20 films including Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner, Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky and Vera Drake; Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener and Blindness; A Most Wanted Man, adapted from John le Carré’s novel and directed by Anton Corbijn, A Little Chaos directed by Alan Rickman, Man About Dog with Paddy Breathnach and Brothers of the Head with Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe.

Most recently, Egan produced Our Kind of Traitor directed by Susanna White and starring Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis and Naomi Harris; and Trespass Against Us, directed by Adam Smith and starring Michael Fassbender, Rory Kinnear and Brendan Gleeson.

Nik Bower

Producer

Nik Bower continues to be a lead financer and producer in the British film industry.

Bower has recently served as executive producer on a number of films in post-production including Felt, directed by Peter Landesman and starring Liam Neeson; Sleepless, directed by Baran bo Odar; Wind River, by first-time director, Taylor Sheridan; Replicas, directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and starring Keanu Reeves and Show Dogs, directed by Raja Gosnell.

Since co-founding Riverstone Pictures in October 2014, Bower has been the executive producer on a number of prestigious films including Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep; Ava DuVernay’s Selma, starring David Oyelowo; and Michael Grandage’s debut feature Genius, starring Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Laura Linney. Prior to Riverstone Pictures, Bower was managing director of the media division of Ingenious Media, where he financed independent films including Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Todd Haynes’s Carol and John Crowley’s Brooklyn as well as major studio motion pictures including Life of Pi, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Fault in Our Stars.

Before joining the film industry over a decade ago, Bower qualified as a barrister practicing intellectual property law before specializing in leveraged acquisitions and project finance with the law firm Allen & Overy.

Ilann Girard

Producer

French film producer Ilann Girard has supervised the financing and distribution of films for over 20 years. Girard is currently in the final stages of production on the Icelandic film Alma and Pan Nalin’s Beyond the Known World. In 2002 Ilann Girad founded Arsam, a film consultation and financing firm, followed by Arsam International in 2003. Since then, Girard has worked on Stéphane Cazes’ Ombline, Barnaby Southcombe’s Anna, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, Billie August’s Goodbye Bafana, Academy Award winning film, March of the Penguin and Christian Volckman’s Renaissance.

Prior to Arsam, Girard was Pandora Cinema’s general counsel, supervised the financing and distribution of international box office hits such as Like Water For Chocolate, Kolya, Shine, Carlos Saura’s Tango and Donnie Darko. Additionally, Girard is a founding partner of Olffi.com, the largest database about public funding for film and television productions, and a board member of the European Film Academy.

Danny Cohen

Cinematographer

Cinematographer Danny Cohen has worked with a variety of directors including Stephen Frears, Lenny Abrahamson, Richard Curtis, Rupert Goold, Tom Hooper, Shane Meadows, Stephen Poliakoff and Dominic Savage on a number of feature films and television dramas.

A member of the British Society of Cinematographers since 2008, Cohen’s credits include This Is England, This is England 1986, This is England 1988, and Dead Man’s Shoes directed by Shane Meadows; for Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech, Les Miserables, John Adams and The Danish Girl; Lenny Abrahamson’s Room; Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn; Richard II directed by Rupert Goold for the BBC; Dominic Savage’s Dive; Adrian Shergold’s Pierrepoint; Steven Poliakoff’s Glorious 39 and A Real Summer; and Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked. Cohen has shot Stephen Frears’ three most recent films: The Program, Florence Foster Jenkins and the forthcoming Victoria and Abdul. His latest film is Disobedience directed by Sebastian Lelio.

Cohen was nominated for a Best Cinematography BAFTA for lighting Les Miserables, an Oscar and a BAFTA for his work on feature film The King’s Speech, and was also nominated for the BAFTA for Best Photography and Lighting: Fiction/Entertainment for his work on Longford.

James Merifield

Production Designer

Emmy-winning production designer, James Merifield, strives to design productions for film, television, commercials and theatre productions. Merifield recently finished working on Breathe, an Andy Serkis film about the life of an adventurous man who is met with an unexpected challenge after becoming paralyzed by Polio.

Merifield’s past works include David Koepp’s Mortdecai, the HBO TV-movie Virtuoso and Richard Laxton’s Effie Gray. Merifield has also designed productions including A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet; Jerusha Hes’s Austenland; The Deep Blue Sea directed by Terence Davies and starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston; and Rowan Joffe’s Brighton Rock with Sam Riley and Andrea Riseborough.

In 2001 Merifield was nominated for his first BAFTA Award for his production design on Channel 4’s The Life and Adventures of Nicolas Nickleby, and in 2008 he achieved critical acclaim and the Emmy Award for outstanding art direction for the BBC’s Little Dorrit.

Merifield, a British native, began his career working with director Ken Russell in various operas and films, and later going on to design Russell’s Lady Chatterley, his first major filmed production designer credit for the BBC in 1993.

Camilla Toniolo

Editor

Camilla Toniolo has been working as a film editor for over three decades. A native of Milan, Italy, she has also taught at Columbia University School of the Arts and NYU Film School.

Toniolo worked for the Italian TV network RAI’s New York bureau at the start of her career in the US. She then moved over to feature filmmaking and has worked with a number of directors including: Jonathan Demme as co-editor on Something Wild; Tom DiCillo on Living In Oblivion, Box Of Moonlight, The Real Blonde and Double Whammy; Stacy Cochran on My New Gun and Boys; on The Night We Never Met for Warren Leight; Douglas McGrath on Company Man, Infamous, His Way and Becoming Mike Nichols; Michael Hoffman on Game Six; as well as working on numerous other titles. Final Portrait marks her second project with Stanley Tucci after Blind Date.

Alongside her work in feature films, she has worked on high profile television projects including In Treatment, a series with Gabriel Byrne; Mildred Pierce, directed by Todd Haynes (the latter two both for HBO); The Red Road for Sundance channel; and two seasons of the TV series Smash. In addition to film editing, Toniolo is a passionate cook and is writing a book entitled ‘The Soccer-Dad Cookbook’.

Liza Bracey

Costume Designer

Liza Bracey has worked in film and television costume design in a career spanning two decades.

Bracey’s most recent projects include Final Score, directed by Scott Mann and starring Dave Bautista and Pierce Brosnan; The Escape, directed by Dominic Savage and starring Gemma Arterton; and Hampstead, directed by Joel Hopkins and starring Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson and James Norton.

Other film credits include Colm McCarthy’s The Girl with all the Gifts, starring Gemma Arterton and Glenn Close; Tom Green’s Monsters: Dark Continent; and Ashes and Spike Island, both directed by Matt Whitecross. Additionally, Bracey has had an extensive career in television including series such as Marcella, Fortitude, Top Boy, Babylon, True Love and Misfits. Bracey started out in the roles of assistant costume designer and costume supervisor for productions such as It’s a Wonderful Afterlife and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, both for Gurindha Chadha, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Derailed, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, Love Actually and Code 46.

Catherine Scoble

Make-up and Hair Designer

Catherine Scoble is a BAFTA winning make-up and hair designer working in film and television drama. Recent credits include TV’s Fortitude starring Sofie Gråbøl, A Streetcat Named Bob, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Luke Treadaway, TV’s Luther with Idris Elba, The Rack Pack, again starring Luke Treadaway and the This Is England series, for which she received her BAFTA award and an additional BAFTA nomination.

Scoble has recently worked on Guerrilla, a series for Sky Atlantic with Idris Elba from director John Ridley (TV’s American Crime).

Reviews

"A captivating portrait of an artist."

OWEN GLEIBERMAN, VARIETY


"Bold and invigorating."

PETER BRADSHAW, THE GUARDIAN


"Undeniably a triumph."

JONATHAN ROMNEY, SCREENDAILY


"Filled with passion, humor and heartfelt sincerity."

ALEX ARABIAN, AWARDSCIRCUIT.COM