Credits

DIRECTOR/WRITER  Michael Hoffman
PRODUCERS Chris Curling, Jens Meurer, Bonnie Arnold

Biography

Chris Curling (producer)
 
Chris Curling is a respected independent producer based in London with excellent connections throughout Europe and North America. In 1990 he founded his own company, Zephyr Films, which specializes in the financing and production of feature films for the international market. In the last ten years he has acted as producer, executive producer and co-producer on over twenty films with combined budgets of over $275,000,000.

Following completion of Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station, Chris has worked as executive producer on Gurinder Chadha’s It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, which recently finished principal
photography in London, and on Black Death from director Chris Smith, which just completed principal photography in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.
 
2008 saw the release of Gillian Armstrong’s Houdini film Death Defying Acts, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce, and Penelope, with Christina Ricci, James McAvoy and Reese Witherspoon. Other recent releases include a trio of films that Chris co-produced with The Dino De Laurentiis Company and Tarak Ben Ammar’s Quinta Communications. Hannibal Rising, The Last Legion and Virgin Territory had combined budgets in excess of $150,000,000 and were shot in the Czech Republic, Slovakia/Tunisia and Italy respectively.

Chris was also executive producer on David Mackenzie’s Asylum for Paramount, and associate producer on Mike Binder’s film The Upside of Anger for Media 8 and Fine Line. In addition, Chris was a co-producer on Richard E. Grant’s directorial debut Wah-Wah. 
 
Chris is a member of the British and European Film Academies, the European Producer’s Club and ACE. He also serves on PACT’s film committee and BSAC’s Co-Production working group.

Jens Meurer (producer)
 
Jens Meurer was born in 1963 in Nuremberg, Germany. In 1975, he moved with his parents to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he grew up and went to High School, before he returned to Germany and received his High School diploma in Dachau in 1983. In the same year, he began working in film production as a production driver and production assistant in Munich. Jens also worked as a journalist for South African newspapers, and as a music composer for theatre, while studying Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford University in England, where he graduated in 1987. In 1988, Jens received a post-graduate degree in Political Science at "Sciences-Po" in Paris, and a M.S. in Journalism at Columbia University New York. 
 
He returned to Munich in 1990 to work at Dialog Filmproduktion as a producer and director, where he spent three years on a 35mm documentary series on the Soviet Union (Beyond The Kremlin Walls and Im Osten was Neues), co-producing with Leningrad Documentary Film Studio and GDR TV.
 
In 1993, Jens founded his production company Egoli Films, and directed a number of cinema documentaries short films, and TV series. In 1995, he received the European Academy Award
Felix as "European Documentary Filmmaker of the Year".
 
His company merged with Tossell Pictures in 2001 to create a bigger, more prolific production company, Egoli Tossell Film AG. Since that time, the company has opened several subsidiaries all over Germany and produced more than 60 films.

Bonnie Arnold (producer)
 
Her interest in journalism led Bonnie Arnold to her first professional entertainment industry assignment as the unit publicist for American Playhouse’s debut production, King of America. Following that, Arnold began working with several independent filmmakers’ groups and helped to promote the Atlanta Independent Film and Video Festival.  In addition, she oversaw a touring showcase of independent films, sponsored by the American Film Institute.  Her efforts to arrange financing for independent ventures influenced her decision to pursue a career as a producer.
 
In 1984, Arnold worked on her first major Hollywood film as a production coordinator for Neil Simon’s The Slugger’s Wife. She went on to serve as the production coordinator for the U.S. portions of Peter Weir’s The Mosquito Coast. While working in a similar role on Leader of the Band, she met David Picker, who invited her to work with him at Columbia Pictures. Assignments as a production supervisor on such films as Hero, Stars and Bars, The Mighty Quinn, and Revenge followed. Her association with Kevin Costner and her reputation for managing complex productions led to her work on the Oscar®-winning epic Western Dances with Wolves.
 
Shortly after that, Bonnie Arnold began her animation career in 1992 when she was hired by Walt Disney Pictures to produce the landmark computer-animated feature Toy Story (1995), the first film in their joint venture with Pixar, and in 1999 the Disney blockbuster Tarzan followed. In addition she produced the 2006 release of Over the Hedge for DreamWorks, featuring the voices of Bruce Willis and Garry Shandling. Bonnie Arnold is currently producing the DreamWorks Animated feature How to Train Your Dragon, scheduled for released in March 2010.