From acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Memento) comes the story of Will Dormer (AL PACINO), a veteran LAPD detective who travels to a small Alaskan town with his partner Hap (MARTIN DONOVAN) to investigate the disturbing murder of a seventeen year-old girl.
Under the glare of the region’s perpetual daylight, Dormer and Hap close in on the primary suspect, reclusive novelist Walter Finch (ROBIN WILLIAMS). During a tense stakeout on a rocky, fog-shrouded beach, Finch slips into the mist and out of Dormer’s grasp. As he makes his escape, shots ring out…and Hap is killed.
As he struggles to cope with his sense of responsibility and remorse over his partner’s death, Dormer is forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the brilliantly malevolent Finch. The stakes escalate as Dormer contends with an unproven but perceptive local cop (HILARY SWANK) and becomes increasingly entangled in Finch’s web of manipulation.
Unable to find respite from the relentless Midnight Sun or his own distorted judgment, the dangerously sleep-deprived detective finds his stability gravely threatened.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Alcon Entertainment present a Witt/Thomas Section Eight Production of a Christopher Nolan film, the suspense thriller Insomnia starring AL PACINO, ROBIN WILLIAMS and HILARY SWANK. The film also features MAURA TIERNEY, MARTIN DONOVAN, NICKY KATT, JONATHAN JACKSON and PAUL DOOLEY.
Directed by CHRISTOPHER NOLAN from a screenplay by HILLARY SEITZ, Insomnia is produced by PAUL JUNGER WITT, EDWARD L. MCDONNELL, BRODERICK JOHNSON and ANDREW A. KOSOVE.
The executive producers are GEORGE CLOONEY, STEVEN SODERBERGH, TONY THOMAS, KIM ROTH and CHARLES J.D. SCHLISSEL. The director of photography is WALLY PFISTER; the production designer is NATHAN CROWLEY; the film editor is DODY DORN; and the casting is by MARCI LIROFF.
Insomnia will be distributed domestically by Warner Bros. Pictures, an AOL Time Warner Company.
This film has been rated R by the MPAA for "language, some violence, and brief nudity."
www.insomniamovie.com / AOL Keyword: Insomnia movie

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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Will Dormer is a good cop. A seasoned LAPD detective, Dormer has seen it all – murder, brutality, corruption – yet he remains unflinchingly committed to his mission: solving crimes and catching the criminals who commit them.
When his partner is killed during the course of a homicide investigation in a remote Alaskan town, a grieving Dormer is forced into a compromising relationship with the primary suspect, Walter Finch, that gradually undermines his judgment and threatens his psychological stability...and quite possibly his entire career.
"Dormer and Finch have a highly combustible relationship," notes Academy Award-winning actor Al Pacino, who portrays the deeply conflicted detective. "Finch is pushing and pulling and enjoying the chase. The question in the film is: How much will the audience identify with Dormer’s predicament? The hope is that the audience will identify with Dormer, and think to themselves, ‘What if I had a subconscious wish and it came true?’"
In addition to combating Finch’s mind games, Dormer faces an unexpected challenge presented by the unfamiliar environment. "Will Dormer arrives in this northern Alaskan town during Midnight Sun, when the sun literally does not set for twenty-four hours a day," director Christopher Nolan explains. "Like a lot of people who travel to this region, Dormer’s body clock wreaks havoc on him and he’s not able to sleep comfortably. As the story develops, he faces progressively intense psychological pressure that compounds his inability to sleep, and this begins to cloud his decision-making ability. His insomnia is a physical representation of the psychological struggle that becomes increasingly significant as the story progresses."
Originally presented in the 1997 Norwegian film Insomnia, this premise and the protagonist’s unique predicament intrigued producers Paul Junger Witt and Ed McDonnell, who began developing an American version of the story with screenwriter Hillary Seitz. "Like Christopher Nolan, we loved the original film," Witt says, "but we viewed it as so culturally specific that we knew our version would not be a traditional remake or a literal translation."
After spending a year researching the fictional Alaskan town of Nightmute and carefully crafting the characters and story, Seitz delivered a draft that captured the attention of Alcon Entertainment co-founders and co-presidents Andrew A. Kosove and Broderick Johnson. "What initially attracted me to Hillary Seitz’s screenplay was her subtle but evocative portrait of Will Dormer, a flawed character who is presented with a very real, compelling dilemma," Kosove says. "I was also intrigued by the duplicity of the film’s title and the theme that light plays in the story."
Equally compelled by Seitz’s script, Nolan screened Memento for the Insomnia producers and the Warner Bros. Pictures creative team, who were duly impressed by the young writer-director’s meticulously assured storytelling and filmmaking. "From the time we saw Memento," says Witt, "there was only one director we wanted, and that was Christopher Nolan."
"Christopher’s command over his vision for the material was very impressive," says producer Broderick Johnson. "His confidence that he can enact what he envisions and his ability to create a distinct visual style and really well-developed characters convinced us that he could bring to Insomnia the kind of originality and conviction that he demonstrated in Memento."
Memento, Nolan’s stylish thriller about murder, memory loss and revenge, differs from Insomnia in terms of its structure. "While Memento unfolds in reverse story order, Insomnia follows the main character on an intensely linear journey," Nolan muses. "You experience Will Dormer’s increasing struggle with his inner demons, his increasing struggle against his lack of sleep and his progressively dangerous relationship with the suspected killer. I very much wanted to pull them through this crazy descent with Dormer, so you always understand his actions and you sympathize with him in some sense even as he moves into very questionable territory."
Executive producers Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney were similarly impressed by Nolan’s Memento and his take on Insomnia, and put their considerable support – and their Section Eight production company – behind the project. "Memento is such a mature piece of work, especially for a second film, I was blown away by it," Soderbergh enthuses. "Insomnia is a terrific companion piece to Memento, because they’re both very subjective films that take you inside the central character’s experience. Christopher puts you in Will Dormer’s head in the same way that he entrenches you in the protagonist’s point of view in Memento."
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Director Christopher Nolan and the Insomnia producers began their casting process with discussions about who could best portray veteran LAPD Detective Will Dormer. "It was very clear to me that casting Al was the most interesting way of approaching this material. He’s played so many great cops through the years, from Serpico to Sea of Love to Heat, and we were able to really use that history and that identification the audience has with his iconic cop image to play against expectation," Nolan says.
Adds producer Kosove: "Al makes a lot of films set against an urban backdrop, and he’s closely associated with New York and New York-based movies, so it was a very compelling choice to cast him in a role that thrusts him into the wilderness."
"I’ve never played a character like Will Dormer," Pacino says. "He’s a romantic character, and a much different kind of cop than I’ve ever portrayed. There is diversity amongst real-life cops, just as there is diversity in any cross-section of society; my hope is that if you compare all of the characters that I’ve played, whether it’s Frank Serpico in Serpico or Vincent Hanna in Heat, that they all come across as distinct individuals."
When Nolan and Pacino met to discuss the role, "We really saw eye to eye about the approach that we wanted to take in terms of this character and how he moves through the story," Nolan reveals. "Will Dormer is an incredibly complex character that requires an actor who’s able to project a kind of moral intelligence that is essential to the plot. Al brings moral complexity and depth to this character that it would not otherwise have had."
Pacino appreciated the strength of Nolan’s vision. "I immediately felt very comfortable with Chris," he says. "It was very clear, right from the beginning, that he understood deeply what he was doing and was always open to anything that would happen. I had a lot of confidence in him, which helped me a great deal in my performance. I was with him one hundred percent."
Nolan also has high praise for Pacino’s disciplined intensity. "Al delivers an incredibly subtle performance in this film. With the slightest nuance – just a look or a small gesture – he conveys the most complex human struggle. It’s phenomenal, that kind of restraint."
"Dormer has a gradual deterioration in his alertness and his ability to make decisions," Broderick Johnson explains. "However, the film was shot out of sequence, so we would shoot a scene where he’s very alert, and then skip ahead to film a scene where he hasn’t slept for five days. Al always knew where the character was emotionally at every single moment, a feat which requires greatness from both actor and director."
For the role of Walter Finch, the mild-mannered crime fiction writer who emerges as a cunningly manipulative murder suspect, the filmmakers opted to cast against type. "Although he is traditionally considered a comedy star, we loved Robin’s dramatic work in films like Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poet’s Society and of course, his Oscar-winning performance in Good Will Hunting," says Kosove. "And we felt it would be quite compelling to cast him as this shrewd, reserved killer."
"We’d been looking for somebody to play opposite Al who is not only a tremendous actor, but who also has a similar kind of audience identification with his star persona," Nolan says. "As the story progresses, we wanted to have two larger-than-life characters confront each other in this twisted psychological cat-and-mouse game. When I met with Robin and realized how clearly he understood Finch, it was very exciting to know that he was going to fit this character like a glove."
"There aren’t any flashy comedic moments in this film," producer Ed McDonnell attests. "Robin brings a very quiet, single-minded strength to Finch as he forces Dormer to forge a relationship with him."
Williams was drawn to the material by Dormer and Finch’s complex relationship and their psychological battle for control over an increasingly chaotic situation. "Normally there’s a good cop pursuing a bad cop but the interesting twist about Insomnia is that the moral high ground is quickly lost and the story moves into a more ambiguous area," Williams observes. "The characters face off in this moral gray zone, playing this lethal game of one-upsmanship. When you add that kind of stress to being in this unfamiliar place where it’s basically light twenty-four hours a day, how does that affect you mentally? That is what made this film so interesting to me."
The actor was also attracted to the opportunity to play against convention and explore his lifelong admiration for detectives, police, and the world of criminal investigation. "It’s exciting to play a character as despicable as Walter Finch," Williams reveals. "You’re free to explore darker things like the seductiveness of evil – or the banality of it."
"Walter Finch is a man who has drifted across the line and has found himself comfortable with that," Steven Soderbergh comments. "He’s such a withdrawn, interior character, and to see Robin Williams in that state is oddly compelling. Walter is trying to control himself, to be normal, while struggling with so much on the inside. Robin plays this dichotomy perfectly."
"When Robin was cast, it took the project up a notch," says Pacino. "He had a real appetite to play this character – it’s always fun when an actor has an appetite."
During the filming process, local crowds as well as cast and crew observed the interaction between the irrepressible Williams – who periodically made forays into the crowd to sign autographs and take photos with fans – and the intensely private Pacino.
"Yeah, it was Mr. Method versus Mr. Anything," quips Williams. "We would both come at it from different angles, like two different styles of jazz, but we were both looking for the same kind of unusual approach to the unexpected, and then we would usually hit it about the same time."
"Working with Robin was just a joy," enthuses Pacino, "not only because he’s a lot of fun, but also because he’s a very intelligent person. He’s so easy to work with because he knows how to be sensitive to your needs as an actor."
"Robin loves to hang around the set and make the whole crew laugh and be around the process throughout production, whereas Al has a more interior sort of process. He’ll go off to one side to get himself ready and then return in character," Nolan adds. "But the thing that continually amazes me about great actors is how wonderfully they are able to mesh with other actors, how they can approach their work from completely different directions, and yet interact in the most wonderfully constructive way."
Hilary Swank’s character, ambitious but unproven local detective Ellie Burr, appears in sharp contrast to Pacino’s tormented cop and Williams’ calculating murder suspect. "Ellie is enthusiastic, dedicated and talented, but she also tends to be overlooked by her peers, even though she made detective at such a young age," Swank relates.
"Ellie is a very tricky character to pull off because she has to be young and innocent, a little bit wide-eyed and a little bit green, but at the same time she projects an intelligence, strength and a dedication to duty that indicates that she’s going to grow beyond her youthful naïveté," Nolan elaborates. "Just as importantly, she has to be believable as a cop in this small town in Alaska. Hilary has the most extraordinary ability to convey the different sides of a character like Ellie and, in addition to her talent as an actress, she also has a look and a physicality to her that lends credibility to the character."
"The role was a challenge for me in terms of playing a character who doesn’t require going through any kind of physical transformation," says Swank, who followed her Oscar-winning turn in the searing sexual identity drama Boys Don’t Cry with her starring role in Alcon Entertainment’s lush historical drama The Affair of the Necklace. "I felt naked, in a way, as Ellie Burr, because she was so open and present in everything she did."
Eager to forge a relationship with Dormer, Ellie gradually earns his respect, but in so doing learns more about herself and her hero than she ever expected. "Over the course of the film, Ellie is forced to confront, question and try to reconcile her respect and adulation for Dormer with the reality that he may not be as infallible as he seems," Nolan relates. "She’s ultimately forced to examine how these contradictions are going to affect her in her future as a police officer."
"Ellie expects that her idol is going to teach her to be this amazing detective, but instead she ends up learning far more through his human failings," Swank says. "Everybody has a hero and it’s a painful lesson to learn that they are human and can make mistakes."
Swank admits that her real life experience in working with Pacino in some ways reflects her character’s arc in the film. "I have learned so much from him just in observing his approach to acting and to his role. There is a parallel between that experience and Ellie’s learning curve with Will, so it worked out perfectly."
Martin Donovan plays Hap Eckhart, Dormer’s longtime partner, who travels with him to Alaska to investigate the disturbing murder of a teenage girl. "Will’s got this instinctual nature about him," Martin Donovan says. "He’s a brilliant investigator and I don’t think Hap has the same intellect. Will has all the power in the relationship, but early on in the film, Hap asserts himself and the tables turn in an unexpected way."
"It’s a very well-written relationship in that you find the whole history of these guys in an effortless way," Donovan continues. "It just unfolds really beautifully and has a wonderful arc. All of those issues are raised about the complexities of being a cop, the ambiguities of which lines can and cannot be crossed."
Will finds an unexpectedly sympathetic ear in Rachel, the manager of the lodge where Will and Hap stay in Nightmute, played by Maura Tierney. "Rachel is an empathetic person, someone who doesn’t sit in judgment of other people," Tierney says. "She and Will have a very fleeting relationship, but it’s a trusting one. He can’t sleep and Rachel is often up all night, and he confides in her. I think that sometimes it’s easier – and safer – to be with a stranger than with someone you know."
Jonathan Jackson, who came to national attention for his Daytime Emmy-award winning work on the soap opera General Hospital, plays Randy Stetz, the boyfriend of the murdered teen who becomes a patsy in Finch’s malevolent game.
"Randy’s a tough, smartass kind of guy who doesn’t want to be pushed around by the cops, but Pacino’s character already has something over him so there’s an immediate intimidation factor. Randy has to strike a balance between being slightly threatened by the situation but also being unable to show it."
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ABOUT FILMING INSOMNIA
Although Insomnia is set against the sprawling beauty of British Columbia and Alaska, director Christopher Nolan and director of photography Wally Pfister – who also served as the cinematographer on Memento – crafted a shooting style that captures the breadth of the larger-than-life landscape, while at the same time remaining focused on the characters. "We created intimacy by keeping the camera with the main character, something we did very much with Memento and continued with Insomnia," Pfister explains. "The camera always stays with Will Dormer, either traveling in front of him or behind him or revealing his point of view. In this way, the audience explores the unfamiliar landscape with him, and they feel the light piercing through the windows as he desperately tries to sleep."
Light – specifically, Alaska’s seasonal phenomenon known as Midnight Sun – plays a major thematic role in the story. "Wally and I wanted to convey this sense of an omnipresent light," says Nolan, "that seeps in everywhere and is a constant reminder of danger, guilt and the threat of exposure."
Pfister was particularly intrigued with the creative challenges involved in crafting and executing the film’s ambitious lighting design, which needed to achieve a seamless blend of both thematic and practical lighting. "Light, and how light affects Will Dormer, is such an integral part of the story, we viewed it as a fourth character," Pfister says. "I felt an enormous amount of pressure but at the same time a creative excitement in using the light in this way, because it became this entity that taunts Dormer throughout the story."
The theme of light was also expressed in the design of the sets themselves. "We wanted to keep the interiors dark, both to contrast with the constant, intense daylight of the exteriors and because a darker palette looks better on film," production designer Nathan Crowley relates. "So we used enamel paint on our sets, which bounces light onto walls and into dark corners."
Principal photography on Insomnia took place in British Columbia over a period of 53 days from mid-April through the end of June 2001. The speed and efficiency with which the production completed its compacted schedule was due in no small part to the talented crew and the close collaboration between Nolan and Pfister.
"Chris and I established a very fast working rhythm together on Memento," says Pfister, who not only is the film’s director of photography, but also operated the camera during shooting. "We more or less work in shorthand. I know exactly what sort of thing Chris is looking for and he trusts me in the execution."
Trust is key to the success of their collaboration – Nolan must often rely on Pfister to frame shots, because he prefers to position himself by the camera with the actors, as opposed to watching the action unfold on a video monitor. "The increasing convention is for the director to stand away from the action, watching the scene unfold on the monitor and then reviewing it on playback," Nolan observes. "I don’t use a conventional monitor and I don’t use playback. I like to stand by the camera and really watch what the actors are doing with my own eyes, because when you blow up their performances on the big screen, you see so much more than you could ever see on a monitor."
Nolan used a small handheld monitor to reference Pfister’s shot framings. "That technique was very liberating because then I was able to be by the camera, face-to-face with the actors, talking about what they’d just done and what we might want to explore in the scene," says Nolan, who prefers to listen to the actors rehearse and shoot without the aid of headphones. "Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank are actors who express so much through the most subtle expressions and gestures, and those moments are what you build the film on in the editing room, so you really need to see everything while you’re filming, in order to be able to discuss it with them."
Hilary Swank appreciated the director’s hands-on approach. "Christopher Nolan collaborated with the cast and crew in a really beautiful way," she says. "He is so attentive and present in every moment, and he has a strong vision for what he wants, but at the same time he’s very interested in other people’s opinions and has a great rapport with the actors and the crew."
"Christopher Nolan is a consummate filmmaker and a true leader," adds producer Broderick Johnson. "His method of working in the trenches with the cast and crew energized everyone on the set. There’s a camaraderie and a certain confidence that the actors have in him which normally develops over a long career. Christopher has already achieved that level of skill and confidence."
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As shot by Nolan and Pfister, Insomnia contrasts the gritty realism of Alaska’s industrial logging towns and pulp mills with the pristine beauty of the surrounding wilderness and magnificent mountain landscape.
The film’s opening sequence – shot in part at the Columbia Glacier near Valdez, Alaska – depicts a wide silver floatplane soaring high above a stunning glacier. On board, Detective Will Dormer studies a case file while his partner Hap Eckhart gazes out the window as the plane clears the glacier to reveal a spectacular coastline and valley below. Finally, the small aircraft touches down at the docks of a pulp mill belching gray smoke that hangs like drapery between the mountains.
"We wanted to open the film with a suitably majestic landscape that evokes the sense of peculiar dislocation that these two cops from Los Angeles would feel when thrust into this setting," Nolan explains. "But we also wanted to avoid presenting small-town Alaska as simply quaint or petrified. Instead, we tried to portray the contradiction of the region’s natural beauty and incredible scenery with the modern utilitarian reality of people living in that kind of environment."
After scouting various locations in Alaska and British Columbia, Nolan and the filmmakers selected the small logging town of Squamish, located approximately 40 minutes from Vancouver, to represent the fictional town of Nightmute, where Will Dormer’s murder investigation primarily takes place. The production utilized practical locations within the town of Squamish, including the police station, the hunting lodge where Will and Hap stay during their investigation, and the high school, where Dormer first interrogates murder suspect Randy Stetz, played by Jonathan Jackson.
Filmed over a two-day period, the interrogation scene gave Jackson an intriguing first hand look at Pacino’s method of keeping the intense scene challenging for his young co-star. "We probably performed that scene about forty times," Jackson explains. "During each take, Al would do something different – he would change lines to throw me off, and towards the end of the day even started singing off camera, which I loved."
For a scene depicting the funeral of the young murder victim, the production team appropriated a finger of land just outside the town known as "The Spit." Widely acclaimed as the most popular wind surfing spot in British Columbia, The Spit is framed by a waterfall across the inlet and a famous vertical rock face known as "The Chief," which dominates the area. By layering the sandy ground with turf and adding rock walls, greenery and shrubs, the Insomnia crew transformed The Spit into an aged windswept cemetery.
Port Alberni on Vancouver Island was chosen to serve as the fictional town of Unkumuit, where reclusive crime novelist Walter Finch resides. It is here that the filmmakers staged one of the most dramatic action set pieces of the picture, in which Will Dormer pursues Finch across a dangerous logjam of swiftly moving timber at a sprawling pulp and paper mill.
"Designing the setting for that chase sequence was a little bit daunting," recalls Nathan Crowley. "We found a local contractor who built a moving log boom and we put in some docks, with a lot of help from the people at the pulp mill. We needed literally thousands of background logs to achieve the look we were after."
"It’s not your typical pursuit, where one guy chases another guy over a chain link fence," Robin Williams attests. "It was a dangerous sequence to shoot, even for the stunt guys. This seemingly endless convoy of heavy logs are moving so fast, they’ll crush you to death if you can’t find your way out of the water – which is freezing. And it’s like a curtain of darkness underwater, because light barely bleeds through the logs."
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Filming at the film’s more remote and rugged locations also presented the filmmakers with unique production challenges, and shooting on the rocky beach where the detectives’ stakeout of the murder suspect goes horribly awry proved difficult. Situated on the site of a huge landslide, at the edge of a wilderness inlet near Vancouver known as Indian Arm, the area is extremely steep, littered with jagged rocks and loose stones. "It was a magnificent but difficult location," admits Crowley. "And it was one of the hardest to find – an expanse of giant rocks next to the water, which is what we needed in order to shoot huge shapes looming through the fog. Chris and I understood that it was probably not someplace where anyone in their right minds should go."
The location demanded that the entire production – including trailers – be housed on large floating barges, which had to be towed to shore after wrap each night, resulting in a complex all-night tugboat marathon. But in spite of the tortuous terrain, filming was completed without incident, other than a great many sore muscles and a few scraped knees.
Perhaps the greatest adventure for the production was in finding the location for the movie’s climactic final sequences, which take place at Walter Finch’s lakefront home and nearby boathouse. The scenes were staged on a frozen lake in the mountain valley of Bear Glacier, situated near the tiny hamlet of Stewart, B.C. on the northwest Alaskan border.
"When we scouted the location in April it was all frozen solid," reports Crowley. "You couldn’t even see the edge of the lake and we were up to our waists in snow. We came back with carpenters and dug holes all over the place until we found solid ground, then we brought in equipment to shovel snow out of the way and waited for the lake to thaw in order to install the boathouse portion of the set."
"The biggest challenge with the lake house was to figure out what was dry land because that changes every year. Eventually we built the whole thing on stilts and put siding on it in case it flooded. Another issue was the glacier itself because every time ice breaks off the glacier it creates a one foot wave in the lake which comes over and floods the place, thus creating a whole new set of problems." In the end the company had to build protective log booms in the water surrounding the set, to hold back the icebergs being cleaved from the glacier and stop them from smashing into the set.
Then there were the logistical and practical challenges in trying to find accommodations for about 160 people in a town with a population of only 500. A former mining town that fell on hard times with the closure of the mines, the residents of Stewart pitched in with great enthusiasm in order to provide lodgings for the cast and crew. In the end, there still wasn’t enough room for everybody, so the principal actors, as well as make-up, hair and wardrobe personnel were housed on three yachts.
But the company’s one-week stay in the remote location – known for its frequent avalanches – provided more of an adventure then had been anticipated. On the second day of filming in hot and sunny weather, an ominous rumble was heard in the mountains just above the small roadside park where all the production trailers were housed. As everybody looked up in amazement, the rumble soon turned into an impressive roar and an avalanche poured right down the mountain, finally stopping just short of a clearing that housed all of the production vehicles, including a helicopter. A few days later, another avalanche threatened to wipe out the set, but the thunderous cloud of snow and dirt came to a halt just short of the lake.
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ABOUT THE CAST
AL PACINO (Will Dormer) is an eight-time Academy Award nominee. After having received four Best Actor nominations for ...And Justice For All, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico, for which he also earned a Golden Globe Award, Pacino’s portrayal as Lt. Colonel Frank Slade in Scent Of A Woman won him a Best Actor Academy Award and Best Actor Golden Globe Award.
Pacino has been thrice nominated by the Academy as Best Supporting Actor for his roles as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy (he won a 1990 American Comedy Award for this role), and as Ricky Roma in David Mamet’s screen adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross.
Pacino recently starred in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday, opposite Cameron Diaz; The Insider, Michael Mann’s project about the tobacco industry, opposite Russell Crowe; and in Chinese Coffee, a film that Pacino directed, starred in and produced. Pacino also starred as Richard III in Looking for Richard, a meditation on Shakespeare’s Richard III, which he conceived and directed and for which he received the Outstanding Directorial Achievement for a Documentary award from the Directors Guild of America. Pacino also recently appeared in Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco, co-starring Johnny Depp and Devil’s Advocate with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron.
Other film credits include Two Bits with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; Heat for Warner Bros. Pictures, starring with Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer; co-starring with Jon Cusack and Bridget Fonda in City Hall; and Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way. Additional credits include Frankie & Johnny, The Godfather, Part III, Sea of Love, Revolution, Scarface (written by Oliver Stone), Author! Author!, Bobby Deerfield and Scarecrow, for which he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. Pacino also produced, starred in and co-directed the independent film adaptation of the play The Local Stigmatic, presented in March 1990 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Public Theatre. Pacino made his film debut in 1971 in The Panic in Needle Park.
Pacino attended the famed High School of the Performing Arts while working part-time as a theater usher. After studying with Herbert Berghof and later with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, Pacino made his professional acting debut in Off-Broadway productions of The Connection and Hello, Out There. He then won an Obie Award for Israel Horovitz’s The Indian Wants the Bronx.
Pacino has two Tony Awards for his starring roles in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Does A Tiger Wear A Necktie? He is a longtime member of David Wheeler’s Experimental Theatre Company of Boston, where he has performed in Richard III and in Bertolt Brecht’s Arturo Ui. In New York and London he acted in David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Also in New York he appeared in Richard III and as Marc Antony in Julius Caesar at the late Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre.
During the spring and summer of 1994, Pacino appeared in repertory at Circle in the Square. He presented the New York debut of Oscar Wilde’s Salome and the premiere presentation of Ira Lewis’ Chinese Coffee. He directed and starred in Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie, which opened in early July 1996 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and moved to Circle in the Square in New York, where it continued its run through the end of August.
Pacino won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Independent Feature Project (IFP) at their 1996 Gotham Awards. Upcoming projects for Pacino are Simone, The Farm and Gigli. Pacino is currently working on Angels in America with Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep, directed by Mike Nichols.

ROBIN WILLIAMS (Walter Finch) is one of the most gifted and abundantly talented actors of our time. He is the recipient of the 1997 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for bringing compassion and intelligence to the part of Dr. Sean McGuire in Good Will Hunting, a role for which he also received the Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.
Williams first captured the attention of television audiences with his guest-star role as Mork on the hit situation comedy television series Happy Days. His rapid fire, sharply hilarious yet heartfelt portrayal won him instant stardom, with viewer response so great that he was quickly signed for the now-legendary spin-off series Mork and Mindy.
In 1980, Williams made the leap to feature films, debuting in Robert Altman’s Popeye. Audiences then embraced a more poignant Williams in his portrayal of T.S. Garp in George Roy Hill’s hugely successful The Word According to Garp, followed by Paul Mazursky’s Moscow on the Hudson. Barry Levinson’s landmark film Good Morning Vietnam earned Williams his first Academy Award nomination, with Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society, an enormous critical and popular success, bringing him a second Oscar nomination.
Williams next starred opposite Robert De Niro in Penny Marshall’s Awakenings, followed by Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, for which Williams received his third Academy Award nomination. He additionally starred in Barry Levinson’s Toys, Steven Spielberg’s Hook, and Mike Nichols’ The Birdcage.
Williams received a Golden Globe Award for his unforgettable performance in Chris Columbus’ Mrs. Doubtfire and also earned a Special Achievement Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his vocal contributions as Genie in Walt Disney Pictures now-classic animated blockbuster feature Aladdin.
In 1996 E! Entertainment Television named Williams "Celebrity of the Year" for his singularly outstanding feature film career, which now includes the immensely successful Flubber and the 1998 box office hit Patch Adams, directed by Tom Shadyac. In 1999 Robin Williams executive produced and starred in Blue Wolf Productions’ Jakob The Liar, a story of life in a Nazi occupied Polish ghetto. In 2000 Williams re-teamed with director Chris Columbus in the screen adaptation of the Isaac Assimov story Bicentennial Man. Most recently, Williams starred in Danny De Vito’s dark comedy Death To Smoochy.
Born in Chicago in 1951, Williams attended high school in Marin County, California, where he was known for his natural comedic talents. In his senior year, his classmates voted Williams "Most Humorous" and "Least Likely to Succeed."
After a short stint studying political science at Claremont Men’s College in Southern California, Williams entered College of Marin to study theatre. His innate comedic and dramatic skills led to his acceptance at The Julliard School in New York, where he spent three years under the tutelage of acclaimed actor John Houseman and other noted professionals. In 1998 he performed on stage with co-star Steve Martin in Mike Nichols’ off-Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Williams, who began his career as a stand-up comedian, has won four Grammy Awards, including one for Robin Williams Live at the Met on HBO, the culmination of a 23-city SRO tour. He also won Emmy Awards for the television specials, Carol, Carl, Whoopi and Robin and ABC Presents a Royal Gala. He is also active in several humanitarian organizations, and has been a primary force in Comic Relief, a benefit to aid the homeless, which has raised American consciousness and 50 million dollars to date.

HILARY SWANK (Ellie Burr) won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry. In addition to the Oscar, Swank won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama and Best Actress prizes from the New York Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics and the Broadcast Film Critics.
A native of Bellingham, Washington, Swank made her feature film debut in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer uttering the immortal line, "That’s so five minutes ago." Swank then starred as the title character in The Next Karate Kid. In Sam Raimi’s acclaimed thriller, The Gift, Swank played a pivotal role opposite Cate Blanchett and Keanu Reeves. Swank most recently starred in the Academy Award-nominated romantic drama Affair of the Necklace.
Swank currently lives in New York and recently completed production on The Core, in which she stars opposite Aaron Eckhart.

One of the brightest acting talents to emerge in recent years, Maura Tierney (Rachel Clement) is currently gracing television screens every week on the top rated NBC series ER, for which she just received her first Emmy nomination. Prior to joining the cast of ER, Tierney spent four years on the critically acclaimed NewsRadio.
Tierney has successfully managed to juggle both television and film careers, starring in such films as Instinct opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. and Forces of Nature with Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock. Additionally, she earned critical praise for her role in Primary Colors as well as for her work opposite Jim Carrey in the smash hit Liar Liar. Tierney was most recently seen in the independent dark comedy Scotland, PA opposite Christopher Walkin and James LeGros, which premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Her additional film credits include Primal Fear, The Temp, White Sands and Oxygen.
On stage she has been seen in productions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and The Bald Soprano at the Boston Globe as well as Baby with The Bathwater, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Talking With and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean at New York University.
Born and raised in Boston, Tierney currently divides her time between Los Angeles and New York.

A respected and accomplished actor, Martin Donovan (Hap Eckhart) is best known for his work in such feature films as Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady, for which he won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor; The Opposite of Sex, directed by Don Roos; and screenwriter Richard LaGranvanese’s directorial debut, Living Out Loud.
Donovan has enjoyed a long association with celebrated director Hal Hartley, appearing in several of his films, including Book of Life, Amateur, Trust, Surviving Desire, Simple Men and Flirt. Donovan’s additional feature credits include The Pornographer: A Love Story, In A Savage Land, Onegin, Heaven, Hollow Reed and Nadja. Donovan will next be seen in The United States of Leland with Kevin Spacey and Lena Olin.
Donovan most recently starred in the Fox series Pasadena, the highly rated telefilms Amy & Isabelle, The Great Gatsby opposite Mira Sorvino, and HBO’s When Trumpets Fade. Donovan made his television series regular debut in the critically acclaimed drama series Wonderland.
Originally from Reseda, California, Donovan studied acting at the American Theater of Arts in Los Angeles, where he appeared in numerous plays. Donovan is married, has two children.

NICKY KATT (Fred Duggar) will be seen next in Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal, playing an actor depicting Hitler.
Katt recently appeared opposite Taye Diggs, Juliette Lewis, Benicio del Toro and Ryan Phillippe in Academy Award-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie’s directorial debut Way of the Gun. He scored raves starring with Giovanni Ribisi in the zeitgeist Wall Street drama The Boiler Room and joined Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson in the William Friedkin thriller Rules of Engagement.
Katt’s breakthrough role in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused led to such diverse roles as the one-armed villainous clerk in Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation; an obsessed psychopath in The Babysitter; the redneck antagonist in Joel Schumacher’s A Time To Kill; the hot-headed xenophobe in Linklater’s SubUrbia; Renee Zellwegger’s ambitious attorney boyfriend in One True Thing and the sociopathic hitman in Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed thriller The Limey. Katt made his series television debut on David E Kelley’s Boston Public.
Katt also recently starred in and executive produced Adam Goldberg’s independent feature Scotch and Milk, which garnered rave reviews at the 1998 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. A short film he produced and starred in, director Henry Griffin’s Mutiny, premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win Best Short Honors at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Seattle Film Festival and the South by Southwest Film Festival.

PAUL DOOLEY (Chief Charles Nyback) is a distinctive character actor with dozens of credits in film and on television. Dooley won the National Board of Review award in 1979 as Best Supporting Actor in Breaking Away and was Emmy-nominated as Outstanding Guest Actor for The Practice and HBO’s Dream On.
Film credits include Robert Altman’s Health, A Wedding, A Perfect Couple and Popeye; John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles; Steven Soderbergh’s The Underneath; Christopher Guest’s Waiting For Guffman and Garry Marshall’s Runaway Bride. With roots in the Second City comedy troupe, Dooley also co-created the acclaimed children’s television series The Electric Company.
JONATHAN JACKSON (Randy Stetz) began his acting career at the age of 11 with almost instant success. Several national television commercials preceded his lauded role as Luke and Laura’s son "Lucky Spencer" on ABC’s General Hospital. Jackson’s performance has earned him three Emmy Awards (1995, 1998, and 1999) as well as three additional Emmy nominations (1996, 1997, and 2000). He also received two Soap Opera Digest Awards (1995 and 1999) and four Hollywood Reporter Youngster Awards (1995, 1997, 1998, and 1999).
In 1999, critics applauded Jackson’s performance in Deep End of the Ocean, in which he co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams. His film credits also include a starring role in Camp Nowhere, the lead role in two ABC television movies, Trapped In A Purple Haze and The Legend of the Ruby Silver and the lead role in the Showtime movie The Prisoner of Zenda, Inc.
Additionally, Jonathan and his brother Richard Lee Jackson recently co-wrote, scored and directed the short film Crystal Clear which won three awards in the Brooklyn Film Festival including best dramatic short, a Coen Brothers Award for Duo Filmmakers, and Best Actor for the lead actor.
Jackson’s recent film credits include co-starring with Treat Williams and Linda Hamilton in the thriller Skeleton’s in the Closet, a featured role in the independent feature True Rights and a lead role in On The Edge. Jackson will next be seen opposite Sissy Spacek and Ben Kingsley in Disney’s Tuck Everlasting.
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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

London-born director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN (DIRECTOR) has been making films since the age of seven, when he picked up his father’s super 8mm camera. In 1989, his surreal short Tarantella was shown on PBS and in 1996, his short Larceny screened at the Cambridge Film Festival.
Nolan’s first feature film, Following, which he wrote, directed and co-edited in 1998, won the Best Director Award at the Newport International Film Festival, the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Silver Hitchcock award at the Dinard British Film Festival and the Black & White Award at the Slamdance International Film Festival. That success, in turn, brought attention and financing to the writer/director’s next endeavor, Memento.
Written and directed by Nolan, Memento became a critical and popular triumph, garnering dozens of awards and nominations. Salient distinctions include: the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director and Best Screenplay, the Sundance Film Festival Award for Screenwriting, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay, the AFI Film Award for Screenwriter of the Year, the Directors Guild of America nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Screenplay and an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.
Insomnia is the first produced screenplay for HILLARY SEITZ (Writer). Seitz recently completed work on Taking Lives for Warner Bros. Pictures and director Tony Scott. Seitz has plans to start work this summer on a new project teaming her with producer Scott Rudin and director David Fincher. Seitz lives in Los Angeles.

PAUL JUNGER WITT (Producer) is a partner in Witt-Thomas Productions, which has been responsible for many of the most successful television series in history, including Soap, the multiple-Emmy-winning The Golden Girls, Benson, Empty Nest, Beauty And The Beast, Blossom, Nurses and The John Laroquette Show.
Witt received an Emmy Award for producing the classic television movie Brian’s Song. He also produced the 10 other telefilms, as well as the series The Partridge Family and The Rookies.
Witt’s feature films include the memorable Dead Poets Society, which received an Oscar for Best Screenplay and a nomination for Best Picture; Final Analysis, starring Richard Gere and Kim Basinger and the critically and commercially successful Three Kings, which starred George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.

EDWARD L. McDONNELL’s (Producer) most recent credits include MGM’s Original Sin starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas and Warner Bros. Pictures’ A Walk To Remember, starring Mandy Moore and directed by Adam Shankman.
McDonnell was a producer on the action drama Three Kings, one of 1999’s most critically acclaimed films, which was an official entry in the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. As President of Steven Seagal’s company, Seagal-Nasso Productions, McDonnell was also involved with the feature films Out for Justice, Under Siege, On Deadly Ground and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. In 1996 McDonnell joined Witt-Thomas Films. McDonnell’s Maple Shape Productions is currently shingled at Warner Bros. Studios.
Alcon Co-Presidents ANDREW KOSOVE and BRODERICK JOHNSON (Producers) draw from common professional goals and a shared alma mater, Princeton University, where they were classmates beginning in 1989. Kosove graduated magna cum laude with a joint degree in Politics and Economics. Johnson, who earned his degree in Economics, later worked as a quantitative analyst for Saloman Brothers in New York.
After working together in various capacities in the motion picture industry, Kosove and Johnson founded Alcon Entertainment in January 1997 with financial backing from a private investor. Alcon Entertainment, which is named after the ally of Hercules (a mythological archer who never missed his target), is primarily dedicated to financing the development, packaging, and production of feature length theatrical motion pictures.
Kosove and Johnson have produced the family film sensation My Dog Skip, the hit comedy Dude, Where’s My Car?, Lost & Found and the Academy Award-nominated The Affair of the Necklace.

GEORGE CLOONEY’s (Executive Producer) creative inclination behind the camera underscores his experience and acclaim as an actor. Clooney’s feature directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, in which he will also star, is slated for December.
Most recently, Clooney starred in Steven Soderbergh’s hugely successful Ocean’s Eleven, in Wolfgang Peterson’s box-office blockbuster The Perfect Storm and in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Golden-Globe nominated O Brother, Where Art Thou? He won the 2000 Golden Globe Award as Best Actor in Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy – for his performance in O Brother.
Clooney earned unified critical acclaim for his role as Sergeant Major Archie Gates in the award-winning drama Three Kings, and his previous feature film credits include starring roles in The Peacemaker and Batman & Robin. Clooney also starred in the romantic comedy One Fine Day and the vampire thriller From Dusk Till Dawn.
Clooney first collaborated with Soderbergh when he starred as fugitive bank robber Jack Foley in the Oscar-nominated Out of Sight, a film adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s best-selling novel. He is partnered with Soderbergh in the film production company Section Eight, which produced the dark comedy feature Welcome to Collinwood, to be released on Sept. 13. Clooney is not only a producer on the film, but he has a cameo as well. Clooney also stars in Soderbergh’s Solaris, which is currently in production.
Clooney also develops television projects. He executive produced and starred in a live television broadcast of Fail Safe, which was nominated for a 2000 Golden Globe Award as Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. The Emmy-award winning telefilm was based on the early 1960s novel of the same name. He is known to television audiences for his Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, People’s Choice and Emmy-nominated portrayal of Dr. Douglas Ross on ER.

STEVEN SODERBERGH (Executive Producer) not only works behind the camera as a director but behind the scenes as a producer for a variety of projects. In 2000, Soderbergh and George Clooney formed Section Eight, a film production company based at Warner Bros. which has produced the upcoming Welcome to Collinwood for Warner Bros. Pictures, Far From Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes, and Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of Chuck Barris’ book Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, directed by and starring George Clooney with a cast that includes Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts for Miramax.
Soderbergh’s other credits as producer include The Daytrippers and Pleasantville and as an executive producer on Suture and Godfrey Reggio’s upcoming Naqoyqatsi, the final installment of the non-narrative films that make up the Qatsi Trilogy, beginning with Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi.
Soderbergh is the only director to have two films nominated for Best Picture and Best Director in the same year. His Academy Award for Best Director of Traffic marks the first time since the 1928/29 Awards that a director has successfully competed against himself (Frank Lloyd for Divine Lady. Michael Curtiz, a double nominee for Best Director in 1938 for Angels With Dirty Faces and Four Daughters lost to Frank Capra for You Can’t Take It With You).
Traffic also received Oscars for Editing (Stephen Mirrione), Supporting Actor (Benicio del Toro) and Adapted Screenplay (Stephen Gaghan). The film’s fifth nomination was for Best Picture (Laura Bickford, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick).
In addition to Soderbergh’s Best Director nomination for Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts received the Best Actress Academy Award. The film’s other nominations were for Best Supporting Actor (Albert Finney), Best Original Screenplay (Susannah Grant) and Best Picture (Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher).
Last year, Soderbergh directed the hugely successful ensemble caper Ocean’s Eleven. His additional directing credits include The Limey, Out of Sight, Gray’s Anatomy, Schizopolis, The Underneath, King of the Hill and Kafka.
In August, his contemporary comedy Full Frontal, which was shot during eighteen days using a combination of digital videotape and film, will be released by Miramax.
Currently, Soderbergh is directing the science-fiction thriller Solaris from his own screenplay adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s novel, starring George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies and Viola Davis.

TONY THOMAS (Executive Producer) entered the feature film arena in 1984 as a producer of Firstborn, starring Teri Garr and Peter Wellar. In 1989, Thomas and partner Paul Junger Witt produced Dead Poets Society, which met with resounding critical success and captured an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Witt-Thomas Films’ 1992 release, Final Analysis, starring Richard Gere and Kim Basinger was also a critical and commercial success.
For 25 years, Thomas was a prolific producer of comedy programming on television. With partners Witt and Susan Harris, their company is best known for such long-running, popular series as ABC’s Soap and Benson and NBC’s The Golden Girls, Empty Nest and Nurses. Witt and Thomas also produced NBC’s Blossom and The John Larroquette Show, Fox’s Herman’s Head and the critically acclaimed CBS drama series, Beauty and the Beast, which along with The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Soap and Benson, has received numerous Emmy Awards and Golden Globes.
Witt and Thomas first teamed together as Producer and Associate Producer, respectively, on the Emmy Award-winning 1971 television movie Brian’s Song.
For the past few years, Thomas has devoted himself exclusively to serving on the Board of Directors and raising funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which his late father, Danny Thomas, founded 40 years ago. Tony Thomas and his family are carrying on the tradition of supporting the research center. He is active in many events throughout the country to benefit St. Jude, which is internationally recognized as the only bio-medical research center dedicated exclusively to finding the cures for catastrophic diseases of childhood including pediatric cancer, AIDS and sickle-cell. The annual Hollywood Gala for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which Thomas co-hosts with his sisters Marlo and Terre, raises a million dollars each year. The premiere for Insomnia will also benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

KIM ROTH (Executive Producer), an Imagine Entertainment vice-president of motion pictures, joined the Academy Award-winning production company in 1999 after more than 10 years with Witt-Thomas Productions. Roth has recently served as an executive producer on the upcoming Undercover Brother, directed by Malcolm Lee, due out in May 2002.
While at Witt-Thomas, Roth co-produced the acclaimed hit Three Kings, directed by David O. Russell. She also contributed to the films Mixed Nuts, Final Analysis, and Dead Poet’s Society while working for Paul Witt.

CHARLES J. D. SCHLISSEL (Executive Producer) studied film and media at the University of Washington and San Francisco State University before he was accepted into UCLA and moved to Los Angeles to complete his college education. To pay his way through school, Schlissel worked on independent films, rock videos, commercials and also did legal research for an entertainment law firm where he interpreted documents for diverse entertainment professionals, including Marlon Brando and Orson Welles.
Schlissel graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with an emphasis on International Finance and Arbitrage. He was then accepted into the American Film Institute’s Producing Program. After two months at the AFI, he was offered a job by Mel Brooks as his assistant on Space Balls. After its production wrapped, Schlissel worked as a production assistant and then began working in development for producer Stuart Cornfeld.
Schlissel then moved to Barry Levinson’s and Mark Johnson’s newly formed Baltimore Pictures as Director of Development. After two years, Schlissel was promoted to Head of Production and immediately undertook the task of completing post-production on Academy Award-nominated Avalon. During his time at the company, Schlissel oversaw production on numerous high-profile features including Bugsy, Toys and Kafka. Schlissel produced his first feature film, Sniper, just as Baltimore was ending its deal with TriStar Pictures.
Leaving Baltimore Pictures, Schlissel became an independent producer with credits that include Heavyweights, While You Were Sleeping and Celtic Pride. He was involved with the development of the Superman project when Tim Burton was attached to direct. Most recently, Schlissel executive produced Red Planet.

Director of Photography WALLY PFISTER has most recently received wide acclaim for his work in the critically hailed hit feature Memento. Pfister previously garnered the Best Cinematography award at the 1999 Santa Monica International Film Festival for the indie feature The Hi Line. In fact, it was his work on that film which caught the attention of director Chris Nolan and led to their collaboration on Memento.
Pfister started out as a news cameraman covering Capitol Hill in the 1980’s and then moved into shooting documentaries. He subsequently won two Emmys for separate episodes of Frontline for PBS.
After enrolling at the American Film Institute to pursue feature film work, his thesis film Sen-Zen Ni-Na was nominated for an Academy Award in the short film category in 1991.
Pfister’s other credits include director Billy Morrissette’s Scotland,PA, which appeared in competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. He has also worked on such features as Rhapsody In Bloom, Rustin, A Kid In Aladdin’s Palace, Stranger By Night and the telefeature Breakfast With Einstein. Pfister’s next feature will be Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon starring Frances McDormand and Christian Bale.
Production Designer NATHAN CROWLEY’s most recent credits include the 20th Century Fox feature Behind Enemy Lines and Barry Levinson’s comedy Everlasting Piece.
A native of London, England, Crowley’s credits include the feature Sweety Larrett for Hand Made Films. He also worked on the hit BBC Television series The Ambassador and its sequel. Additionally, he completed the telefeature Falling For A Dancer, also for the BBC.
Crowley honed his craft while working as an Art Director on such box-office hits as Mission Impossible II, The Devil’s Own and Braveheart. Additional feature credits include Assassins, Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, Maverick and Dangerous Games.
He began his career by working as a set designer on Steven Spielberg’s Hook and on the television series Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

DODY DORN’s (Editor) wealth of experience as an editor culminated last year when her work on the avante-garde independent sensation Memento garnered her nominations by the Academy for Best Editing, the AFI Film Award nomination for AFI Editor of the Year, the American Cinema Editors nomination for Best Edited Feature Film-Dramatic and won the Best Editing award from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society.
Also last year, Dorn’s editing work on the ABX mini-series Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows brought her an Emmy nomination for Best Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special as well as a nomination for Best Edited Motion Picture for Commercial Television from the American Cinema Editors.
Dorn’s work as a sound editor was rewarded in 1989 when Dorn shared with Blake Leyh the Golden Reel Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors for Best Sound in The Abyss.

MARCI LIROFF (Casting) extensive credits as a casting director span more than 50 films. While working at the renowned casting office of Fenton-Feinberg she cast such films as Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story and Porky’s; the Academy Award-nominated Poltergeist; Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. After establishing her own casting company in 1983, Liroff’s other film credits include the smash hit Footloose, Joel Shumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire and Howard Deutch’s Pretty in Pink.
Recent credits include Jack Frost, The Iron Giant, Ready To Rumble, Summer Catch, Cats & Dogs, Hardball and View From the Top.
Liroff also associate produced and cast The Crush and Untamed Heart and
co-produced and cast The Spitfire Grill.

Costume Designer TISH MONAGHAN’s work was most recently seen in the hit feature Cats & Dogs. Monaghan also designed for the films Happy Gilmore and Distant Thunder, amongst others.
Monaghan is credited as Assistant Costume Designer on such films as Say It Isn’t So, Snow Falling On Cedars, Cousins, The Accused and Roxanne. Additional feature credits include Bad Company and We’re No Angels.
A native of British Columbia, Monaghan received her Fine Arts Degree in Theater from the University of Victoria, majoring in Costume and Set Design. She subsequently received her Costume Diploma from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
Her recent television credits include the Fox mini-series Sole Survivor and the CBS mini-series Aftershock. She also worked on the Spelling series The Heights and has completed numerous telefilms.