ALEXANDER

OLIVER STONE (Writer/Director) has worked as a school teacher in Vietnam, a Merchant Marine sailor in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, a taxi driver, a messenger, a production assistant, and a sales representative for a sports film company, all of these in New York City. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. He was wounded twice and decorated with the Bronze Star for Valor. After returning from Vietnam, he completed his undergraduate series at New York University Film School in 1971.

Stone has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards as a screenwriter, director and producer. He has won Oscars for writing Midnight Express and as director for both Born on the Fourth of July and Platoon. He has also received three Golden Globes for directing (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and JFK), one for writing (Midnight Express) and was nominated for Best Director for Natural Born Killers and co-writing for Nixon.

Stone is a contributor of some 200 pages of essays on movies, culture, politics and history as published in the book Oliver Stone’s USA. His first novel was published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press entitled A Child’s Night Dream, based on Stone’s experiences as a young man.

His documentary film Persona non Grata, a series of conversations with current and past Israeli and Palestinian leaders and militants, debuted on HBO in the spring of 2003. Comandante was controversially shelved by the cable network, which then broadcast Stone’s second documentary about Castro, Looking for Fidel, in April 2004.

Stone has directed the feature films Any Given Sunday (‘99), U-Turn (‘97), Nixon (‘95), Natural Born Killers (‘94), Heaven and Earth (‘93), JFK (‘91), The Doors (‘91), Born on the Fourth of July (‘89), Talk Radio (‘88), Wall Street (‘87), Platoon (‘86), Salvador (‘86), The Hand (‘81) and Seizure (‘73).

His writing credits apart from his directed films include: Midnight Express, Scarface, Conan the Barbarian, Year of the Dragon and Evita.

His producing credits are: The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Joy Luck Club, Reversal of Fortune, Savior, Freeway, South Central, Zebrahead, Blue Steel and the ABC mini-series Wild Palms. Apart from his directed films, as a producer Stone has won an Emmy for the HBO film Indictment: The McMartin Trial and was nominated for the documentary The Last Days of Kennedy and King.

CHRISTOPHER KYLE’s (Screenwriter) other film credits include K19: The Widowmaker and The Weight of Water, both directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Currently he is adapting Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City for C/W Productions and Paramount.

Mr. Kyle is also the author of several plays, most notably Plunge and The Monogamist, both of which premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. His most recent play, The Safety Net, will premiere in January 2005 at the Broken Watch Theatre in New York. A former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, Mr. Kyle has been commissioned by Amblin’/Dreamworks Entertainment and the Charles H. Revson Foundation and his plays have been honored with the Stanley Drama Award and the Morton R. Sarett Memorial Playwriting Award.

Christopher Kyle is a native of Terre Haute, Indiana and is a graduate of Indiana State and Columbia Universities. He lives in Nyack, New York.

LAETA KALOGRIDIS (screenwriter) is an established feature writer whose recent film work includes X-Men, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Scream 3. Kalogridis also created the television series Birds of Prey.

She is currently writing the feature projects Wonder Woman, Pathfinder, and The Lone Ranger.

THOMAS SCHÜHLY (Producer) was head of production for the major German production companies Rialto-Film (Berlin), Taurus-Film (Munich), Iduna-Film (Munich) and chief executive officer of Constantin Film Produktion. His credits as producer or executive producer have included such international productions as The Triumph of Love starring Mira Sorvino and Ben Kingsley; Der Totmacher; the two part La Revolution Francaise starring Peter Ustinov, Klaus Maria Brandauer and Sam Neill; Terry Gilliam’s critically acclaimed The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose starring Sean Connery; Carl Schenkel’s Out of Order (Abwarts); Gerard Oury’s Ace of Aces starring Jean-Paul Belmondo; Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Veronika Voss and Lola; Theater in Trance and Die Generalprobe. He also produced the landmark German mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz as well as Via Mala, another mini-series.

Among Schühly’s honors was a Fellini Award as European Producer of the Year, the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Veronika Voss, a German National Award for both Out of Order (Abwarts) and Der Totmacher, with the latter film also taking the Coppa Volpi at the Venice Film Festival.

JON KILIK (Producer) has collaborated with a wide range of auteur directors to create a body of work with an emphasis on human values and social issues. In 1988, Kilik began his partnership with Spike Lee and has gone on to produce 11 of Lee’s films, including Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, Clockers, Girl 6, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, Bamboozled, and most recently, 25^th Hour.

Kilik produced Robert De Niro’s highly acclaimed directorial debut, A Bronx Tale, based on the play by Chazz Palminteri. In 1995, Kilik produced Tim Robbins’ Academy Award winner Dead Man Walking, based on Sister Helen Prejean’s account of her work with Louisiana death row inmates, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. He also produced Julian Schnabel’s directorial debut, Basquiat, starring Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Bowie as Andy Warhol. Next, he teamed with Gary Ross and Steven Soderbergh to produce Ross’ directorial debut, Pleasantville, featuring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. He produced Tim Robbins’ Cradle Will Rock, the sweeping account of the many worlds that collided in New York City in 1937 while Orson Welles mounted his most challenging Broadway production.

In 2001 Kilik produced Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls, based on the autobiography of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, starring Javier Bardem, winner of the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards and the National Board of Review. Kilik also produced Ed Harris’ directorial debut, Pollock, starring Harris as American painter Jackson Pollock and Marcia Gay Harden, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as Lee Krasner. Kilik produced Skins, directed by noted Native American filmmaker Chris Eyre, starring Graham Greene and filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

IAIN SMITH (Producer) was born in Glasgow in 1949 and graduated from the London Film School in 1971. He worked in London for several years before returning to his native Scotland to make My Childhood, for the British Film Institute, the first of the award-winning trilogy by the late Bill Douglas.

He formed his own production company in partnership with Jon Schorstein and produced television commercials, documentaries, children’s feature films and low budget dramas, and in 1978 production managed Bertrand Tavernier’s Deathwatch. A year later he joined David Puttnam and Hugh Hudson to make the Academy Award-winning Chariots of Fire.

He went on to line produce a variety of films for David Puttnam including Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero starring Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster, Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields starring Sam Waterston and Dr. Haing S. Ngor, and Joffe’s The Mission starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons. He also produced Brian Gilbert’s The Frog Prince.

In 1987 Smith formed Applecross Productions and went on to co-produce Richard Marquand’s Hearts of Fire starring Bob Dylan, followed by Michael Austen’s Killing Dad. In 1991 he co-produced Roland Joffe’s City of Joy, and in 1992, executive produced Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

In 1994 Smith co-produced Stephen Frears’ Mary Reilly starring Julia Roberts, followed by Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element starring Bruce Willis in 1996, which was produced by his company Zaltman Films Ltd for Gaumont.

He then produced Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Seven Years in Tibet starring Brad Pitt for Columbia Pictures, followed by Jon Amiel’s Entrapment starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones for Twentieth Century Fox.

Following this, Smith executive produced Spy Game for Beacon Communications and Universal Pictures, which starred Robert Redford and Brad Pitt and was directed by Tony Scott. He then executive produced Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellwegger. Smith will next produce Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain.

Iain Smith is a board member of the UK Film Council and also of Scottish Screen, and serves as Vice President of the Production Guild of Great Britain. He has served on the Scottish Film Council, the Scottish Film Production Fund, the Scottish Film Training Trust and as a Governor of the National Film and Television School. He is currently Deputy Chairman of the British Film Advisory Group and is a director of the Children’s Film and Television Foundation.

MORITZ BORMAN (Producer) is Chairman and CEO of Intermedia, one of the largest independent production and financing companies in the motion picture industry. Prior to joining Intermedia, Borman founded and ran Pacifica Film Development, Inc., an entertainment financing company backed by the German production fund IMF. In 2000, Borman merged Pacifica with Intermedia.

Borman began his career in German television production in the 1970’s as a producer and director. In 1977 he moved to Los Angeles where he became a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute and in the following years produced and directed numerous programs for European television as well as TV commercials for American and European ad agencies.

MATTHIAS DEYLE (Executive Producer) started as a trainee at the ZDF (Second Channel of Germany).

Since 1977, Deyle has been an advisor and consultant at IMF Media Fonds for film development and film selection. Deyle was an IMF producer for the box office hit Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as well as The Quiet American. He was also an executive producer on Slap Her…She’s French and The Calling.

In 1969, Deyle founded the German television company TNF – Tele Norm Film GmbH along with directors Fritz Umgelter and Rainer Söhnlein. As owner and producer of the company, Deyle has produced more than 500 hours of programming, including such international successes as The Red Zora, A Happy Family, Out of Blus and Force Majeure.

In 1982, Deyle founded the movie company Mutoskop Film GmbH and produced several films, including Out of Order, Orpheus and Euridice, Pura Vida and Rosamunde.

Recently, Deyle produced the film Dead Fish, directed by Charley Stadler, and in cooperation with Orange Pictures GmbH & Co. KG.

GIANNI NUNNARI (Co-Executive Producer) is a highly respected entertainment industry executive and veteran motion picture producer. In 1987, he established Cecchi Gori Pictures, the Los Angeles development and production subsidiary of Rome-based Cecchi Gori Group Fin. Ma. Vi. In the ensuing years, Nunnari has served as co-executive producer of House of Cards, Folks!, Man Trouble, and The Blackout, executive producer of David Fincher’s Seven and Bruno Barreto’s Romeo and Julliet Got Married, and producer of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk ‘Till Dawn and its two sequels, From Dusk ‘Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and From Dusk ‘Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter. In 1997 Nunnari formed Hollywood Gang Productions as a separate vehicle to develop, produce and co-finance three to five films per year, including big-budget studio films with major stars and filmmakers attached as well as specialized lower budget independent films with international break out potential.

FERNANDO SULICHIN (Co-Executive Producer) collaborates once again with Oliver Stone, having produced the filmmaker’s three recent documentaries, Persona Non Grata, Comandante and Looking for Fidel.

Sulichin also produced the independent films Spun, Love Liza, Bully and The Addiction, as well as serving as associate producer of Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. He also produced Spike Lee’s last movie She Hate Me.

Alexander marks RODRIGO PRIETO’s (Director of Photography) third collaboration with Oliver Stone following their work together on the HBO documentaries Persona Non Grata and Comandante.

Prieto was director of photography on Julie Taymor’s Frida, the screen biography of legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, starring Salma Hayek. For his work on the film, Prieto was honored with an American Society of Cinematographers Award nomination. Prieto also photographed Curtis Hanson’s critically acclaimed 8 Mile, starring controversial hip-hop artist Eminem and Kim Basinger, and Spike Lee’s 25^th Hour.

Most recently, Prieto reunited with director Alejandro González Iñárritu, following their earlier collaboration on the award-winning Amores Perros, on that filmmaker’s first English-language production, 21 Grams, starring Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. After completing his work on Alexander, Prieto next segued into photographing Ang Lee’s western Brokeback Mountain.

Prieto was born in Mexico City, the son of a Mexican father and an American mother from Montana. He studied at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), the premier Mexican film school. Beginning his career as a cinematographer of more than 500 commercials for major corporate clients, Prieto moved into features with Un Instante Para Morir, Dama de Noche, Perfume Efecto Immediato, Sobrenatural (All of Them Witches), Edipo Alcade, Fibra Optica and Un Embrujo (Under A Spell). Prieto’s first U.S. production, which followed Amores Perros, was Michael Cristofer’s period melodrama Original Sin, starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas.

An innovative production designer, JAN ROELFS (Production Designer) has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction for his work on Gattaca and Orlando. Roelfs’ U.S. film credits also include Little Women, The Juror, Flawless, The Astronaut’s Wife and Simone. In addition to these titles, Roelfs has also worked on A Zed & Two Noughts, Drowning by Numbers, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero’s Books and The Baby of Macon.

TOM NORDBERG (Chief Editor) collaborates with Oliver Stone for the sixth time on Alexander, having previously worked as chief film editor on Any Given Sunday, editor of U-Turn, associate editor of Nixon, first assistant editor of Natural Born Killers, and assistant editor of Heaven and Earth.

In 1985, Nordberg graduated with honors from film school at New York University. For a number of years he stayed in New York and worked in production on hundreds of television commercials and several feature films, including Angel Heart and Birdy. In 1989, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in feature film editing.

Nordberg worked as an assistant editor for a variety of directors and was given his first shot at editing by Stone on Natural Born Killers. He has subsequently broadened his skills as a film editor on the features What Women Want, Scary Movie 2, Mnemosyne, and Holes.

YANN HERVE (Film Editor) has edited several of France’s most popular films of the past few years, including Luc Besson’s productions of Yamakasi – Les samourai des temps modernes, Wasabi and Taxi 3. He also edited the feature La Sirene rouge and the short film Sang blanc.

Herve began his career as a production assistant on Leon (aka The Professional), directed by Besson, graduating to assistant editor on the filmmaker’s The Fifth Element and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.

JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer) is one of the world’s foremost designers of period costumes for motion pictures. She won the Academy Award for her work on A Room With A View, and received additional nominations for the films The Bostonians, Maurice, Howards End, The Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, Anna and the King and Gosford Park. Beavan also won an Emmy Award for the mini-series Emma and was recently nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway revival of Private Lives.

Beavan was born in London, England and studied at London’s Central School of Art and Design. Her other feature costume designing credits have included Hullaballo Over George and Bonnie’s Pictures, Jane Austen in Manhattan, The Deceivers, A Summer Story, Mountains of the Moon, Swing Kids, Black Beauty, Jefferson in Paris, Jane Eyre, Metroland, Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Tea With Mussolini, Possession and Timeline. For television, she designed the costumes for the mini-series Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy and the telefeatures The Blackheath Poisonings and The Gathering Storm.

When Oliver Stone decided to make his film Alexander, based on the life of Alexander the Great, only one composer came to mind: VANGELIS. And for Vangelis, who has always been extremely selective about the projects he chooses, Stone’s Alexander seemed a natural. In November of 2004, moviegoers worldwide will have the chance to witness the results of this intriguing and inspired collaboration now in progress. Sony Classical will release the original soundtrack recording in October 2004, in its first collaboration with Vangelis since the 2001 multimedia premiere of his choral symphony Mythodea.

Vangelis began his musical career in Athens, Greece, moving to Paris and London and recording what now totals over 40 highly acclaimed albums. But it was his 1981 Academy Award-winning, multi-platinum score for Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire that catapulted Vangelis to worldwide renown and helped turn the low-budget independent movie into a blockbuster. His subsequent score for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner has become, along with the film itself, an all-time classic. His score for Scott’s exquisite 1492 – Conquest of Paradise was certified gold and platinum in over 17 countries, its main theme becoming the biggest-selling single in Germany’s chart history. Vangelis also composed, produced and performed the scores for Costa-Gavras’s Missing, Roger Donaldson’s The Bounty, Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon and Iannis Smaragdis’s Cavafy.

Even before these remarkable movies, Vangelis was already working with some of the world’s most respected filmmakers, most notably Frederick Rossif (L’Apocalypse des Animaux), Koreyoshi Kurahara (Antarctica), Jacques Cousteau (We Cannot Permit) and Carl Sagan (the Cosmos series for television). He has written original music for two Royal Ballet productions at London’s Covent Garden, four ancient classic Greek plays featuring Irene Papas, Olympic events for both Australia and Greece, and the 1997 International Association of Athletics Federation’s Opening Ceremonies, which he also conceived and directed. His 2002 FIFA World Cup Anthem won the Recording Industry Association of Japan’s International Song of the Year Award.

His 2001 choral symphony Mythodea, featuring Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, full orchestra and 120-voice choir, was aired by television stations around the world, while NASA chose the music to accompany its Mars Odyssey Mission. Sony Classical released the audio recording of Mythodea on CD and, on DVD, a film of the dramatic outdoor Athens concert at the Olympian Temple of Jupiter – the first major concert ever to take place on this hallowed site.

In addition to winning an Oscar, Echo, Golden Lion, Max Steiner, Apollo, IFPI and other awards throughout his career, Vangelis has received the titles Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur of the French Republic. The International Astronomical Union named a small planet Vangelis in his honor. And NASA presented him with their 2003 Public Service Medal, one of the highest honors the space agency confers upon a non-government individual.

GARY POWELL (Stunt Coordinator) began his career as a top stuntman on such films as 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Far and Away, Braveheart, First Knight, Michael Collins, Goldeneye, Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Powell has also worked as assistant stunt coordinator on 101 Dalmatians, Titanic, Lost in Space, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy, The World is Not Enough and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Powell has earned the reputation of doing impossible stunts, most noticeably are the tank chase in GoldenEye, the barrel roll in the Q-boat in The World Is Not Enough and driving the crane in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

He later went on to coordinate main unit on The Mummy Returns, as well as the stunts for numerous commercials and music videos. Known for his enthusiasm and his imagination, Powell got his break as Stunt Coordinator on Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

ROBIN LANE FOX (Historical Advisor) is the author of the international best-seller, Alexander the Great, published in English editions by Penguin since 1973 and the most widely-read history of the subject. Since 1977, he has taught Ancient History at Oxford University where he is a Fellow of New College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won major literary prizes for his book on Alexander. His other books include the widely-praised Pagans and Christians, published by Knopf and Penguin.

Since 2002, Robin Lane Fox has worked very closely with director Oliver Stone as historical adviser to the script and the film. He has advised the Heads of Department on a wide range of historical and archaeological details, ranging from costumes to weaponry. He coordinated groups of experts from Oxford and the UK to give regular advice during pre-production.

Robin Lane Fox has traveled far and wide on the route of Alexander the Great in the past thirty years, especially in Macedonia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until filming, he had never visited the proposed sites of the great Gaugamela battle, but thanks to director Oliver Stone, he spent weeks on location at the film’s ‘Gaugamela’ battlefield in Morocco where he rode in the front rank of the film’s major cavalry charges before going on to Thailand to a final charge against war-elephants.

He is the author of The Making of Alexander (published in the UK by R & L, ISBN no 0-9511392-1-5). It is the Official Guide to the film with a foreword by Director Oliver Stone and an exclusive array of the spectacular color stills taken by the production’s photographers during filming. It is also a unique historian’s view of a major epic movie. He "writes," says Oliver Stone in his foreword, "about the extraordinary details of film-making with an outsider’s humorous view of another species."

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