ADVISORY GROUP
Chris Collins
Chris has experience at all levels of production and has been involved in the realisation of some of the key independent feature films made in the UK in the past few years. During a period in-house as an executive at the British Film Institute’s Production arm he played a prominent role in the production of John Maybury’s Love is the Devil and oversaw the production of Carine Adler’s Under the Skin.
Whilst there he also developed a number of scripts including Tom Hunsinger and Neil Hunter’s Lawless Heart and played a crucial role in developing and financing Jasmin Dizdar’s Beautiful People (Prix du Jury, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival 1999) which he then guided to realisation as line producer working closely with producer Ben Woolford. In 2000 he worked with BBC producer Ruth Caleb to realise Pawel Pawlikowski’s landmark micro budget feature Last Resort which went on to win the Michael Powell award best British feature at Edinburgh 2001.
In 2001, Chris also formed his production company, home movies, in order to work again with Caleb on Francesca Joseph’s dramatic debut Tomorrow La Scala!. Screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2002, the film was transmitted on BBC 2 in December 2002 to critical acclaim and won best independent drama at PACT’s Indie awards, was nominated for best drama at the Royal Television Society awards and nominated for a BAFTA award for best single drama. It won best television film at Banff international festival.
In 2003 he worked in collaboration with producer Gayle Griffiths to successfully guide the production of Emily Young’s debut feature Kiss of Life (Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2003 and winner of Carl Foreman award for best newcomer at BAFTA awards 2004). He was a producer of Pawel Pawlikowski’s My Summer of Love which won the Michael Powell award for best British feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 2004, was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Film, and won the BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film. His most recent film is Brick Lane, directed by Sarah Gavron, from Monica Ali’s award winning first novel.
Since 2007 Chris worked as a Development Producer in the UK Film Council’s Development Fund where he managed the funding strand for experienced writers, directors and producers. Projects developed range from new screenplays by Duane Hopkins, Noel Clarke, Matt Greenhalgh and Hanif Kureishi to the recently completed Tamara Drewe, written by Moira Buffini from Posy Simmond’s graphic novel and directed by Stephen Frears.
Peter Ettedgui
Peter began his career in film in the art department and cutting rooms before working for Ken Russell as director’s assistant and music editor on a diverse range of feature films,TV drama and documentaries. He also collaborated on the screenplays for these projects, researching, editing and writing additional material.
He went on to write Vigo for director Julien Temple (starring James Frain and Romane Bohringer), Onegin for Martha Fiennes, with Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler, and The Double Life of Franz Schubert for Peter Webber (with Simon Russell Beale, Jason Flemyng and Emilia Fox) as well as many other screenplays commissioned by companies in the UK, France and the US.
Since 2005, Peter has been working as a producer, developing projects in association with UK-based companies such as Harbour Pictures and The Bureau, under the aegis of financiers such as Disney, Miramax, Film4 and the UK Film Council. In 2007, Kinky Boots, his first film as producer (with Suzanne Mackie and Nick Barton) opened the Sundance Film Festival before going on to win audiences world-wide, released by Buena Vista/ Miramax. He returned to Sundance in 2009 with Unmade Beds, directed by Alexis Dos Santos, which he produced with Soledad Gatti-Pascual (Film4, UKFC and EM Media).The film has since been sold to 16 territories world-wide and was released theatrically in the US and UK late-2009.
Beyond his career as screenwriter and producer, Peter has worked as a development consultant and script editor on feature films and TV drama alike (inter alia for producer Barbara Broccoli on her non-007 slate at Eon Productions). In 2000, he also devised the format for the Screencraft book series, featuring the greatest living practitioners of the various film-making disciplines. He penned the first two titles in the series, 'Cinematography' and 'Production Design and Art Direction'.The books have been translated and published globally, winning awards and garnering best-in-class reviews.
An alumnus of Inside Pictures, the UK film industry’s executive training programme, Peter has himself worked regularly as a tutor and mentor to students on the screenwriting MA at University of Westminster and London International Film School, and on industry schemes such as Microwave, where he has mentored both on the Microschool development programme and individual projects such as Eran Creevy’s Shifty (produced by Ben Pugh and Rory Aitken).
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