‘BEFORE YOU SAY “I DO”’
PRODUCTION BIOS
ZEV BRAUN (Co-Executive Producer) - Chicago-born Zev Braun has been a successful and honored filmmaker for over 30 years. In 1964, his production of “Goldstein” won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1974, his co-production of Maximilian Schell’s “The Pedestrian” won the Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. In 1986, Braun again teamed up with director Schell to co-produce “Marlene,” which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature along with winning the New York Film Critics Award, The National Society of Film Critics Award and the National Board of Review Award.
Braun’s all-consuming interest in filmmaking led him fresh from studying Humanities and Classic Arts at the University of Chicago to enter movies while still serving as President of Braun International, his family’s packaging firm. Some of Braun’s other productions include: “Angela,” starring Sophia Loren and John Huston; “Freedom Road,” starring Muhammad Ali and Kris Kristofferson; “The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu,” starring Peter Sellers; and “Where are the Children,” starring Jill Clayburgh and Frederick Forrest.
The 1987-88 television season saw the company produce the TV movie “Stillwatch,” starring Lynda Carter and Angie Dickinson; a four-hour mini-series, “Murder Ordained,” starring JoBeth Williams, Keith Carradine and Terry Kinney; a two-hour NBC movie, “The Father Clements Story,” starring Louis Gossett, Jr., Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Carroll O’Connor (winner of the Christopher Award and CEBA Award). “Tour of Duty,” the highly acclaimed weekly prime-time series about the Vietnam War, also premiered in 1987 and ran for three successful seasons on CBS. Other television series from Braun include “Murphy’s Law,” starring George Segal, which ran on ABC and “Bagdad Café,” starring Whoopie Goldberg and Jean Stapleton for CBS. In 1991, Braun produced “A Seduction in Travis County,” a two-hour movie for CBS, starring Lesley Ann Warren, Peter Coyote and Jean Smart.
Expanding into the cable marketplace, Braun produced “Split Imagines,” a two-hour movie based upon the best selling novel by Elmore Leonard and starring Gregory Harrison. In 1994, Braun produced the critically praised four-hour mini-series “Menedez: A Killing in Beverly Hills” for CBS starring Edward James Olmos and Beverly D’Angelo. Also that year at CBS was “Dominick Dunne’s 919 Fifth Avenue,” a two-hour movie that starred Barry Bostwick, Michelle Phillips and John Rubinstein.
In 1996, “Abducted: A Father’s Love,” a two-hour NBC movie starring Chris Noth, Peter MacNichol and Stepfanie Krammer, turned out to be one of the highest rated television movies for the year.
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Braun executive produced the CBS 2005 May Sweeps entry, “Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution” starring Janel Moloney.
Most recently, Braun won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Movie for Television for the highly rated movie he produced for Lifetime Television, “A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story,” directed by Agnieszka Holland starring Mercedes Ruehl.
Braun is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, as well as the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He serves on the Board of Trustees for The American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) and the Board of Directors for The Heart Touch Project. Braun was also a founding member of the Board of Directors for GIRF (the Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation) of the University of Chicago hospitals as well as the Chairman of the Board for the International Kidney Institute at UCLA. Braun also served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Saban Vaccine Institute. He was awarded the City of Hope’s Golden Key for his work in connection with this organization.
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PHILIP KRUPP (Co-Executive Producer) - Philip Krupp has been with Braun Entertainment Group, Inc. for over 20 years and currently serves as its executive vice president of production. Krupp came to the organization and worked his way from the ground up, starting as Zev Braun’s assistant and rising through the ranks of development and production. He worked on such series as “Tour of Duty” for CBS, “Murphy’s Law” for ABC and “Bagdad Café” for CBS. Early on, he served as associate producer on two movies for television, “Stillwatch” starring Lynda Carter and “The Father Clements Story” starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Malcolm Jamal- Warner. He then produced the TV movie “Dominick Dunne’s 919 Fifth Avenue” as well as the miniseries “Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills” starring Edward James Olmos and Beverly D’Angelo. In the feature world, he produced the critically acclaimed indie, “Edges of the Lord,” starring Haley Joel Osment and Willem Dafoe.
More recently, he executive produced the CBS 2005 May Sweeps entry, “Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution” starring Janel Moloney. In June, 2006 he executive produced the award- winning Lifetime movie, “A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Arajuo Story,” starring Mercedes Ruehl.
Krupp received a bachelor of science degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
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MARY PANTELIDIS (Co-Executive Producer) – Mary Pantelidis is an independent producer based in Toronto. Pantelidis has produced such projects as “Will You Merry Me,” Emmy® nominated “The Wishing Tree,” “Danger Beneath the Sea” and “Rough Air.” Pantelidis started
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her career as production manager where she worked on such Emmy, Golden Globe and Gemini nominated projects such as “Life with Judy Garland,” “Me and My Shadows” and “Dash and Lilly,” “In God’s Country” and “Booky Makes Her Mark.” With many projects in development Pantelidis is in high demand. Pantelidis has a degree in film and communications.
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FERNANDO SZEW (Co-Executive Producer) – MarVista Entertainment founding partner Fernando Szew serves as CEO, spearheading company strategy and overseeing operations. Prior to the formation of MarVista, Szew served as vice president of sales and marketing at his father’s distribution company, Whamo Entertainment, joining him in 1999 at the age of 23. It was Szew’s vision to transform the company from a distributor of third-party produced programming to a production and distribution company with a worldwide presence. By 2003, Szew and his father had aligned with current partners Michael D. Jacobs and George F. Port to launch MarVista Entertainment, a fundamental springboard towards that goal.
Szew serves as executive producer of the primetime teen drama “Beyond the Break” which debuted in the U.S. in June 2006 on MTV Network’s The N, and several television movies including, “Night of Terror” for Lifetime Television and “Christmas in Boston” for ABC Family.
During his tenure at Whamo, Szew expanded the company’s operations by forming strategic distribution alliances with such companies as Cambium Entertainment (Canada), Burbank Animation Studios (Australia), VICTORY Film Production & Distribution (Germany) and VCI (UK). Additionally, Szew was responsible for distributing internationally such noteworthy entertainment franchises as “Theodore Tugboat,” “The Three Stooges” and Art Clokey’s “Gumby.” Szew launched Whamo’s European operation in Barcelona, Spain in 2001.
Prior to joining Whamo, Szew served as manager of international commerce for CEPA (G&Z), then one of Argentina’s principal exporters and the country’s largest export-based meat packing company with over 1500 employees. Szew was directly responsible for the sale of higher margin products with sales of over US$ 40 million p.a. Szew was in charge of leading a round of negotiations with Outback Steakhouse, an important worldwide restaurant chain, where he established and implemented innovative business and revenue models for the company. Szew is an alumnus of the Huntsman International Studies and Business Program’s first graduating class at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a dual-degree with double concentration in management and marketing at the prestigious Wharton School of Business.
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PAUL FOX (Director) - Paul Fox is an accomplished film and television director with an impressive array of award winning feature films, music videos, short films, and television productions to his credit. (more)
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Upon graduating from New York’s School of Visual Arts, Fox’s thesis film, “Last RoundUp,” won awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Editor. The film went on to win Best Fiction Film at the Mexico City Film Festival, and was invited to the Sundance Film Festival. Fox then participated in the Director’s Lab program at the Canadian Film Centre. During that time he also directed music videos and commercials for Toronto’s Revolver Films.
Fox’s first feature film, “The Dark Hours,” is a taut psychological thriller that was released through Capri Releasing in Fall 2005. The film received international acclaim and won numerous awards including Best Film at the Austin Fantastic Film Festival, Best Feature at the Dead by Dawn festival in Edinburgh Scotland, Best Horror Feature and Best Director at the Phoenix International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, the ‘Best of Puchon’ award at the PiFan International Fantastic Film Festival in Korea, the ‘Midnight X-Treme’ award at the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival in Spain and the Best Film Award at the New York City Horror Film Festival. The film was also invited to the Chicago International Film Festival, the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, the Montreal Fant-Asia Film Festival, the Malaga Film Festival, the Cardiff Film Festival, and the Macabro Film Festival in Mexico City.
Fox’s second feature, “Everything’s Gone Green,” is a wry coming-of-age comedy with a satiric bite written by acclaimed author Douglas Coupland (“Generation X’” and starring Paulo Costanzo (“Joey,” “Road Trip,”) that premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. “Green” has gone on to win awards at the Vancouver and Edmonton Film Festivals and has been invited to several international fests including the Pusan International in South Korea and the Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland. ‘Green’ also won Best Screenwriting and Best Feature Length Drama at the 2007 Leo Awards. The film had its US launch at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin Texas and was released theatrically in the US and Canada in April 2007.
While nurturing his film career, Fox has honed his craft directing episodic television, including the CBC pilot “Involuntary Muscles,” and multiple episodes of such high-profile series as “The Murdoch Mysteries,” “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” “Rent-A-Goalie,” “Cold Squad,” “Show Me Yours,” “Life with Derek,” “Billable Hours,” “Dark Oracle,” “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and the MOW “Making Mr. Right,” for Lifetime Television. Fox is currently shooting the MOW “Before I Say ‘I Do’” for Hallmark Television.
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ELENA KRUPP (Writer) – “Before You Say ‘I Do’” is Elena Krupp’s first produced screenplay. She has a theatre arts degree from UCLA and also received a doctorate in psychology from California School of Professional Psychology.
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