‘RETURN TO NIM’S ISLAND’
PRODUCTION BIOS
PAULA MAZUR (Producer) - A veteran producer known for her high quality projects, Mazur has worked almost solely from literary source material. She has taken numerous plays from stage to screen including Swimming To Cambodia, The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and The Vagina Monologues. Among other titles, she produced “Corrina, Corrina” starring Whoopi Goldberg and the first “Nim’s Island” starring Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler and Abigail Breslin. Mazur’s latest production, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” stars Kate Winslet and is directed by Kenneth Branagh.
As a screenwriter, Mazur co-wrote “Nim’s Island,” has adapted the novel Tangerine for HBO and adapted Wishing Moon for DreamWorks Animation. Mazur’s film and television work has won Academy®, Ace, Emmy®, Spirit and American Comedy Awards. Her films have been invited to numerous film festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Sundance and Toronto. Mazur is a member of the Directors, Writers and Producers Guilds.
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CHRIS BROWN (Producer) - Before moving to Australia, Chris Brown’s memorable UK career included producing two films with Neil Jordan, “The Company of Wolves” and the Golden Globe® winning and Oscar® nominated “Mona Lisa.” He also produced “Absolute Beginners,” starring David Bowie, James Fox, Ray Davies and Sade, as well as “Siesta” with Ellen Barkin, Gabrielle Byrne, Jodie Foster, Grace Jones and Julian Sands. Brown ran the Comic Strip Film Company with the likes of Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall, Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle, Keith Allen, Nigel Planner and Dawn French and produced or executive produced several other films before moving to Australia where he produced a series of films for HBO and Channel Ten including “Crimebroker,” “Seventh Floor,” “Blackwater Trail” and “White Lies” and executive produced the feature “All Men are Liars.”
Brown has subsequently produced several more films in Australia and New Zealand including “Via Satellite,” “Savage Honeymoon,” “Scarfies,” which was selected for the Edinburgh and Sundance Film Festivals, “Komodo” and the UK/Australian co-production “The Proposition,” which was written by music icon Nick Cave, directed by John Hillcoat (“The Road,” “Lawless”) and starred Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt and Emily Watson. “The Proposition” won The IF Award for Best Australian Film 2005 and four AFI Awards. It was subsequently selected for The Toronto, Sundance and Berlin Festivals and won the New Writers Award at the Venice Film Festival. Brown has also produced “Triangle,” starring Melissa George and Liam Hemsworth, the Spierig Brothers futuristic vampire movie “Daybreakers” which starred Ethan Hawke, Willem Defoe, Sam Neill and Isabel Lucas, and executive produced “Bait,” the first independent action film shot in 3D in Australia and which has gone on to huge box office success in China. In 2004 Brown also won Independent Producer Of the Year, from the Australian Producers Association (SPAA).
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2013 will see “The Railway Man,” a co-production with the UK, starring Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgaard, Jeremy Irvine and Hiroyuki Sanada.
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TOM HOFFIE (Producer) — Tom Hoffie is one of Australia’s most experienced film professionals, with credits across film and television as production manager, line producer, co- producer and producer. Hoffie co-produced the Australian/Dutch co-production “Unfinished Sky,” directed by Peter Duncan and starring William McInnes and Monic Hendrickx, which was selected for the Toronto Film Festival and went on to win six AFI Awards and three IF Awards, including Best Director. Hoffie also co-produced the feature films “Under The Radar” and “Blurred,” produced the TV movie “Green Sails” and has line produced major films and television series including “Triangle,” “Hildegarde,” “Komodo,” “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,” “Cubbyhouse,” “Flipper” and “Search For Treasure Island.”
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BRENDAN MAHER (Director) – Brendan Maher is a highly accomplished Australian director with a body of work spanning more than two decades. His strong creative vision and commitment to story have resulted in four Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards.
Maher won the AFI Award for Best Achievement in Directing for a TV Mini-Series for “Dirt Game,” the AFI Award for Best Direction in Television for “After the Deluge,” the AFI Award for Best Direction in Television Drama for “The Road from Coorain” and the AFI Award for Best Achievement in Direction in a Television Drama for “Good Guys Bad Guys.”
His career in the UK is equally stellar. Maher’s TV credits include “Upstairs/Downstairs,” “Identity,” “Spooks,” “Spooks: Code 9,” “Silent Witness,” “Kidnapped” and the television movie “Wide Sargasso Sea.” Maher’s other international credits include the Starz Network productions “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena,” “Spartacus: Vengeance,” “Lost World,” “Flipper” and the Sci-Fi cult hit “Farscape.”
His additional Australian credits include the drama series “Sisters of War,” “The Cooks,” “White Collar Blue,” “The Secret Life of Us” and the highly acclaimed television films “Society Murders” and “Halifax FP: Swimming With Sharks.”
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CATHY RANDALL (Writer) - Cathy Randall is a former journalist and best known as the director and writer of the film “Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger.” In 2002, based on her screenplay for “Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger,” Randall was awarded a scholarship to the Los Angeles Film School’s Feature Development Program and spent a year developing the project.
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The film, which starred Toni Collette and Danielle Catanzariti, was nominated for several awards including the AFI Award nomination for Best Screenplay in 2008. “Return to Nim’s Island” is Randall’s second feature film screenplay to be produced. Randall is also developing the screenplay for the adaptation of the novel Jellicoe Road, by Melina Marchetta. Prior to her scholarship award, Randall was a writer for “Home and Away,” an internationally successful soap opera, and an intern at Tony and Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free Productions in Los Angeles.
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