With more than 35 years of experience in theater, film and television, actor and producer Michael Douglas branched out into independent feature production in 1975 with the Academy Award-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Since then, he has shown a knack for choosing projects that reflect changing trends and public concerns. He has been involved in such controversial and politically influential motion pictures as 1975’s Cuckoo’s Nest, Academy Award-nominated film The China Syndrome (1979) and Traffic (2000), and such popular films as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Romancing the Stone (1984).

The son of Kirk and Diana Douglas, he was born in New Jersey and attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent summers on movie sets with his father. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California at Santa Barbara.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He did several summer stock, off-Broadway productions as well as television productions during this period.

Impressed by Douglas’ performance in a segments of The FBI, producer Quinn Martin signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden’s sidekick in the police series The Streets of San Francisco, which became one of ABC’s highest-rated, prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and directed two episodes of the series.

During an annual summer break in the shooting schedule for Streets Douglas, long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey’s novel of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. He formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas had a year left on his contract for Streets, but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming Cuckoo’s Nest.

A critical and commercial success, Cuckoo’s Nest won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to become a major financial success. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray’s chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Douglas immediately bought the property and teemed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production to produce the film. The China Syndrome starred Jack Lemmon, Fonda and Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review also named it one of the best films of 1979.

Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 70s and starred in Coma (1978), Running (1979), It's My Turn (1981), The Star Chamber (1983) and Richard Attenborough's screen version of A Chorus Line (1985).

Douglas’ career as an actor and producer came together again in 1984 with the release of Romancing the Stone co-starring Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. It was a resounding hit and the National Association of Theatre Owners named Douglas Producer of the Year. Douglas, Turner and DeVito reunited in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile.

It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures to approve the production of Starman, which became the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned Jeff Bridges an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC.

In 1987, Douglas returned to the screen appearing in two of the year’s biggest and most controversial hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. He followed with Ridley Scott’s thriller Black Rain (1989) and teamed yet again with Turner and DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).

In 1988, Douglas produced Flatliners, which starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin, and was directed by Joel Schumacher.

In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic Paul Verhoeven thriller Basic Instinct and gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993). He also produced the hit comedy Made in America (1993) starring Whoppi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994, he appeared opposite Demi Moore in Barry Levinson’s Disclosure and followed as The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening and directed by Rob Reiner. The Game, directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn, was filmed in 1997.

Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther in 1994, which produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), John Grisham’s The Rainmaker (1997), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and Face/Off (1997).

After starring with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in A Perfect Murder (1998), Douglas formed a new production company, Furthur Films, which produced its first film One Night at McCool’s in 1997. He also appeared in Wonder Boys (2000), which was directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starred Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, and earned Douglas Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations.

Traffic was released in 2000 and was named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, four Academy Awards and was recognized on more than 175 top-10 lists that year.

Douglas continued to act in pictures like Don’t Say A Word (2001), The In-Laws (2003) and The Sentinel (2006) and You, Me and Dupree (2006), while producing It Runs in the Family (2003) for Furthur Films. He had a guest role on the NBC hit comedy Will & Grace in 2002, which earned him an Emmy nomination, and made a documentary for HBO with his father, Kirk, titled A Father, A Son…Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, directed by Lee Grant.

In 1998, Secretary General Kofi Annan named Douglas a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His two areas of concentration are nuclear proliferation and small arms control. As a Messenger of Peace, Douglas filmed a documentary on child soldiers for the Showtime series What’s Going On? in 2003.

Each spring, Douglas hosts the Michael Douglas & Friends celebrity golf tournament, which is aired on NBC and celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2008. The event has raised more than $5 million dollars for the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has a son, Dylan, and a daughter, Carys. Douglas also has a son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.

Emmy Award-winning journalist Charlie Rose has been praised as one of America's premier interviewers. Born in Henderson, N.C., he graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a Doctor of Law degree.

He is the host of Charlie Rose, the nightly Public Broadcasting Station program that engages America's best thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business leaders, scientists and other newsmakers. USA Today called the program “TV’s most addictive talk show,” and New York Newsday said, “Charlie’s show is the place to get engaging, literate conversation ... Bluntly, he is the best interviewer around today.”

Guests on the show include major international political figures and a mixture of renowned personalities from literature, theater, film, dance, fashion, sports, science, medicine and business. Guests have ranged from international statesmen Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev to Nobel Prize laureates Toni Morrison and Seamus Heaney to leaders in business Bill Gates and Andy Grove. In the artistic arena, Rose’s guests range from actors Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts to musicians Bruce Springsteen and Yo-Yo Ma. His program serves as a window on cultural areas rarely seen on TV, such as architecture, painting, photography and classical music.

The Charlie Rose Special Edition presents hour-long profiles on such prominent entertainers as Meryl Streep and Garth Brooks, as well as weeklong specials on the cutting edge of science such as the Human Genome Project.

Drawn from major exhibits at distinguished museums, his series titled Great Masters takes an in-depth look at an artist’s biography as well as the artist’s visual presentations of their art. All specials are produced by Charlie Rose Inc., which also presents other programs in multimedia formats.

Rose also is a popular speaker on a wide variety of subjects at college campuses around the country and is a frequent moderator of technology conferences in the United States. Rose is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has received honorary doctorates of law from C.W. Post College and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Rose is the recipient of the George Peabody Broadcasting Award and The CableACE Award. He lives in New York City and Bellport, Long Island.

Vanessa Redgrave began her 50-year acting career in the 1957 production of The Reluctant Debutante, followed by Come On, Jeeves and, in 1958, A Touch Of The Sun, in which she appeared with her father, Michael Redgrave.

Redgrave’s extensive stage credits include Major Barbara (1958), Mother Goose (1958), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959), Look on Tempests (1960), The Tiger and the Horse (1960), The Lady from the Sea (1961), As You Like It (1962), The Taming of the Shrew (1964, 1986), The Seagull (1964), Daniel Deronda (1969), Cato Street (1971), The Threepenny Opera (1972), Twelfth Night (1972), Design For Living (1973), The Lady from the Sea (1976, 1979), her father’s adaptation of The Aspern Papers (1984), Tomorrow Was War (1987), A Touch of the Poet (1988), Orpheus Descending (1989), Chekhov's Women (1989), A Madhouse in Goa (1989), The Three Sisters (1990), which co-starred her sister, Lynn, and niece, Jemma Redgrave, When She Danced (1991), Heartbreak House (1992), Maybe (1993), The Flag (1994) and Brecht in Hollywood (1994), produced by Redgrave and brother Corin’s production company Moving Theatre, Vita and Virginia (1994), The Liberation of Skopje (1995), Julius Caesar (1996), John Gabriel Borkman (1996), Not About Nightingales 1998), Sarah Bernhardt Comes to Town (1998), Eleonora (1999), A Song at Twilight (1999), in which she played opposite Corin and his wife, Kika Markham, The Tempest (2000), The Cherry Orchard (2002), Lady Windermere’s Fan (2005), in which she starred with her daughter, Joely Richardson, Hecuba, (2005), and a five-time role as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1973, 1986, 1995, 1996, 1997). In 2003, Redgrave won a Tony Award for her role in the Broadway run of a Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Brian Dennehy and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Her distinguished film credits include Academy and Golden Globe award-winning films A Man for All Seasons (1966) and Camelot (1969), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination; Academy- and Golden Globe-nominated films Blow Up (1966) and Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1965), for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations; Mary Queen of Scots (1972), for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, and Howards End (1992), for which she received an Oscar nomination; Oscar-nominated films Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) and Agatha (1979), and the Golden Globe-nominated film Yanks (1979).

Other films include Behind the Mask (1958), Red and Blue (1966), The Sailor from Gibraltar (1968), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), A Quiet Place in the Country (1969), Isadora (1969), for which she received and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, Drop Out (1969), The Seagull (1970), The Devils (1970), The Trojan Women (1971), Out of Season (1975), Julia (1977), for which she earned Academy and Golden Globe awards, Bear Island (1979), Wagner (1981), The Bostonians (1984), for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, Steaming (1985), Wetherby (1985), Prick Up Your Ears (1987), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, Consuming Passions (1987), The Ballad of the Sad Café (1990), A Wall of Silence (1993), The House Of The Spirits (1993), Mother’s Boys (1994), Little Odessa (1994), A Month by the Lake (1995), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, Mission: Impossible (1996), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1996), Deep Impact (1997), Cradle Will Rock (1998), Uninvited (1999), directed by Redgrave’s son, Carlo Nero, Mirka (2000), Girl Interrupted (1999), A Rumor of Angels (1999), Crime and Punishment (2002), The Fever (2002), also directed by Nero, The White Countess (2005) which co-starred her sister, Lynn, and daughter, Natasha Richardson, and Atonement (2007). She also made cameo appearances in the films The Keeper (2003), Short Order (2005), Thief Lord (2006), Venus (2006) and The Riddle (2007).

Redgrave’s television credits include Three Sovereigns For Sarah (1985), Orpheus Descending (1990), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991), which co-starred her sister, Lynn; They (1993), Great Moments in Aviation (1993), Down Came A Blackbird (1994), Wind In The Willows (1995), Bella Mafia (1997), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, Jack and the Beanstalk (2000), The Locket (2002), Byron (2003) and the made-for-TV movie The Shell Seekers.

In 2004, Redgrave made her first of eight appearances in FX’s Nip/Tuck alongside her daughter, Joely Richardson, playing her on-screen mother. Redgrave won Emmy Awards for If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), for which she also won a Golden Globe, and Playing for Time (1980). She received Emmy nominations for her roles in Peter The Great (1986), Second Serve (1986), for which she also received a Golden Globe nomination, Young Catherine (1991) and The Gathering Storm (2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.

Redgrave published her autobiography Vanessa Redgrave in 1991. In 2007, she filmed How About You and Evening, which have yet to be released. At the end of August 2007, she wrapped a season on Broadway with a Tony Award nomination for her role in A Year Of Magical Thinking, based on the book by Joan Didon.

After training at London's Central School, Lynn Redgrave made her professional debut in a 1962 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. Following a tour of Billy Liar and at the Dundee Rep Theatre, she made her West End debut at the Haymarket, in N.C. Hunter's The Tulip Tree with Celia Johnson and John Clements.

Redgrave accepted an invitation to join Britain’s National Theatre for its inaugural season at the Old Vic in 1963, where she worked with such directors as William Gaskill, John Dexter, Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli and Nöel Coward in roles such as Rose in The Recruiting Officer, Barblin in Andorra, Jackie in Hay Fever, Kattrin in Mother Courage, Miss Prue in Love For Love and Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing.

During that time Redgrave also appeared in the films Tom Jones (1963), Girl with Green Eyes (1964) and The Deadly Affair (1966). Her big break came later in 1966 with the title role in Georgy Girl, which earned her a New York Film Critics Award, a Golden Globe nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1967 she made her Broadway debut in Black Comedy with Michael Crawford and Geraldine Page. London appearances included Michael Frayn's The Two of Us with Richard Briers at the Garrick Theatre, David Hare's Slag at the Royal Court Theatre and Born Yesterday, directed by Tom Stoppard at Greenwich Theatre.

In 1974, she returned to Broadway in My Fat Friend. Soon after followed Knock Knock with Charles Durning, Mrs. Warren's Profession, for which she received a Tony nomination for Best Actress, and Saint Joan. During the 1985-86 season Redgrave appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert and Jeremy Brett in Aren't We All?, and with Mary Tyler Moore in A. R. Gurney's Sweet Sue.

Outside New York, she was in Misalliance in Chicago with Irene Worth, Twelfth Night at the American Shakespeare Festival, California Suite, The King and I, Hellzapoppin', Les Dames du Jeudi, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Cherry Orchard and in the early winter of 1991 starred with Stewart Granger and Ricardo Montalban in a Hollywood production of Don Juan in Hell. With her sister Vanessa as Olga, Redgrave returned to the London stage in 1991 as Masha in Three Sisters at the Queen's Theatre in London, and later played the title role in a television production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991), which also co-starred Vanessa.

Highlights of her early movie career also include Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972), The National Health (1973), The Happy Hooker (1975) and Getting It Right (1989). On American television she appeared in Centennial (1978), House Calls (1980), for which she earned an Emmy nomination, Teachers Only (1982) and Chicken Soup (1989); and starred in BBC shows including The Fainthearted Feminist (1984), A Woman Alone (1988), Death of a Son (1988), Fighting Back (1992) and Calling the Shots (1993). Redgrave played Broadway again in Moon Over Buffalo (1996) with co-star Robert Goulet, and starred in the world premiere of Tennessee Williams' The Notebook of Trigorin, based on Chekhov's The Seagull.

Her film career has been revitalized in recent years with roles in Bill Condon's Gods And Monsters (1998), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and received an Oscar nomination, Scott Hicks' Shine (1996), P.J. Hogan's Peter Pan (2003), Bill Condon's Kinsey (2004), and James Ivory's The White Countess (2005). Redgrave plays Mama Sky in The Jane Austen Book Club (2007), based on the book by Karen Jay Fowler.

Corin Redgrave’s first stage appearance was in 1961 at the Royal Court Theatre in London where he appeared as Lysander in Tony Richardson's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He followed it in 1963 by playing the Pilot Officer in John Dexter's production of Wesker's Chips with Everything at the Royal Court and The Vaudeville Theatre in London, and the Shubert Theatre in New York.

He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1972 for a season at the Stratford and Aldwych theaters, playing Octavius in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, and Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors. At the Young Vic, Redgrave has played Rosmer in Rosmersholm, Danforth in The Crucible, and Brutus, Angelo, Coriolanu, and Major Howard in Les Smith's Some Kind of Hero with Trevor Etienne.

In 1993, Redgrave took part in the World Poetry Festival in Pittsburgh, Pa., with his sister, Vanessa, Kika Markham and Mikhail Shatrov in a program of Russian poetry, A Cloud in Trousers. He is a founding member of Symposium 90, an international association researching the origins and consequences of Stalinism.

Redgrave has worked with well-known film directors including Tony Richardson, Nicolas Roeg, Fred Zinnemann and Christine Edzard. Edzard’s brilliant study of Victorian plutocracy and poverty, The Fool (1990), featured Redgrave as Sir Thomas Neathouse. He also starred as Dixon in Jim Sheridan's seven-time Academy Award-nominated film In the Name of the Father (1993) and played Andie MacDowell's husband in Mike Newell’s Academy Award-nominated film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

Director and screenwriter Milos Forman has managed to combine and assimilate the best of European and American filmmaking traditions in his career. A two-time Academy Award-winner as Best Director for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), he is one of a handful of foreign directors to achieve international success without being pigeon-holed by genre or nationality, and his films celebrate individualism.

The youngest of three sons, Forman was born in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, a town 45 miles from Prague. At age 9, his parents were arrested by the Gestapo and later perished in the Nazi death camps, leaving him to be raised by relatives. Forman took interest in theater while attending a boarding school for children orphaned by the war, especially the comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and the John Ford Westerns.

Forman enrolled in the School of Cinema in Prague, where he studied with Ivan Passer. After graduation, he wrote his first screenplays and made two short semi-documentaries. In 1963 Forman directed his first feature, Black Peter (1964), an autobiographical account of a teenager in a small Czech town. The film was a success at various film festivals, notably Cannes, Montreal and New York, and led to Forman’s first visit to America.

His next films, Loves of a Blonde (1965) and Fireman’s Ball (1967), brought the director further international acclaim. When Soviet tanks rumbled into Prague in August 1968, Forman was in Paris to negotiate the making of his first American film. He returned briefly to Prague, and then moved to New York to make Taking Off (1971). The film was the official United States entry at the 1971 Cannes film festival, where it was awarded the Jury Prize. He next participated in the collective documentary about the 1972 Munich Olympics, Visions of Eight (1973), in a segment about the decathlon.

In 1973, producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz gave Forman a copy of the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and he signed on to direct the motion picture version, which swept the top five 1975 Academy Award categories: Best Picture, Screenplay, Actor, Actress and Director. Forman followed Cuckoo’s Nest with the film version of the long-running musical Hair (1979) and then lured James Cagney out of retirement to join the 1981 cast for the film version of E. L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime.

Eight years after Cuckoo’s Nest, Forman again partnered with Zaentz, and returned to his homeland of Czechoslovakia to produce Amadeus (1984), which won a total of eight Academy Awards including Forman’s Best Director win.

His other films include Valmont (1989), starring Annette Bening and Colin Firth, The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination, and Man in the Moon (1999) about the life of comedian Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey.

The production of Goya’s Ghosts (2006) marked Forman’s third collaboration with Zaentz and starred Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård and Academy Award-winner Javier Bardem.

In a very short time, Brett Ratner has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most successful directors with seven feature films that have collectively grossed more than $1 billion dollars worldwide. At 26, Ratner directed his first feature film, Money Talks (1997), starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker. His second film, the action comedy Rush Hour (1998), starred Tucker alongside Jackie Chan and earned $250 million worldwide. He followed that success with the romantic fantasy drama The Family Man (2000), and one year later, Ratner delivered Hong Kong-style action with Chan and Tucker in the hit sequel, Rush Hour 2 (2001), which grossed more than $342 million worldwide.

Ratner ventured into the world of suspense thrillers with Red Dragon (2002) the Silence of the Lambs prequel starring Edward Norton, Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Fiennes and Emily Watson. Ratner’s sixth film, After the Sunset (2004), starring Pierce Brosnan, Selma Hayek, Woody Harrelson and Don Cheadle, enjoyed success in theaters nationwide.

In 2006, Ratner shattered several box office records with the release of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), the third installment in the popular film series based on the comic books. The film opened with a staggering $123 million in four days, with its $45.1 million-opening day marking the second-biggest single day box office ever.

Most recently, Ratner directed the third installment of the blockbuster Rush Hour franchise. Rush Hour 3 (2007) sees Tucker and Chan reprise their roles as LAPD Det. James Carter and Royal Hong Kong Police Chief Inspector Lee, and features an acclaimed international supporting cast that includes Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai), Max von Sydow (Minority Report), Yvan Attal (Munich), Jingchu Zhang, Noémie Lenoir (After the Sunset) and Roman Polanski.

Raised in Miami Beach, Ratner dreamed of being a filmmaker since he was 8 years old. He enrolled in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts at age 16, becoming the department’s youngest film major, and, while attending film school, made Whatever Happened to Mason Reese, a short film about and starring the former child actor. The award-winning project received funding from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. Ratner’s big break came after he screened his film for hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, launching a successful career in music videos. He has directed more than 100 videos for artists including Madonna, Mariah Carey, Jessica Simpson, Jay-Z, Wu Tang Clan, D’Angelo, Heavy D, Mary J. Blige, Foxy Brown, Public Enemy, Sean “Diddy” Combs and others.

Ratner won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video for a Film for Madonna’s Beautiful Stranger from the Austin Powers soundtrack. In addition, Ratner received an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight Sequence for Rush Hour 2 as well as a Tony Award for producing Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. Ratner was the recipient of the Spirit of Chrysalis Award for his dedication and leadership in helping economically disadvantaged and homeless individuals change their lives through jobs. He is currently on the boards of Chrysalis and Best Buddies and serves on the Dean’s Council of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

In addition to success in film and music, Ratner also has segued into the world of book publishing with the controversial book, Naked Pictures of my Ex-Girlfriends and Hilhaven Lodge: The Photo Booth Pictures, which was released in October 2003.

Ratner recently has ventured into still photography that has appeared in Vanity Fair, Vogue Homme and V-Life magazines. In addition, he has photographed the fashion campaigns for Baby Phat and Jimmy Choo.

Writer-director-editor John Sayles’ career began as a novelist and short-story writer with the 1975 publication of Pride of the Bimbos, followed by the National Critics’ Circle- and National Book Award-nominee Union Dues in 1977. A short-story collection, The Anarchists’ Convention appeared in 1979, when he also began working as a screenwriter for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Early screenwriting credits include Piranha (1978), Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), The Howling (1981) and Alligator (1980).

Sayles used his “creature features” earnings to finance his first feature film, The Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), about a reunion of 1960s political activists. His second film, Lianna (1983), was one of the first American movies to deal with a lesbian relationship in a non-exploitative manner. Baby It’s You (1983), Sayles’ first studio movie, was released by Paramount, and featured newcomers Rosanna Arquette, Vincent Spano, Matthew Modine and Robert Downey Jr. Next was the low-budget The Brother from Another Planet (1984), an African-American sci-fi allegory starring Joe Morton as a black extra-terrestrial who crashes to earth in Harlem.

During a three-year filmmaking hiatus Sayles acted in a critically acclaimed theater production of The Glass Menagerie with Joanne Woodward and Karen Allen, and directed three music videos for Bruce Springsteen: Born in the U.S.A., I’m on Fire and Glory Days. He won a Writers’ Guild Award for the TV-movie screenplay for Unnatural Causes (1986), which dealt with the legacy of exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and starred John Ritter and Alfre Woodard.

Sayles filmed Matewan in 1987 and Eight Men Out in 1988, projects he had written several years earlier. He also wrote the TV-movie Shannon’s Deal, which led to a highly acclaimed but short-lived TV series of the same name in 1989-90.

Sayles filmed City of Hope (1990) in a mere five weeks, one of the lowest-budget Cinemascope movies ever made, and then published his third novel, Los Gusanos, a multi-generational tale set in Cuba and Miami’s Little Havana, in 1991. Next he wrote the screenplay Passion Fish (1992), for which Sayles received his first Academy Award nomination.

The Secret of Roan Inish, based on the children’s book The Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry by Rosalie K. Fry, dealt with the legend of a half-human, half-seal selkie and the fate of her descendants. Moving to the Mexico/Texas border, Sayles directed Lone Star (1996), a tale of race and history that proved to be his most commercially successful picture and garnered a second Academy Award nomination.

Men With Guns (1997) was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, followed by Limbo (1999), a story of three damaged people who find each other in the extremes of the Alaskan wilderness. He was executive producer on Alejandro Springall’s Santitos (1999) and Sundance Best Picture-winner Girlfight (2000).

Sayles started the 21st century with Sunshine State (2002), starring Edie Falco and Angela Bassett, followed by Casa de los Babys (2003) with Academy Award-winners Marcia Gay Harden, Mary Steenburgen and Rita Moreno. In 2003, he wrote a textbook about the making of Matewan titled Thinking in Pictures, which is often used in film courses. Silver City (2004) marked Sayles’ fourth collaboration with actor Chris Cooper and director of photography Haskell Wexler.

Sayles received the John D. MacArthur Award in 1985, given to 20 Americans each year for their innovative work in diverse fields, and also was the recipient of the Eugene V. Debs (1991) and the John Steinbeck (1998) awards. The Writer’s Guild of America also honored him with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005.

Honeydripper (2007) is Sayles’ 16th feature film and tells the story of the origins of rock ‘n’ roll in the deep South. Shot mostly in Greenville, Ala., and Hank Williams’ boyhood hometown of Georgiana, Ala., the cast includes Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Stacy Keach, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Mary Steenburgen, Vondie Curtis Hall, Ruben Santiago Hudson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Kel Mitchell, Yaya DaCosta, R&B legend Mable John, singer-songwriter Keb’ Mo’ and Austin guitar sensation Gary Clark Jr.

Todd Wagner’s entrepreneurial spirit, business expertise and philanthropic commitment have resulted in the creation of some of the entertainment industry’s most successful and compelling digital, intellectual and physical properties.

Wagner’s first significant mark in the media business came when he and business partner Mark Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com, which they sold to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in 1999. Using this success as a platform, Wagner fused his passion for entertainment with his business portfolio to build a vertically integrated group of media entities across content creation, distribution and exhibition.

Wagner is the CEO of 2929 Entertainment, where he has served as executive producer of the critically acclaimed drama Akeelah and the Bee (2006), starring Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett and Keke Palmer, and the Academy Award-nominated Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), directed by and co-starring George Clooney.

Under the 2929 Production banner, Wagner has several projects in production including The Chosen Few, an adaptation of Julie Precious' story Task Force Faith; What Just Happened?, directed by Barry Levinson and featuring an all-star cast of Robert De Niro, Catherine Keener, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, John Turturro and Kristen Stewart; We Own the Night, a crime drama from writer/director James Gray starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall about an up-and-coming nightclub manager in 1980s Queens who falls into a rivalry with his police officer brother; and In Bloom, a thriller from director Vadim Perelman starring Uma Thurman opposite Evan Rachel Wood about a woman who can't get past the 15-year-old memory of a school shooting.

Truly Indie is a self-distribution initiative launched by 2929 Entertainment to give filmmakers access to marketing and sales tools without a traditional distributor. Filmmakers pay a flat fee to cover distribution, advertising, publicity and exhibition, and retain all rights and box office receipts to the film. Truly Indie has distributed Neill Dela Llana and Ian Gamazon’s Cavite (2005), Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowolf & Grendel (2005), Doug Block’s critically acclaimed 51 Birch Street (2005) and James Scurlock’s documentary Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders (2006), about the current state of the credit card industry. Something to Cheer About, a documentary about America's first all-black team to win a state basketball championship, was released in April 2007.

HDNet Films develops, finances and produces feature films shot in high-definition and intended for day-and-date release through Landmark Theatres and Magnolia Pictures, television premieres on the HDNet Movies channel and simultaneously on DVD with foreign sales handled by HDNet Films International. HDNet Films produced Alex Gibney’s Oscar-nominated documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), as well as Bubble (2005), Fay Grim (2006) and Alex Steyermark’s One Last Thing (2005), which was both a 2005 Toronto Film Festival and 2006 Tribeca Film Festival selection. Current releases include Broken English (2007) and Doug Pray’s documentary Surfwise (2007). Upcoming releases include Carols Brooks’ Quid Pro Quo; Steven Soderbergh’s documentary Spalding Gray; and Alex Gibney’s Hunter S. Thompson, an in-depth documentary about the notorious gonzo journalist.

HDNet is the first national television network to broadcast all of its programming in 1080i HD, the highest quality format of high-definition television delivering crystal-clear resolution in a widescreen 16:9 theater-like format. HDNet is also home to the critically acclaimed and award-winning programs such as Arrested Development, Dead Like Me, Smallville, Joan of Arcadia, Boomtown and Andy Richter Controls the Universe. HDNet broadcasts original programming including television’s only HD news feature programs HDNet World Report, NASA on HDNet and Dan Rather Reports. Additionally, HDNet presents championship sports coverage featuring the National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, NASCAR Grand National Division and boxing as well as groundbreaking music programming with the HDNet Concert Series featuring leading artists and bands including U2, Eminem and Gorillaz.

Magnolia Pictures is an independent distributor of films including Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp (2006), Cocaine Cowboys (2006) and The World’s Fastest Indian (2005) with Anthony Hopkins. Magnolia Pictures recently opened Charles Ferguson’s wildly acclaimed documentary No End in Sight (2007), as well as Broken English and Johnnie To's crime-thriller Exiled (2006). In addition, Magnolia premiered writer/director Brian De Palma’s Redacted at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. Magnolia Home Entertainment handles home video distribution for Magnolia Pictures releases, Magnolia Home Entertainment original productions and the HD-DVD product from HDNet Films and HDNet.

Also under the 2929 Entertainment banner, Landmark Theatres is the nation's largest theater chain devoted exclusively to exhibiting and marketing independent film with 61 theaters in 24 markets. Landmark is a leader in theater technology and services, providing customers with digital cinema, upscale concessions, on-site DVD sales, specialized merchandise, film festivals and special events.

Wagner has worked with Cuban for the past 11 years, and the two continue as partners in all of the above businesses. Wagner also has a stake in the Dallas Mavericks, holds interests in Lionsgate Entertainment, The Weinstein Company and the Canadian film and television company Peace Arch Entertainment. He is founder and co-chairman of Content Partners LLC, a company that invests in the back-end profit participations of Hollywood talent.

Established in 2000, The Todd Wagner Foundation develops programs dedicated to improving the lives of at-risk children and inner-city entrepreneurs by increasing access to technology, education and capital. One of the foundation’s most significant initiatives is MIRACLES®, a structured after-school program focusing on technology, education and life skills for children in grades 6-12.

The Todd Wagner Foundation recently made a substantial grant that will integrate the MIRACLES curriculum with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America technology program Club Tech. The Todd Wagner Foundation’s other involvements include the Dallas After-School All-Stars, which offers year-round technology, academic, sports and cultural programs for inner-city children, and expanded in 2006 through a merger with the Dallas YMCA. The Foundation was also instrumental in providing funding to bring a Knowledge is Power Program charter school to Dallas, which opened in the summer of 2003.

Whether it is for his business interests, or his philanthropic work, Wagner’s results-driven, see change approach is consistent. From introducing streaming audio and video to the Internet more than a decade ago, and forging day-and-date multi-platform releases early last year, to innovating programs to equip inner city schools with needed technology skills, Wagner insists on supporting entrepreneurial, inspirational and socially conscious endeavors.

David Benioff worked as a nightclub bouncer in San Francisco, a radio DJ in Wyoming and an English teacher/wrestling coach in Brooklyn before selling his first novel, The 25th Hour, in 2000.

He later wrote the screenplay for Spike Lee’s adaptation of Hour starring Edward Norton and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. In 2005, Viking Press published Benioff’s collection of short stories, When the Nines Roll Over.

Benioff’s screenwriting credits include Troy (2004), directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and Stay (2005), directed by Marc Forster, and The Kite Runner (2007). Jim Sheridan will commence production in November 2007 on Benioff’s screenplay Brothers, and Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as the clawed mutant in Benioff’s Wolverine. Viking will publish his most recent novel, City of Thieves, in May 2008.

Benioff is married to actress Amanda Peet; the couple has one daughter, Frances Pen.