About the Filmmakers

 

 HAL HARTLEY (Writer/Director/Producer/Composer), born in 1959 outside New York City, has been making feature films since 1989.  They include The Unbelievable Truth (1989), Trust (1990), Simple Men (1991), Amateur (1993), Flirt (1993-95), and Henry Fool (1997).  Simple Men and Henry Fool were part of the Cannes Festival Selection in 1992 and 1998, respectively, while Amateur was included in the Director's Fortnight in 1994.  Henry Fool was also awarded best screenplay at Cannes in 1998. He has created various short films and videos as well, including Surviving Desire (1991), The Other Also (1997) and The Book Of Life, (1999).  In 1998 Gerard Mortier of the Salzburg Festival in Austria commissioned him to stage his first play, "Soon."  It was subsequently performed at De Single in Antwerp, and its U.S. premiere, in California, was in November 2001. Further performances are planned in New York and Chicago late in 2002.

In 1999 Hartley made two short films: Kimono, for German Television, and The New Math(s) for the BBC, a collaboration with the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. This year he has also produced The Cloud of Unknowing, a feature ghost movie by photographer Richard Sylvarnes starring Miho Nikaido, DJ Mendel, and Thomas Jay Ryan.

Hartley lives and works in New York City, where he maintains hisproduction company, Possible Films.

 

FRIDRIK THÓR FRIDRIKSSON (Producer), born in 1954, is Iceland’s most celebrated and award-winning film director.  He is a self-educated filmmaker and started making 16mm short films while still in school.  He ran the University’s film club from 1974 to 1978, where he promoted and popularized film classics and art films.  He founded Iceland’s first film magazine and helped set up the Reykjavik Film Festival in 1978, which he still chairs.

Fridriksson started his film career as a director of non-conventional documentaries and television dramas.  His second feature film, Children of Nature (1991), was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992 and received no less than twenty three other international prizes.  Angels of the Universe, Fridriksson’s latest film, is an adaption of Einar Már Gudmundsson’s award- winning novel.  Fridriksson’s next project as director is Falcons, written in collaboration with Einar Kárason; also in development is the feature film Sunrise, directed by Ásgrímur Sverrisson.

 

CECILIA KATE ROQUE (Producer), a graduate of Reed College who continued her education at New York University’s Institute of Film and Television, has been very active in film and television production for the last twelve years.  One of her first projects, Flour Babies, a CBS School Break Special directed by Linda Lavin, received an Emmy Award nomination in 1989. The following year, she served as production supervisor for Hard Promises starring Sissy Spacek.  Ms. Roque served as production manager for two Hal Hartley projects in the early nineties (Surviving Desire and Simple Men) as well as for American Playhouse’s 1992 production of The Music of Chance and Luc Besson’s The Professional in 1993.  She has served as a co-producer on 200 Cigarettes, The Last Days of Disco and, most recently, Pollock.  Her other credits include The Spanish Prisoner, The Tears of Julian Po, Joe’s Apartment, Empire Records and the ABC TV movie Mary and Rhoda.

 

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (Executive Producer) is one of the most respected talents in the entertainment business.  Best known as a five-time Oscar®-winning director, writer and producer, he won his first Oscar® in 1971 for the screenplay for Patton, which he co-wrote with Edmund H. North.  His impressive body of work includes directorial credits for 20 films – including epic films such as The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now – and most recently Bram Stoker’s Dracula and John Grisham’s The Rainmaker.  Coppola, who won the Palmes d’Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, presided as president of the jury for the 1996 festival.  Throughout his career, Coppola has always searched for better tools for filmmakers and is considered the pioneer of electronic cinema. Many of the techniques he developed have become the industry standard.  His San Francisco-based film company, American Zoetrope, develops and produces film projects for both the large and small screen.

 

LINDA REISMAN (Executive Producer) is the head of production for American Zoetrope.  In addition to No Such Thing, Reisman served as executive producer on the Zoetrope productions of Jeepers Creepers, directed by Victor Salva, and Pumpkin.  Zoetrope also recently produced Roman Coppola's directorial debut, CQ, and is currently in production with Assassination Tango, which Robert Duvall wrote, will direct and star in.  Previously, Reisman produced Waking the Dead for director Keith Gordon, which starred Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly and was produced with Jodie Foster and Egg Pictures, and Paul Schrader's Affliction, which starred Academy Award® nominee Nick Nolte, Academy Award® winner James Coburn, Sissy Spacek and Willem Dafoe.  Other projects produced by Reisman include Keith Gordon's Mother Night and Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper, The Comfort of Strangers, and Patty Hearst.  Reisman also served as the U.S. consulting producer during pre-production on Julie Taymor's Titus.

 

WILLI BAER (Executive Producer) has produced dozens of films including Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way, The Real McCoy, The Shadow, Wolfgang Petersen’s Shattered, My Life, Nobody’s Fool starring Paul Newman, and Deuces Wild.  He served as executive producer of Robert Altman’s Afterglow and Cookie’s Fortune, Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Map Of The World, Thick As Thieves, The Big Brass Ring, Mike Figgis’ Miss Julie, Rod Lurie’s The Contender, Forever Lulu, Beat, Prozac Nation, Pumpkin and Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing.

 

MICHAEL SPILLER (Director of Photography) previously collaborated with Hal Hartley on Henry Fool, Flirt, Amateur, Simple Men, Trust and The Unbelievable Truth.  He has also served as director of photography on several others films, including Drop Dead Gorgeous, Hell’s Kitchen, The House of Yes, Walking and Talking and Search and Destroy.  His television credits include Hal Hartley’s Surviving Desire as well as several episodes of HBO’s Sex and the City.

 

ÁRNI PÁLL JÓHANNSSON (Production Designer) served as production designer on Baltasar Kormakur’s 101 Reykjavik as well as on the films Vildspor, Pearls and Swines, Maria, Nature’s Warrior, Devil’s Island, Viking Saga, Cold Fever, Movie Days, Men’s Choir, Deep Winter, Paper Peter, several short films, and Children Of Nature, which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film.  He’s also served as a set designer for several theatrical productions and museum exhibitions.

Jóhannsson’s other film work includes art direction for the films Witchcraft, Racing Star and Ingalo, and he created special effects for the films Paper Peter, White Whales, Policeman’s Lot, and Deep Winter.  He wrote the screenplays for the films Nebula, The Crossbow Man, and Iceland by the Eyes of an Angel, and with partner Jim Stark, he owns Frozen Films producing company.

 

STEVE HAMILTON (Editor) has worked with Hal Hartley as editor and sound supervisor since 1990 on numerous films, including Henry Fool and Amateur.  He has also edited feature films for Michael Almereyda, Jesse Peretz, Beth B and Rea Tajiri.  Hamilton’s supervising sound editor credits include films by Ang Lee (including Sense and Sensibility and Eat Drink Man Woman), Hannah Weyer, Greg Mottola, Bart Freundlich, Rebecca Miller and many other independent filmmakers.

As the founder of Spin Cycle Post in New York City, Hamilton pioneered the use of digital technologies for post-production on low budget feature films and has shared his findings on many technical and creative panels nationwide, including SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), the AES (Audio Engineering Society), and the IFP (Independent Feature Project).

Hamilton is involved in Sontext, a sound art collaboration with recent shows at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Queens Museum of Art.  He’s currently the president of Mad Mad Judy, a post-production facility in New York City.

 

HELGA I. STEFÁNSDÓTTIR (Costume Designer) is one of Iceland’s leading costume and set designers.  She studied stage and costume design at L’Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and works equally in film, theater, and television.  Her costume design credits include the films As in Heaven, Tears of Stone, Agnes, No Trace, and Fridrik Thór Fridriksson’s Angels of the Universe.