Touchstone pictures

OLIVER STAPLETON (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY) has photographed a broad spectrum of critically hailed and influential films. “The Cider House Rules” marked his first collaboration with Lasse Hallström with whom he subsequently worked with on “The Shipping News” and “An Unfinished Life.” He has teamed up with the British director Stephen Frears on eight occasions, beginning with “My Beautiful Laundrette” which was followed by “Prick Up Your Ears,” “Sammy And Rosie Get Laid,” “The Grifters,” “Hero,” “The Snapper,” “The Van” and “The Hi-Lo Country.”
Stapleton has also worked with director Michael Hoffmann on four occasions: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “One Fine Day,” the Oscar-winning epic “Restoration” and “Restless Natives,” which marked Stapleton’s debut as a Director of Photography in 1985. Additional film credits include “Ned Kelly,” “Buffalo Soldiers,” “The Object Of My Affection,” “The Designated Mourner,” “Kansas City,” “Let Him Have It,” “She-Devil” and “Danny, The Champion of the World,” which was nominated for an ACE award. He worked with Julien Temple on the rock musical, “Absolute Beginners” and the sci-fi comedy, “Earth Girls Are Easy.” He also shot the comedy feature “The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball.” He began his career shooting music videos and won an MTV Video award for Best Cinematography for his work with the band A-Ha, on the video for “Take Me On.”

DAVID GROPMAN (PRODUCTION DESIGNER) worked during the 1980s as set designer on a number of Broadway stage productions including “Passione,” “Mass Appeal,” “Open Admissions,” “Death And The King’s Horseman” and “The Comedy Of Errors.” He made his movie debut as a Production Designer in 1982 on “Come Back To The Five And Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” having worked on the stage design of the Broadway production. His subsequent credits as a Production Designer include “Miles From Home,” “Slaves Of New York,” “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge,” “Nobody’s Fool,” “Marvin’s Room,” “Twilight” and “A Civil Action.”
Gropman has worked with Lasse Hallström on a number of critically acclaimed productions including “The Cider House Rules,” “Chocolat” and “The Shipping News.” Gropman was nominated for an Academy Award® for “The Cider House Rules” and was nominated for a British Academy Award (BAFTA) for “Chocolat.” He won an Art Directors Guild award in 2001 for “Chocolat.” More recently he worked on “The Human Stain” directed by Robert Benton and he collaborated again with Hallström on “An Unfinished Life.” He is currently designing “Little Children” for director Todd Field.

ANDREW MONDSHEIN (EDITOR) was nominated for an Academy Award® for his work on director M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.” Mondshein reunites with Lasse Hallström on CASANOVA, having also edited “An Unfinished Life,” “The Shipping News,” “Chocolat,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” and “Once Around.” Beginning his career under the tutelage of director Sidney Lumet, Mondshein worked on five films with him including “Garbo Talks,” “Family Business” and the award-winning “Running on Empty.” He went on to edit three films for Susan Seidelman including the hit “Desperately Seeking Susan”; two films for Beeban Kidron including “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar”; Joseph Ruben’s “Return to Paradise” and the hit comedy “Analyze That.”
In addition to his work as editor, Mondshein has also directed second camera unit on numerous films including “The Shipping News,” “The Sixth Sense,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” and “Running on Empty.” He made his directorial debut with the feature film “Evidence of Blood” starring David Strathairn and Mary McDonnell.


JENNY BEAVAN (COSTUME DESIGNER) was born and raised in London, England where she graduated from the Central School of Art and Design in 1971. In the following year she designed the scenery and costumes for “Carmen” for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Since then she has designed for the theatre, ballet, opera, television and film.
Beavan won an Oscar and a British equivalent of the Oscar® Award as costume designer with John Bright for “A Room With A View,” as well as nominations for “The Bostonians,” “Maurice.” “Howards End,” “The Remains Of The Day” (all for Merchant Ivory Productions) and “Sense And Sensibility” for Columbia Pictures. Her recent film work includes “Metroland,” “Ever After,” “Anna and the King,” “Tea With Mussolini” directed by Franco Zefferelli, Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.”
Joint film credits with John Bright include “The Deceivers,” “Mountains Of The Moon,” “White Fang” and “Jefferson In Paris.” Independent of her frequent collaborator John Bright, her film costume design credits include “Impromptu,” “A Summer Story,” “Jane Austen In Manhattan,” “Hullabaloo Over Bonnie And Georgia’s Pictures,” “The Bridge,” “Swing Kids,” “Black Beauty” and “Jane Eyre” for Franco Zefferelli for which she won the David di Donatello award, the Italian Oscar.
Jenny Beavan received an Emmy Award nomination as costume designer for the television movie “Mountbatten – The Last Viceroy” (Brent Walker), and won the Emmy award in 1997 for “Emma” produced by Sue Birtwhistle. Beavan also designed the costumes for “How Proust Can Change Your Life” with Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Kendall for the BBC.

GUIDO CERASUOLO (CO-PRODUCER), who hails from Venice, Italy, has had an illustrious career as a production supervisor, collaborating with George Lucas on the epic productions of “Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace,” “Stars Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” and “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.” He served as producer on the acclaimed Polish film “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” was line producer on the hit thriller “The Italian Job” and was associate producer and production supervisor on Phillip Haas’ “Up at the Villa.” He also served as the Italian production supervisor for Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator.” Additional credits include “Scent of Blood,” “Muzungu,” “Night Train,” “In Love and War” and “Everyone Says I Love You.”

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT (ORIGINAL MUSIC) has composed scores for more than 50 films, an opera and a ballet, as well as varied projects for television and theatre. His score for Peter Webber’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” won him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score, a BAFTA nomination and a 2004 Best European Composer nomination. He also was honored with two French Cesar nominations for Jacques Audiard’s “A Self Made Hero” and “Read My Lips.” Most recently, he composed scores for Mike Binder’s “The Upside of Anger” starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner; Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth” starring Nicole Kidman; and “Hostage” starring Bruce Willis. Desplat’s credits include Marleen Gorris’ “The Luzhin Defense,” Leslie Megahey’s “The Advocate,” Patrick Dewolf’s “Innocent Lies” and Malcom Mowbray’s “The Revengers Comedies.” Desplat also wrote the title music for the multi-part feature “11’09o1 September 11,” with contribution from directors including Sean Penn, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Danis Tanovic, Ken Loach and Shohei Imamura.
His forthcoming films include the thrillers “Derailed” with Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston and “Syriana” with George Clooney and Matt Damon.
Born in Paris, he began studying piano at age 6, trumpet at age 8 and flute at age 10. He then studied with Claude Baillif at the Paris Conservatory and with Jack Hayes in Los Angeles for orchestration. Desplat has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic and the Munich Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has written songs for Kate Beckinsale, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Michael Gambon, Catherine Ringer and Nadia Fares. He lectured on film scoring at the Royal College of Music in London and at La Sorbonne in Paris.