Kenneth Branagh, born December 10, 1960. At 23, Ken joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he took on starring roles in Henry V and Romeo and Juliet. Finding the R.S.C. too impersonal, however, he left to form the Renaissance Theatre Company.

At just 29, Ken directed and starred in the film Henry V, which co-starred his then-wife, Emma Thompson. The film brought him Best Actor and Best Director Oscar nominations.

In 1993, Ken brought Shakespeare to mainstream audiences with his hit adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It featured an all-star cast that included Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves.

In 1996, Ken Branagh wrote, directed and starred in a lavish adaptation of Hamlet, and in recent years he has starred in a series of Shakespearian roles in Celebrity and Wild Wild West, as well as appearing in Rabbit Proof Fence and Harry Potter.

Kenneth Branagh is currently in production on The Magic Flute.

Michael Grade has a long and distinguished career in broadcasting, encompassing London Weekend Television, the BBC and over nine years as Chief Executive of Channel Four Television.

He is non-executive Chairman of Pinewood and Shepperton Film Studios and also of Ocado, the on-line retail grocery arm of the supermarket, Waitrose. He is also a non-executive director of Charlton Athletic Football Club.

In May 2004, he was appointed Chairman of the BBC, succeeding Gavyn Davies, resigning in November 2006 when his appointment as Executive Chairman of ITV was announced.

Michael Kuhn, born in Nairobi, Kenya, read Law at Clare College Cambridge. Michael joined Polygram in 1975 and in 1991 set up Polygram Filmed Entertainment, which made and distributed over 100 feature films and won 14 Academy Awards. The films included Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill, Dead Man Walking, The Usual Suspects, Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Elizabeth, Trainspotting and Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

Michael was awarded the Michael Balcon Award for services to British Cinema in 1999.

He set up Qwerty Films in 1999 and secured finance to produce bigger budget movies. Qwerty Films has produced 6 features in its first 4 years of operation, including Stage Beauty and Kinsey.

His book 100 Films and a Funeral was published in 2001. He is Chairman of the National Film and Television School.

Sir Alan Parker, born 1944 London. Before moving into film he was one of London’s best known copywriters, and commercials directors in ’60s and ’70s. His most celebrated and enduring work has been the series of adverts for Cinzano starring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins.

In 1978 Sir Alan directed Midnight Express which was loved by critics and ended up earning Parker a number of Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture. He was later nominated for Best Director for Mississippi Burning in 1988.

Sir Alan has directed a number of music-related movies including Bugsy Malone, Fame, Pink Floyd The Wall, The Commitments and Evita.

Sir Alan Parker was knighted in the New Year’s Honours in 2002.

Nik Powell is one of the co-founders of the Virgin group alongside Richard Branson. Having run a small music shop together in London, they set up Virgin Records in 1972 and became one of the UK’s major recording labels until they sold it to EMI.

In 1982 Powell went into partnership with Stephen Woolley, proprietor of the Scala Cinema. Together they formed Palace Video, followed by Palace Pictures, and then Palace Productions. Powell acted as Executive Producer on all of Palace’s productions including Absolute Beginners, Letter To Brezhnev, Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, Fever Pitch, Little Voice, Fanny and Elvis.

Beside his new appointment as Director of the National Film and Television School, he remains as chairman of Scala Productions as well as being a director of all the Scala and previously Palace and Virgin companies.

Natascha Wharton joined Working Title in 1993 assisting on films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral.

She went on to become a development exec and eventually headed the division WT², set up in 1999 to encourage more experimental British projects on smaller budgets.

WT² produced the smash hit Billy Elliot, and Wharton has been a crucial figure for UK film-makers ever since.

Stoned is Stephen Woolley’s directorial debut but he has spent a lifetime steeped in movies and filmmaking.

Over a twenty-year period Woolley has produced over twenty films and has exec-produced an additional twenty films. Intermission, starring Colin Farrell and Cillian Murphy, and Breakfast on Pluto, starring Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson, has continued Woolley’s long-term partnership with director Neil Jordan which began with The Company of Wolves in 1983. His collaborations with Jordan include The Actors, starring Sir Michael Caine and Dylan Moran, The Good Thief, the Oscar-nominated The End of the Affair, Michael Collins, Interview With The Vampire, and Oscar-winning The Crying Game. Woolley also produced Jordan’s Oscar nominated Mona Lisa which won numerous international awards. The pair worked together again on High Spirits, The Miracle and The Butcher Boy.

After the Producer’s Guild of America awarded him the 1992 Producer of the Year for The Crying Game (for which he also received an Oscar nomination), Woolley went on to produce Backbeat - the story of the fifth Beatle. He subsequently executive produced The Hollow Reed, Fever Pitch, Purely Belter and Little Voice starring Sir Michael Caine and Jane Horrocks.