Burn Up
Crew biographies
Simon Beaufoy - Writer
London-born Simon Beaufoy is a graduate of Bournemouth Film School where he produced Release
Me, a half-hour drama that premiered on 91Èȱ¬ Two and won five awards at international film festivals.
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Simon's first script Cello won the Euston Films Best Script Award at the 1991 Fuji Film Competition. In
June 1996 he co-wrote and co-directed a short with Bille Eltringham entitled Yellow for Channel 4. In
October that same year he co-directed Closer for Channel 4, as part of the Brief Encounters series.
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Simon's first original full-length produced screenplay, The Full Monty, became a box office
phenomenon, taking in over £125 million worldwide. The Full Monty earned him the London Film
Critics Circle award as well as Academy Award, BAFTA and Writers Guild of America Award
nominations. The film was also nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It won The Evening Standard
Best Film award and audience awards at many film festivals around the world and in 2001 was voted
the Best English Film Ever by Empire Online readers.
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Simon also penned Among Giants, which starred Pete Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths, as well as
This Is Not a Love Song and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, co-written with David Magee.
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His latest project for Celador Films, Film4 and Warner International Pictures is Danny Boyle's
forthcoming feature, Slumdog Millionaire.
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Christopher Hall
- Producer
For a decade, Christopher worked as an assistant director on a variety of feature film and television projects,
including David Drury's Defence Of The Realm, John Mackenzie's The Fourth Protocol and Robert
Knights' Porterhouse Blue. On David Hare's Paris by Night and Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm Christopher
served as the First Assistant Director.
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He was the Production Supervisor for three series of London's Burning as well as Production Supervisor
for Anna Lee, Bugs, and eight episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot.
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As producer, Christopher has worked on many television productions, including Stuart Orme's The Lost World,
starring Bob Hoskins, James Fox and Peter Falk, which received BAFTA and Emmy nominations; The
Hound of the Baskervilles; Aristocrats; The Young Visiters, starring Jim Broadbent, Hugh Laurie and Bill
Nighy; Archangel, starring Daniel Craig; and the acclaimed adaptation of Joanna Trollope's Other
People's Children.
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He also produced the 2004 91Èȱ¬ drama Pride which won a Royal Television Society
Award and was nominated for two Emmys.
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Recently he produced 10 mini-series of Trial And Retribution and The Commander for ITV1.
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Omar Madha
- Director
Self taught in film, Omar attained an English degree and read countless scripts while writing
his own short films, which he later made.
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He received hands-on training as an assistant
director, where he read, saw and listened to every director's every word.
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Applying his talents
to what he had learned he then made - in his own words - "three good short films and
umpteen bad ones that have hopefully all been destroyed."
One of the "good ones" was a 1995 short entitled Playground Rules, which played in cinemas
in front of the theatrical release of Crimson Tide and was later broadcast on Channel 4.
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The
other two shorts Omar is proud of are ones he made in 1999 – Neighbours, which he wrote
and directed, and another for Film Four's Spotlight strand called The Last Straw.
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In 2000 Omar busied himself directing episodes of Clocking Off, Attachments and Urban
Gothic.
He subsequently helmed the television movie Fallen, starring Jonathan Cake, as well as
the pilot episode of the series Rose and Maloney.
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Other credits include the hugely successful
drama series Spooks and Love My Way, an Australian series which was nominated for 24 awards
and successfully walked away with 16, including a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Drama
Series, Mini-series or Telemovie.
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JP3/PPR
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