Britain’s MIKE NEWELL (Director) most recently directed the highly acclaimed mob tale Donnie Brasco, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. His other celebrated feature film credits include Four Weddings and a Funeral, which was honored with two Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Enchanted April, which received three Academy Award nominations and won Golden Globe Awards for Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright, Into the West, a script by Jim Sheridan which starred Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin, The Good Father, which starred Anthony Hopkins and won the Prix Italia in 1985, and the 1985 Cannes Film Festival winner Dance with a Stranger, starring Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett and Ian Holm.

After graduating with a degree in English from Cambridge University, Newell joined Granada Television as a production trainee in 1963. He went on to direct many television dramas, including Them Down There, Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill, Destiny and The Melancholy Hussar, as well as numerous British and U.S.-produced television films, including Blood Feud and CBS’ Common Ground.

His first feature film was The Man in the Iron Mask, starring Louis Jourdan, Ralph Richardson, Richard Chamberlain and Jenny Agutter. He went on to make his U.S. directorial debut with the 1980 film The Awakening, starring Charlton Heston and Susannah York. This was followed by the feature film Bad Blood, the telefilm Birth of a Nation and the haunting and sensuous mystery Dance with a Stranger, which garnered Newell international acclaim and positioned him on the list of the world’s top directors.

His other feature film credits include Soursweet, Amazing Grace and Chuck, which starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Gregory Peck, and An Awfully Big Adventure, which was based on the prize-winning Beryl Bainbridge novel and starred High Grant and Alan Rickman.

More recently, Newell served as executive producer on last year’s Photographing Fairies and as executive producer on the upcoming Best Laid Plans, which is directed by Mike Barker and stars Josh Brolin, Alessandro Nivola and Reese Witherspoon. Both films are produced by Newell’s Dogstar Films.