Synopsis – A linguist is recruited by the military to assist in translating alien communications.

Directed – Denis Villeneuve

Starring – Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Check out the trailer:

Production Notes:

FilmNation Entertainment and Lava Bear Films Present

A 21 Laps Entertainment Production

 

ARRIVAL

PRODUCTION NOTES

 

A film by Denis Villeneuve

Running time: 116 minutes

Press contact:

Selena Saldana

FilmNation Entertainment

T: +1-917-484-8914

ssaldana@filmnation.com

“ARRIVAL”

Directed by

DENIS VILLENEUVE

Screenplay by

ERIC HEISSERER

Based on the Story

“Story of Your Life” written by

TED CHIANG

Cast

AMY ADAMS

JEREMY RENNER

FOREST WHITAKER

MICHAEL STUHLBARG

Produced by

SHAWN LEVY, p.g.a. / DAN LEVINE, p.g.a.

Produced by

AARON RYDER, p.g.a. / DAVID LINDE, p.g.a.

Executive Producers

STAN WLODKOWSKI / ERIC HEISSERER

Executive Producers

DAN COHEN / KAREN LUNDER

TORY METZGER / MILAN POPELKA

Co-Producer

MICHAEL A. JACKMAN

Director of Photography

BRADFORD YOUNG, ASC

Production Designer

PATRICE VERMETTE

Editor

JOE WALKER, ACE

Music by

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON

Visual Effects Supervisor

LOUIS MORIN

Costume Designer

RENÉE APRIL

Casting by

FRANCINE MAISLER, CSA

Additional Casting by

LUCIE ROBITAILLE

SYNOPSIS

When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team – led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) – are brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.

“I’ve dreamed of doing science fiction since I was ten years old,” explains director Denis Villeneuve, who fell deeply in love with the short story ARRIVAL is based upon, Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life.’ “It’s a genre that I feel has a lot of power and the tools to explore our reality in a very dynamic way.”

“After Dan Levine and Dan Cohen first contacted me about doing a movie,” says Chiang, “they sent me a DVD of Denis’ film, Incendies (2010), to give me an idea of what they had in mind. That played a big part in my taking them seriously. If they had sent me a copy of a conventional Hollywood science-fiction movie, I probably would have ignored them. It wasn’t until a few years later that Denis was actually attached to direct, but he was the director they had in mind from the beginning.”

Villeneuve approached ARRIVAL differently for a number of reasons. Even though he thought ‘Story of Your Life’ was  “fantastic material” he simply didn’t have time to write the screenplay because he was in the middle of shooting Prisoners (2013). “I had no time to write a screenplay,” says Villeneuve, “and, to be honest, I didn’t know how to crack that short story because it’s very intellectual, in a strong and beautiful way, but from a dramatic point of view it’s a bit difficult to articulate because it’s about process.”

Villeneuve left it with the producers, including executive producer and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who had already been working on an adaptation of the short story from early on in the production process. “They came back a few months later with a screenplay written by Eric Heisserer that was surprisingly good,” says Villeneuve. “I say surprising because Eric was able to crack it and create a sense of tension and a drama inside of that process of translation.” Villeneuve was on board.

Though Villeneuve had always been the producers’ first choice to direct the film, ARRIVAL’s journey began when Heisserer and fellow Producer Dan Levine and Executive Producer Dan Cohen, both of 21 Laps (fellow Producer Shawn Levy’s production company behind current TV sensation Stranger Things), were looking for a project to collaborate on. Levine and Cohen were big fans of Heisserer’s writing so the three met to discuss potential projects. After two hours of discussion they still hadn’t settled on a project. When Levine asked Heisserer what had excited him recently, Heisserer gave him Chiang’s collection of short stories ‘Stories of Your Life and Others’ (2002, Tor Books).

“I got the book, read through it and came across ‘Story of Your Life’ and my jaw dropped when that twist hit,” explains Levine. “I couldn’t believe how good the story

was. Running through my head was ‘this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever read…please let the rights be available.’ I read it with great anxiety and then had to hunt down Ted Chiang.”

Heisserer was equally taken by Chiang’s story. “Ted’s short story gripped me in a way that very few stories do,” recounts Heisserer. “It wasn’t that I felt that the qualities of the story were inherently cinematic, but it gave me something that I hadn’t had in a long time. It fed my brain and my heart. It made me think and feel, and it treated me with a lot of respect as an intelligent reader. At the end of the day I felt it gave an optimistic message about humanity, and in turn about myself.”

“Eric and I didn’t talk about the script as it was being written,” explains Chiang. “He pitched me his idea for the script early on in order to get me to grant permission. I should note that when I wrote the story, I never envisioned it being made into a film and I had difficulty imagining what a film adaptation of it would look like. When I heard Eric’s pitch I was able to visualize the film he had in mind and I liked it, so I let him go ahead and write a script. After he had finished it, I read it and offered a few comments. Over the years the script has undergone some changes, but in most ways it’s still what Eric originally pitched.”

“This script came to me and our company, FilmNation Entertainment, from the folks at 21 Laps,” says producer Aaron Ryder, who says FilmNation focuses on making films for grown ups, like Under The Skin, The Imitation Game, The King’s Speech and Nebraska. “It’s an unusual one because Eric Heisserer wrote it on spec and the folks at 21 Laps, Shawn Levy, Dan Levine and Dan Cohen, developed it with Eric. There’s something about this script that has that sense of realism to it and when you apply that realism to science fiction it’s pretty fascinating.”

“What I love about the short story is that it has a lot of layers,” explains Villeneuve. “One of them that deeply touched me is this idea that someone is in contact with death. What would happen if you know how you will die, when you will die? What will your relationship with life, love, your family and friends, and with your society be? By being more in relationship with death, in an intimate way with the nature of life and its subtleties, it would bring us more humility. Humanity needs that humility right now. We are in an era with a lot of narcissism. We are at the point where we are dangerously disconnected from nature. That’s what this beautiful short story was for me—a way to get back into a relationship with death and nature, and the mystery of life.”

 

THE AESTHETIC/CINEMATOGRAPHY & DESIGN

“I found myself without a cinematographer for this project at the beginning because Roger Deakins was working on another project,” says Villeneuve, who had to figure out who else could create the movie he envisioned. “I needed a strong eye, someone [who could] bring sensuality, that would be able to capture life. The movie is in two parts: There’s Louise’s relationship with her daughter, this is the heart of the movie, and then there’s the sci-fi. I needed a cinematographer able to embrace with [sensitivity] and delicacy the relationship between the mother and her child, and the way I wanted to approach it, while at the same time [able] to bring freshness to [the] sci-fi [elements]. Bradford Young was a massive discovery for me. As a filmmaker, to work with him, [I felt] I was seeing the birth of a genius.”

“I’ve been a big fan of Denis’ work since Polytechnique (2009),” explains Young. “A few months ago somebody asked me who I wanted to work with next—Denis was at the top of my list. We know some folks in common and they’d said we would really get along. When I got the call from him it was a big surprise but it seemed serendipitous. I read the script, liked the material and it went from there.”

“The guy is really hyper-sensitive,” says Villeneuve about Young. “We created an approach that we call ‘dirty sci-fi’—which means that we were trying to create the feeling that this was happening on a bad Tuesday morning. We wanted to create a sci-fi movie that [gave you a feeling] like when you were a kid on the school bus on a rainy day and you’d dream while looking [out the window] at the clouds—that kind of atmosphere, getting away from the scope of the huge movies. Getting away from the spectacle. We were trying to make something delicate and light. Bradford brought a lot of humanity and beauty to the movie.”

“Denis’ films seem very grounded,” says Young. “They always feel very present but cinematic. Even though it’s embedded in this tight, human drama, a human reality, they always seem to have massive scope. That’s always attracted me to his work. I’ve looked for opportunities where we could focus in on the human dilemma, but at the same time I always feel like movies should have scale. They should have size and perspective. As I grow as a cinematographer, I look for those opportunities where I can photograph movies that have that ethos to them.”

“When Denis and I first started talking about the film,” recounts the cinematographer, “one of the things that we were really concerned about is that, as filmmakers, we often inoculate the process with our own preconceived notions about what a genre could be. This genre was sci-fi but what we wanted was to be just as surprised when the aliens arrive as the viewer or the characters in the film are. We wanted to be as naive as the characters about what it means to interact with alien intelligence. That allowed Denis and I to take a step back from the process and decide that this film needed to be raw. It needed to be truthful. When the aliens and spacecraft arrive, we all feel surprise, and as frightened and compelled to be in contact with them as the characters in the film.”

Retaining a sense of mystery about the aliens, maintaining their otherworldliness, was crucial. “Often times in sci-fi films human beings have so much influence on our interpretation of what alien intelligence is,” explains Young about their attempt to move beyond preconceptions. “This is about backing away from that. What if human beings never had contact with aliens? Would they have alloys? Metals? Would they arrive with all the things that we assume because we, as human intelligence, have access to these things? It’s about a fresh look at how simple and raw life can be for human beings on Earth and how simple and raw it could be for alien intelligence. We wanted to scale it down and make it very personal—that’s been our focus from the beginning, making a very innocent, personal film but with scale.”

To design and realize the film’s aesthetic Villeneuve worked closely with his cinematographer in preproduction and while filming; his editor, Joe Walker, in post-production; as well as his production designer, Patrice Vermette, who helped design the spaceship; VFX supervisor Louis Morin, who realized the designs for the ship and the aliens; artists Carlos Huante, who helped design the aliens, and Martine Bertrand, who designed the aliens’ written language; sound designer Dave Whitehead, who helped create the clicks and whirrs of the alien’s “spoken” language; Supervising Sound Editor Sylvain Bellemare, who created the sound the ships made when they moved; and composer Johann Johannsson who created the score.

“It started with Patrice Vermette, my production designer and beloved friend,” says Villeneuve. “We’ve made a lot of movies together and Patrice was by far my first choice because he’s brilliant. He has culture, he’s passionate, and he’d never done a sci-fi movie. He had all the qualities I was looking for and I thought he’d bring a fresh approach to the movie. Initially, the spaceships were supposed to be round, like spheres, but I felt that had been done before. It wasn’t ominous or strange enough. I came up with the idea that the spaceship should be shaped like a pebble, a little stone, ovoid. I based the shape on an asteroid, or small planet, called Eunomia [aka asteroid 15] that’s in orbit in the solar system. The shape’s insane, like a strange egg.” Villeneuve had, until learning about Eunomia, always assumed that everything in outer space, whether an asteroid, planet or moon, was spherical. “That strange, perfect [shape] felt ominous, mysterious, frightening to me.”

Morin, who had worked with Villeneuve on his previous film, Sicario (2015), says he added little to the design process. “My job is mainly enhancing and making the shot beautiful at the end of the day,” says Morin. “Denis’ approach is that he wants it to be mysterious. The aliens are not going to be in your face. It’s going to take a long time—the audience will see parts of the alien and they’ll construct in their mind what the alien could be—and it will be a big surprise at the end.”

“Spielberg and Close Encounters are probably a pretty good inspiration for what we’re doing,” explains Ryder about their jumping off point. “First off you have an alien ARRIVAL movie, you’re not going out and finding aliens, they’re coming to us. The second thing is we had the opportunity to design something that we see through our character’s eyes for the first time so that going into an alien ship impacts us too. Patrice and Denis came up with something that was really unusual.”

The spaceship, which was dubbed “the shell” in the script, held symbolic space as well. “There was a relationship with life, with birth, that was perfect for the idea behind the spaceship,” explains Villeneuve. “We thought, Patrice and I, that the spaceship should be made from matter that’s not from Earth. It’s not a shiny spaceship. It’s not white, or made of metal or plastic, it’s made of a strange stone. We aren’t sure what this is exactly. We can’t even guess.”

“We’re trying to approach this naive perspective within the genre and also through the photography,” explains Young. “The way we photograph the film is that much closer than what some sci-fi films would be. We talked about the film being very raw, but it’s really massively naturalistic and trying to be as natural as possible, while also exploring this idea of darkness. Not darkness as a frightening thing, but darkness as an unknown. When we step into the spaceship, which is ultimately a temple, it’s a place where a certain level of truthfulness is revealed to humanity. We don’t feel frightened to be in the ship. We feel enlightened. Throughout the film we’re working with darkness in all of the places humans occupy, but when we enter into the space the aliens occupy, we’re working with a level of brightness.”

“Every time they enter into the spaceship,” explains Young, “as a viewer you want to go back there, because it’s the one space in the film where you can see things, where you can understand what it means to watch human beings evolve. The other place is a little bit darker—a little bit dirtier, as Denis and I would call it. There’s a visual trajectory about starting in a dark place, which is the unknown, and ending in a place that’s a little more elevated, which is about enlightening oneself and coming to a realization of who we are as human beings.”

 

CASTING

“Casting [ARRIVAL} was the easiest thing in my career,” says Villeneuve, “because everybody fell in love with the screenplay. Amy Adams was the actress I was dreaming of for this part because I knew that the audience would believe in this movie if the actress believed in it—everything is happening through her eyes.”

“We meet this civilization, those beings coming out from outer space, through her eyes,” continues Villeneuve, explaining the importance of the main character. “I needed an actress that would be strong enough to make us believe that—someone with the vulnerability, sensitivity, strong intelligence and range to bring that onto screen. Her character at the end of the day is going through a very strange mourning process and there are a lot of different, subtle layers of that mourning process that I wanted expressed in the movie. I needed a strong actress. Amy fell in love with the screenplay and got on board right away, to my great surprise. I was so excited.”

Adams wasn’t planning on taking on any new projects but she couldn’t refuse the part because she instantly fell in love with the story. “It was the heart of the story,” says the actor. “I didn’t know what I was going be doing next and it was at a time where I really wanted to take a break and just be a mom for a while. Then I read the script. It spoke to me really deeply in the core of who I am and I felt that I really had to do it. I was really drawn to it.”

“Denis is another huge reason that I was attracted to this,” says Adams. “Once I’d read the script and really loved the character, I sat down with him. The way he saw it was how I read it, which isn’t always the case, so he really wanted to tell it as an intimate story of this woman, it just happens to be placed in this amazing sci-fi universe. I knew it would have a really deep heart—that was important to me—and yet be really visually interesting. He had such a wonderful way of describing to me what the aliens would look like and how the language would be expressed—he’s a very special director, a very special man.”

Villeneuve says that the role of Ian Donnelly was a bit different than the usual roles Renner is offered. “It’s very unusual to cast Jeremy Renner, who is more of a James Bond or Jason Bourne type of an actor, into [the role of] an intellectual,” says the director. “I think he liked that challenge. It was funny because, from time to time, on set he had to jump around like a rabbit because it was too contained. But, seriously, Jeremy came on board because he was dreaming of working with Amy Adams again. They love each other.”

“Jeremy and I have wanted to work together for a while, so there was an opportunity there,” says Villeneuve. “He came full of generosity, because he’s there to support Amy, I was amazed by his talent and strong instincts. He was able to bring that dimension of a scientist in a very dynamic and funny way. The movie owes him a lot.”

“It wasn’t the character that enticed me to do it,” says Renner whose main motivation was working with Adams. “It was a phenomenal part for her and a phenomenal part for a woman. The part was good for me but I was more interested in supporting her. The movie is told through her eyes, it was always going to be her movie. Also, I love the script. I thought the script was amazing. It’s a beautiful story.”

The story was also what drew Forest Whitaker to the role. “What stood out to me, and I’ve seen a lot films about extra-terrestrials and things of that nature, was that this film dealt with a couple of concepts that were really interesting, such as whether time exists and if time is cyclical,” explains Whitaker. “Two, it’s about communication itself and the importance of communication in order to not have conflict.”

“The script was so beautifully written and told,” says Whitaker. “It’s a very powerful and important story. It’s a race for communication. They’re aliens, but we’re all trying to communicate with them all over the world, and without communication chaos could happen. There was something really interesting about that and about being the man who puts together the team to try to communicate with them. He makes those decisions and tries to make the right choices for the country and the world. It was an exciting opportunity.”

Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays CIA Agent Halpern, was excited too. “When I read the script I was intrigued by the combination of genres that this movie seems to be able to balance and combine in such a beautiful way,” says Stuhlbarg. “There’s romance, science fiction, drama, and it’s a compelling adventure as well. To be a part of it in any way would have been really fun. I’m a huge admirer of Denis and the cast is fantastic.”

“The other huge draw for me was getting to work with all of these guys, Forest and Jeremy and Amy,” says Stuhlbarg. “They’re amazing artists and to be in the room with them has been a great learning experience for me, to watch what they do with such ease. But particularly how they question anything and everything that has to do with any particular moment in the script. It’s alive in there every day, it always changes because they are so smart. They’re all thinking thoroughly through each moment. It’s not staid and dead and prepared. They’re inventing it in the moment and that’s thrilling.”

 

CHARACTERS

 

Dr. LOUISE BANKS (Amy Adams)

“The story of ARRIVAL is about Louise Banks, a linguist working at a university in the northeast United States,” says Villeneuve. “She has been hired by the US government to go inside one of those spaceships to get in contact with the aliens and to try to translate and understand the purpose of their visit. It’s about a relationship with another civilization.”

“We are introduced to Louise’s character through the story with her daughter, which is one of my favorite parts of the movie,” says Villeneuve. “[Adams] brought a lot of humanity, profoundness and a beautiful vulnerability to her character, a melancholia that I was looking for. We see a woman who is going through a mourning process, having lost her daughter. You feel that she’s someone who has nothing to lose. It’s very beautiful to see, sad and at the same time beautiful. She has nothing to lose so she’s ready for this adventure.”

The loss of Hannah, Louise’s daughter, is central to understanding who Louise is and it’s a pivotal part of the story—in fact the story is told as if Louise is telling Hannah the story of her life. “Hannah is Louise’s daughter and she is very special to Louise,” explains Adams. “When the audience first meets Louise she is dealing with the loss of her daughter, so that’s what’s going on with her when the audience first meets her—dealing with the love and the loss, and what that is.”

“She’s an intellectual, living in a university, that has nothing and is not equipped to be in contact with people coming from another planet,” explains Villeneuve. “She’s clueless but she goes there with a lot of courage. She’s a very courageous character, ready to put her own life in danger because she feels that there’s something more beautiful, more profound, that she can be in relationship with.”

“The story is about a lot of different things, but one of them is what’s known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is the idea that the language you speak determines how you perceive the world and even what kinds of thoughts you can have,” explains Chiang. “The protagonist of the story is a linguist who gradually learns an alien language, and it changes the way she understands her life.”

“It’s the process that was so fascinating about the short story, script and movie,” explains Levine. “Hopefully, there will be the sense of her absorbing this language. The Sapir-Whorf theory is that if you start learning a language, you’ll start to dream and think in it. We learn midway through the movie that they write, simultaneously, a sentence with both hands. They know the end of the sentence while writing the beginning. While Louise is trying to write this way, the synapses in her brain start to connect with it and the way she’s thinking. The better she gets at the language, the more her thoughts become jumbled. She starts to have, not psychotic breaks, but vivid flashbacks to her past. Why is this language pulling these memories of this lost child back to her?”

To prepare for the role, and to understand what a linguist actually does, Adams met up with one. “I met with a linguist and realized it’s impossible to learn everything a linguist knows,” says Adams, adding that there’s a reason why it involves a lot of study. She learned that being a linguist is very different to being a translator. “The thing that helped me and freed me is that there are different types of linguistics. The linguist I spoke to only speaks two languages so that freed me up.”

“Though my character speaks a couple of languages,” continues Adams, “she studies the anthropological significance of language and culture, how people speak to one another, and how languages originate. I did a lot of reading, and realized I wouldn’t be a good linguist, but I found it fascinating and really enjoyed that aspect. I didn’t really understand, from a sociological point of view, what linguists did and what linguistics was, so that was really fun to learn. I now understand much better how she was able to then decipher a language.”

Though deciphering an alien language involves far more than any human language. No matter how differently human tribes think and communicate, it’s not nearly as big a difference as how an entirely different species from a different planet would communicate. Or what relationship an alien peoples’ written and spoken languages would have with each other.

“Louise understands that there is no relationship between the way that the aliens are talking and what they are writing on the board,” explains Villeneuve. “Her experience [means that] after several sessions she realizes there’s no relationship between them. She’s focused on the writing process, because the way they talk is impossible for her to decode.”

Villeneuve thinks that there’s also another type of communication going on between Louise and the aliens. “She’s helped in a telepathic way by the aliens to try to be able to understand,” explains the director, “because she has been chosen. The linguists that go inside the ships are in relationships with the aliens, and the ones that are open, the aliens are influencing them and helping them to catch the first glimpse, the first key how to decode that language. There are patterns in the writing and, like with any language. they are trying to find those patterns and making a lot of mistakes. Actually, [some of] the drama of the movie comes from one of those mistakes.”

Adams found that the experience gave her more insight into the world around her and changed the way she thinks about communication. She says she also learned from watching her own daughter. “I do think about language and how it informs society,” says Adams. “Watching my daughter and other kids—I’ve brought her to several different countries now for work—who cannot speak the same language but who end up communicating, figuring out what words they have in common naturally, you start to learn that communication and language are based on so much more than the words we speak. I started seeing it from that point of view and that was cool.”

IAN DONNELLY (Jeremy Renner)

“It’s a very insular story told through the eyes of Amy Adams’ character, a linguist who’s hired to try to communicate with the aliens,” says Renner. “I’m hired on as the other side of this team, as a physicist to deal with communication through mathematics. Part of the character that was interesting to me was that it was very far from anything I’ve ever done. It was very left-brain, very mathematical and scientific.”

Renner says he had experts to help him navigate appearing to be a convincing scientist but his understanding of programming, computer languages and binary code helped him to at least get a grip on the physics. He says Villeneuve also aimed to make the science in the movie accessible for people and not too obscure or pedantic.

He and Villeneuve discussed the role. “He told me what he didn’t want,” says Renner. “He didn’t want him to be this milky, bland, at his desk writing, computer guy. He wanted him to have life and verve, a lot of personality. That’s exactly how I saw it. I had an instant image of Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws.”

“He brought a lot of humor, in a good way, a beautiful energy. The movie needed that,” says Villeneuve, “because Amy was more melancholic, a character that’s going through a journey where she’s disturbed. She’s starting to behave strangely, being in contact with the aliens is changing her way of seeing the world, and she’s confused and lost. I needed someone who’d be grounded in reality and bring a dynamism and humor to the movie. He did a great job.”

Louise and Ian’s relationship evolves throughout the movie. “They come from different schools of thought,” says Renner, “but through the progression of time they learn to embrace each other’s thoughts, especially as they go speak to Abbot & Costello (the aliens). They both learn something really quite beautiful.”

“We have really good chemistry because we’re very good friends. We trust and love each other,” says Renner about acting opposite Adams. “We’ll even argue if we need to work something out. It’s usually in a very healthy way and we’re usually on the same side trying to figure out how do we do it in an authentic way. It makes your job easy when you work with someone that’s really good at what they do.”

Some of Renner’s favorite scenes are the quieter ones with Adams. “The character stuff, like the back of the truck with Amy, that was a beautiful intimate scene,” says Renner. “It’s more about them than it is about the chaos. It’s the calm before the storm.”

They also bond through their unusual shared experience trying to talk to aliens and their unique personal reaction to something so strange. “It’s all that wonderment and awe, and overstimulation,” says Renner. “Where he ends up vomiting. He can’t process what he is seeing in there. It’s hard to put that into words.” Levine adds, “Through the course of the story you see them start to bond as they both start to appreciate each other’s approach. They also realize they’re in this impossible thing together,” says the producer. “As tension rises around the world, they really start relying on each other to solve this common problem.”

“Jeremy’s great to work with,” attests Whitaker. “He’s very clear and confident. This is a really interesting character because the character’s so mental and so excited about what’s happening. Jeremy is able to bring that across in a really grounded way. I don’t know if everyone could. He’s able to do something that’s quite complicated really—to play that childlike enthusiasm but yet be grounded in being an adult and professional. Yet you feel the delight anyway.”

COLONEL WEBER (Forest Whitaker)

“Colonel Weber’s in Military Intelligence and when we first meet him, he’s in the process of trying to find a replacement for a linguist that wasn’t able to deal with the pressure,” explains Whitaker. “He goes to talk to Louise to see if she’s capable of doing this job. That’s the first, the first time we get to know him. He’s putting together a team, a linguist to break through the language barrier and a physicist to see if you can communicate through numbers, so that he has the proper tools to understand [the aliens].”

Renner knew Whitaker from working together before. “I’ve known him for a long time and got to work with him back in 2005,” says Renner. “He’s a very quiet, gentle soul. Very giving as an actor. He brought humanity and intelligence to a role that could have been very one note-ish. He’s really smart that way.”

“We all know he’s one of the best actors living today,” enthuses Villeneuve. “Forest Whitaker is a master, and I saw that, because he had the toughest part on this movie. Colonel Weber is a character that was difficultly written, because he is in scenes as an obstacle, as an abrasive character. He didn’t have a lot of depth on the page and Forest was able to bring a gravitas, wisdom and dimension to this character in a way that I was very impressed by. It was not an easy process for Forest, there was a lot of work on set and I’m very grateful. He was very generous.”

Villeneuve and Whitaker discussed the role. “When Denis spoke about Colonel Weber it was [often] about the fact that he plays out as a father figure, in some ways, to the characters in the film,” says Whitaker. “He’s watching out for them, overseeing and encouraging them, and helping them move past their fears and understand their own potential.”

Whitaker found it quite challenging to portray what he describes as “quiet authority and assuredness.” He continues, “It’s been difficult to play the father figure, to be able to reprimand but do it with quiet strength.”

“He’s a figure of doubt, someone that represents common sense that [is under] pressure,” adds Villeneuve. “He’s the one who has to deal with pressure from the government and the population. He’s trying to protect them and to be a good leader. He brings a dignity to this character that I was [hoping] for.”

Whitaker did some research for the role. “I was looking at some of the linguistic things to try to understand what that was with the technical things and some of the references,” explains Whitaker. “I’d played some military men before so this time I didn’t spend the same amount of time going to onsite training and all that, I had conversations with different people from the military and had very specific questions, often specifically about a scene. One of the characters, the CIA agent, pulls a weapon and I wanted to understand how we would respond. I felt that would spark a certain response from me and from everyone else, so he explained some of the things that I would probably say when, for instance, [Agent Halpern] was with us and he was holding that weapon on Amy’s character. He’s telling her to get off the phone call with someone in China. They all pull their weapons and train them on him and if he didn’t adhere to what I was saying they would fire. That little simple thing was interesting.”

However, Colonel Weber’s role isn’t entirely benign and he pressures Banks and Donnelly to go in directions they wouldn’t choose on their own. “He keeps pushing them,” says Whitaker, “and ultimately when he pushes them to communicate the word ‘weapon’ to the aliens it sparks a chain of events.”

AGENT HALPERN (Michael Stuhlbarg)

“Michael is an actor that I loved in the Coen Brothers’ movie, A Serious Man,” explains Villeneuve. “I was so enthusiastic that he agreed to do the part. The way Halpern, the CIA agent, was written was a bit monotone—he only had one color. Michael brought layers and intelligence to the character, a wit and feeling of density, that was not on the page.”

“Part of what this gig was about for me was the opportunity to figure out who this somewhat cryptic guy is,” says Stuhlbarg. “I followed Denis’ lead here. I brought in ideas—physical ideas about what he could look like, who he might be based on—but in the end we found it scene by scene. I’m curious to know how it’s going to come out, because sometimes you come into these jobs and you have a strong idea of what you think you want to do. This was an occasion in which I wanted to collaborate with the director and try to fulfill his vision within the larger vision of what the piece was going to be. That’s been absolutely fun.”

He did do some research. “I met with an ex member of the CIA and asked a number of questions regarding what my responsibilities might be,” explains Stuhlbarg. “He suggested James Olson’s book ‘Fair Play,’ which talks about the moral implications of spying, which is interesting in terms of what the inner life of this person might be. It broke some myths for me about the kind of people that work for the CIA. They come in all shapes and sizes, there’s no particular CIA behavior. That’s interesting to me, trying to dispel myths and find the humanity behind somebody who asks a lot of questions and is primarily interested in getting down to what’s going on.”

“He represents the government so he is the eyes and ears of the President and the State Department,” explains Stuhlbarg. “In terms of the understanding of the other characters, he becomes a kind of obstacle for them. I thought that might be fun to play. He’s as baffled as anybody about what happens [next], but at the same time his job on a regular basis is to accumulate information and try to assess it. In this case it happens to be visitors from outer space. He’s used to being in high stress situations.  No matter what comes at him, he can filter it through what he has to do and make very logical decisions under pressure. That’s what he does all the time.”

His relationship with Colonel Weber is all business. “With Colonel Weber, he’s in charge here, I’m a guest in his house,” explains Stuhlbarg, “yet at the same time I have the ear of the government. It’s one of those frenemy relationships between the military and the CIA. Who has the power in any particular moment? Who has the might? What do we need to know, what information do we need, to get us where we all want to go.”

“One of the interesting parts of the story is the fact that these ships are hovered above twelve different spots on our globe,” says Stuhlbarg. “One of the most difficult things in life in general is communication with each other in our own languages. To have to communicate with other countries, with other customs, cultures, beliefs and superstitions, and to try to glean knowledge from countries that may be our political enemies, presents an interesting challenge.”

“Yesterday we did a scene, which on the page seems to be maybe seven lines scribbled down by the screenwriter that’s turned into physical action. Something that you may have passed over in reading, all of a sudden became this huge thing,” recounts Stuhlbarg, who was impressed by the scope of the movie as it was realized. “You have 150 men and women dressed top to toe in fatigues carrying huge boxes here and there, it’s basically the evacuation of the space that we have commandeered in the middle of this prairie because we think we’re going to get attacked at any moment. So what seemingly was nothing on the page came to life in this remarkable way.”

 

CAPTAIN MARKS (Mark O’Brien)

“I play Captain Marks,” says Mark O’Brien. “The first time we meet him is when he meets up with Jeremy and Amy’s characters. He has to guide them through this process, bringing them to see the aliens. He brings them into a world that they don’t know yet. They don’t know where they’re going, they have never seen this before, and they aren’t part of the military. They don’t even know one another and they’re brought into this situation. It’s a lot of confusion for them and everything is new.”

“I’ve always played big, opinionated characters,” says O’Brien. “This is a very straight, reserved but strong person and it’s different for me, it’s a cool challenge. There are a lot of moments in this movie where it’s stillness and just being there, a lot of the time I’m supporting the other actors as a presence. Sometimes you don’t even need to say anything, just be there and experience it with them.”

O’Brien says Villeneuve compared Captain Marks to a shark in a tank. “The way he reacts is with reserved calm but on the inside he’s ready for anything,” says O’Brien. “We don’t know what’s going to happen here. Trying to contain that is much more interesting than letting it out.”

In many ways, Captain Marks represents fear, even though the character remains calm on the surface. “The natural reaction from a lot of people around the world, including civilians and media outlets, is that it’s danger. Everyone is always afraid of something new,” explains O’Brien about the general reaction to the ships arriving on Earth. “Imagine something from another planet and what that creates, it shows the animosity that we have within our own world. You see how different parts of the world are trying to handle it and how, if one part of the world handles it differently than another, that can create a rift. It shows all these different conflicts, which are so silly when you actually look at it.”

“Maybe this is just my theory,” says Ryder, “but deep down in most people’s brains we’re almost waiting for this to happen one day, to turn on the news and see that we’ve been visited or approached by an alien species. I just feel like it’s out there. It’s possible. If it happened there would be a panic and fear, and there would also be a tremendous amount of curiosity. When we set out to make this film we wanted to capture that fear, that curiosity and certainly that panic with having these things arrive.”

 

WARDROBE

“Renée is a very sensitive artist interested in creating characters,” explains Villeneuve about Costume Designer Renée April. “She brings to the characters a lot of humanity and dimensionality. We spontaneously decided that Louise Banks would arrive at the base camp thinking that she would only be there for two or three days, not knowing that she’d be there for months, so she would go from civilian to military clothes.”

The same logic informed the wardrobe for Ian Donnelly. “We did the same with Jeremy Renner’s character,” continues Villeneuve. “I love Renée because she’s very strong with uniforms, she’s tired of doing movies with uniforms but ARRIVAL is full of military, so I had the best expert. Then there were the Hazmat suits and the challenges of having a suit designed to go inside the spaceship that will look real and contemporary but that will also allow me to see my actors’ faces. The actual suit is accurate, it’s real. The only difference is that normally you would have something in your face so I had to create a shape whereby I could see the actor’s face. That’s the only concession I made for the suit.”

“When you do science fiction you always move away from reality, in this case it had to sometimes be awkward, like those hazmat suits, that was super awkward,” explains April. “They look awful—that’s what we wanted. It was a choice to go with something that isn’t pretty. It’s difficult to work with but we made it work. We did try things at one point for the hazmat but it looked too beautiful. Denis and I said, ‘It doesn’t work, it’s too much.’ We pulled it out.”

In the end the hazmat suits are April’s favorite costume. “They’re so ugly that there’s something beautiful about them,” says April. “The way they lit it, it’s so interesting, all the reflections. Everything you don’t want in a film is there. You have zillions of reflections all over and it’s quite beautiful. I really want to see how it works out.”

In many ways it meant there was less design involved in wardrobe than there often is. “I didn’t go with palettes of color or anything like that,” says April. “I work with actors, I’m not a painter. My job is to help Denis tell his story the best I can. The actors, they’re the ones that carry the story so we work together to find what’s best for the character. For example, Amy doesn’t wear much color during the day, it’s pretty drab, but when she has flashbacks it’s very colorful. That’s the only thing that we did color-wise to make a change. That’s it.”

“Coming from the documentary world, I feel that there’s nothing more impressive than reality,” explains Villeneuve, “and very often reality is ahead of your imagination. I tried to stay as close as possible to reality to try to create dirty sci-fi: sci-fi that’s based on reality and that’s unimpressive in some ways. Renée was a part of that process.”

 

THE ALIENS — ABBOTT AND COSTELLO/VFX

Villeneuve thought a lot about the design of Abbott and Costello, the two aliens we meet in ARRIVAL. “Abbott and Costello are two of the main characters,” explains the director. “They are the two aliens that Louise Banks and Ian Donnelly meet in the chamber inside the spaceship. I became very humbled trying to design an alien. It’s a big challenge to try to create something that hasn’t been done before. I wanted them to have a huge, strong presence, like a whale.”

“I wanted to have this feeling of being near a huge beast underwater,” continues Villeneuve, “where you feel a strong intelligence or a presence. Maybe you can have that feeling with elephants, too. If you meet an elephant in the wild, there’s that feeling of a strong presence, an instinctive presence and deep intelligence. That’s what I was looking for in the design of the aliens. That’s why it was important for me that the aliens would not necessarily have eyes but I wanted to feel their presence, even if we didn’t have a strong contact with them at first.”

Though nobody outside of Banks, Donnelly and the military actually get to see the aliens, their mere presence on Earth creates an existential crisis for many people. “The idea was that if spaceships land that societies would freak out all around the world,” explains Villeneuve.
“Because, first of all, it’s a massive existential crisis for religious people who think that we are the center of the world. Myself, I strongly believe in nature, so I would be amazed if aliens landed. There’s a strong contrast that I love—their presence is very calm, they do nothing, and yet just their presence creates chaos outside. Where we feel silence and concentration is inside the shell. In order to be in contact with the aliens our heroes need to go inside the spaceship, into a specific chamber where they can exchange through a screen with the aliens. They cannot touch them. They can’t smell them. They can barely see them through the strange mists, the strange atmosphere on the other side. They’re like elephants in the mist.”

The central mystery to the story, the puzzle Banks and Donnelly are trying to solve, is why the aliens are here on Earth. “Their landing has no political purpose,” explains Villeneuve of where the aliens land. “They were simply landing places that were suitable for their spaceships. It was important for me to bring a fresh approach to [an] alien, not invasion but landing on Earth. Right at the very end, there will be a moment of collaboration, because they realize that the aliens gave [them] their culture, their language, in pieces. Once you bring all of these pieces of their language together, you basically have an encyclopedia of their culture and language.”

Villeneuve brought in artist Carlos Huante to help create the aliens’ appearance. “To create the aliens I worked with an artist I love,” explains Villeneuve. “I looked at several portfolios then fell onto Carlos Huante’s, he had worked with Ridley Scott on Prometheus and other movies. I felt that, through his creature, that was what I was looking for: a soul, a presence, a mystery, and a lot of originality too. Shapes that I had never seen before. Aliens that I felt were unseen in cinema. I started a process with him where I explored tons of ideas. The most difficult thing I have ever done in my life was trying to create a new life form.”

Adams’ experience working with VFX helped, as did having other humans to act with in most scenes. “Having worked on special effects films before was really helpful,” says Adams. “I was only alone once so I still had a human component around me, we were all in it together, which always helps because it creates that energy. The actors can help create the energy together but my job as an actor is to create what isn’t there—you create a relationship and it has to feel real—so it’s the same thing.”

Villeneuve says he drew inspiration for the aliens from whales, octopi, spiders and elephants. “I wanted the alien to be a creature that’s surrealistic, that comes from the world of dreams, of nightmares. In that regard it’s a success.” There’s an ambivalence about the aliens—are they friendly or hostile? Their movement and bodies are also intentionally open to interpretation and only gradually revealed as the story unfolds.

“It’s a study of behavior,” says Villeneuve. “The alien is a representation of death, and there were specific shots where I wanted the alien to look like a classical representation of Death or the Grim Reaper. It has, from some angles, that feeling at the end of the movie. We went through a long process of drawing to come up with their odd shape. I also wanted the audience to discover the aliens step by step through the movie, not at first glance, so we slowly unveil more and more qualities of their structure and their body.”

Whitaker said there were some challenges to acting with the “aliens” without them being physically present and without knowing how they would sound. “When we get inside the spaceship and we are starting to try to communicate with them, would I react somewhat stronger if I was hearing these clicking sounds that they were talking about?” ponders the actor. “My imagination carries me pretty far inside of the scene and they had somebody puppeteering behind the screen for us to be able to watch and it feels kind of real.”

Having physical stand-ins for the aliens assisted the actors, even if they were only symbolic representations of the aliens. “I had to have a relationship with these sticks with balls on the end of them but we had really great puppeteers,” explains Adams of how the scenes were shot, “these really great guys running around with these puppets for us. I always appreciate [these] people, they don’t get enough credit because they’re there every day we are, working all day, and they have to hold a stick for hours on end so that we can act to it. I really appreciate that.”

“I don’t like green screens,” says Villeneuve about some of the challenges he gave production design and how he tried to minimize the use of visual effects, and create physical experiences for the actors, as much as possible. “I don’t like the actors to be in contact with something that doesn’t exist, I like them to be surrounded by something real.”

 

 

THE AESTHETIC / SETS & SHOOTING

Villeneuve, Patrice Vermette and Young worked together to define the film’s aesthetic. One source of inspiration for Young was Scandinavian photographer Martina Ivanov, specifically a series entitled ‘Speedway’ that was in a book Young was carrying around. “When I got the script, I felt like it was the best reference for the film,” says Young. “The photographs are stylized in some ways, but very subdued and natural, and dark and mysterious. Not darkness as not seeing, but darkness as pathology. The darkness is deeply psychological. Her photographs really inspire how we approach that visually.”

“She’s a major reference,” says Young. “I gave the photographs as a creative look book for Denis and Patrice. They looked at it and we all said that this film should be open. It should be milky. It should be dark in a way that makes us a little uncomfortable. That’s what it should feel like for the viewer.”

The way color was used was in contrast to this sense of darkness. ”It was never really a striking palette, like these are the colors you’re working with,” explains Young, “but one of the main colors in the film that really stands out is the orange of the hazmat suits. We surrounded the hazmat suits in colors that would allow them to become objects within their own [right]. Instead of using colors that polarize the orange or create a dichotomy from what isn’t orange, what we did was use this idea of darkness as a way to bring attention to the orange. Because the suits are so reflective, the more you surround them in darkness, the more your eye can go to that spectacularity of the suits.”

“When the suits come off, it brings us back into that natural, organically embedded image,” explains Young of how the act of Louise and Ian removing their suits works both aesthetically and symbolically in the film. “It wasn’t really about palette per se, other than these orange objects, but the film feels monochromatic because it’s our intent to not bring a lot of attention to color. It’s really our attempt to bring your attention to the visual tone of the film.”

Having physical sets to shoot on meant that Young could control the tone through lighting and his choices of lenses. “I asked Patrice to build the interior of this spaceship,” explains Villeneuve. “That was a big gift for the production because we were able to create the massive tunnel and the chamber. There were no visual effects—it is all real—and the actors were able to feel the strangeness of that room. The cinematographer, Bradford Young, was able to shoot with lights, and create an effect with light, that was real in that room.”

“Directors want to have the real thing so the actors can interact,” says Morin. “It creates a mood and spirit for the actors. They decided to construct this 150’ tunnel with this interview room, which is a live piece where we have the background element of the screen that the aliens are behind in their atmosphere.” Renner agrees that the physical set really helped him and the other actors interact with the aliens and their environment. “There’s a really interesting practical set,” says Renner. “We’ve got to go on this scissor lift up 45–60 feet and into this shaft of weirdness. That helps us as actors, having all that real stuff.

Having physical sets rather than shooting in front of a green screen also allowed Young to sculpt the look of the film as they shot. The cinematographer used wider lenses than he’s used on other films. “I’ve had to be a bit more disciplined and precise about where we put the camera because in small spaces sometimes wide angle lenses can work against you,” explains Young. “So it was about being smart and ultimately listening, too, because as the cinematographer I don’t always have the answers about where the camera should go. Sometimes it’s technique versus a feeling, for us the point of departure should always be feeling. Then, if it felt right, ultimately we could be as wide or tight as we wanted, even when the spaces were tight. This added a certain level of scale and scope so we could ultimately be deeply personal and deeply internal, but at the same time be massively observational and able to step back from it all as well.”

They shot on digital film, which facilitated their ability to really push the darkness and sculpt the image as they worked. “We chose to shoot digital,” says Young. “It’s been super-helpful because it allows us to see what we’re getting. When we’re pushing it that much further into the darkness, we didn’t have to bite our nails about the negatives coming back and [whether] we’d have an image. What we did choose to do was use different kinds of lenses throughout the film, even within a scene we’d switch. Different lens manufacturers have their own particular personality. We might use one lens for a close-up from one manufacturer and for a wide shot use another lens. Again, that brings that imperfect massively naturalistic feel to the film, where it’s not a film about precision in terms of perspective. It brings that level of naivety to the film that you wouldn’t get if you had stayed with one particular kind of perspective in terms of lensing.”

“The quilting of the lenses gives a different textural reality to the film that is often hard to achieve with digital,” says Young. “It gives us the ability to start off with an image that’s more filmic than it would be if we were using the same kind of lenses. We wanted the image to be a little bit more imperfect and using different lenses has helped a lot.”

“Everything in the ship has been exciting,” says Young. “Ninety percent of this film is outside of the ship, we’re in the ship quite a bit, but a majority of the film is outside the ship. Those spaces, I feel like I’m exploring things I’ve explored before in other films, but when we step inside the ship, it’s just something I’ve never done before. The way we’re approaching it also feels like uncharted territory.”

“The ship has been really exciting because it’s also the space where we’ve had to be a bit more precise,” says Young. “The lines make us have to be a little more precise than we would have been, had we been in the tents or house or all those places that we know as human beings, that we occupy every day where we know every nook and cranny.  This is an unknown territory, when I’m in the spaceship I feel like I’m shooting film for the first time because it’s a piece of architecture. It’s a piece of set, a piece of reality that I’ve never worked in before. I’ve had to suspend my own notions about what is real and what isn’t real in order to convey feeling. It’s been really exciting.”

But, due to the restrictions imposed by reality, CGI was still necessary. “That is something that we’ll process after in CGI, because of course we had to create the aliens because I wasn’t able to cast on the Jupiter so we had to create aliens. But we used puppeteers that were moving shapes in front of that wide screen. It was very poetic and moving, it has a relationship with old cinema in some ways.  To see Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner talking to that gigantic sphere hovering, and those presences, was a very beautiful moment.”

Morin’s job with VFX was not only to create the alien ships and beings that Villeneuve and his design team envisioned, it was also to enhance the human reality and the effects of the alien atmosphere. “The aliens control the gravity,” explains Morin. “The CG army, which are dressed in hazmat suits, they come up on the scissor lift and basically jump and walk on the wall, that’s another big part of the visual effects in this move. The gravity thing is quite a challenge and there are some stunt scenes that involve gravity as well. But the key thing in the story is the encounter of the alien. Louise meets the alien in what we call the core room—it’s a full CG environment with a CG alien.”

Morin also had to create the image of spaceships hovering over 12 different locations in the world. “We have matte paintings and recreate the environments and various angles,” explains Morin. “Also spy satellites and a lot of army material, like helicopters and drones, so a lot of CG work to be done.”

It was cinematographer Young’s first time working with CGI. “It was my first visual effects film,” says Young. “It’s been a big challenge to work with as much visual effects as we’re working with on this film. I didn’t realize the big challenge would be taking a film that wants to be so naturalistic and bringing in visual effects that are created later. I’m learning a lot about how there is a good bridge, there is a conversation between making films where we’re embedded in extreme naturalism, but we bring in these existential abstract things. When you bring in these existential, abstract things there’s a beautiful bridge that you can create with visual effects. It’s been a big challenge to surrender to this idea that visual effects can ultimately help us in the process, in this filmmaking experience. This is a film where we, at a certain point, don’t have all the answers. It’s going to be refreshing to see what they do later to complete the vision.”

Morin says that it’s the work put in on the front end by both him and the cinematographer, and the director, that really defines how successful the VFX will be. “The director works with the storyboard artist,” explains Morin. “Based on that we start doing the previz, then we look at this with the director and the DP and get everybody involved. They have their comments and we try to fine-tune it. After that, we have what we call the techviz—the techviz gives the camera position, the movement of the actors or CG elements for eye line. Those elements are essential to have a rock solid shoot because the idea for visual effects on a shoot is to get the best elements possible. When we start with that we don’t have to fix problems, we can enhance it and make the shot look great.”

Villeneuve wanted the spaceship to appear to be made from materials not found on Earth and unknown to science, but he also wanted the spaceship to confound our knowledge of physics. “The composition of the spaceship will be totally unknown [to us on] Earth,” says Villeneuve. “The way it works, too, the way they travel through space will be totally different from what we have seen before. I must give great credit to my editing team, Joe Walker and the people from Frames Store, that did a fantastic job helping me create the alien departure at the end of the movie.”

While Villeneuve wanted the aliens and their ship to be as unearthly and mystifying as possible, he wanted everything related to humans and our technology to be as realistic as possible. “The production designer did a lot of work,” explains Villeneuve. “We wanted the movie to look as real as possible, so there was a huge [amount of] research done by Patrice to make sure that all of the equipment used by the military would be as accurate as possible, and simple and non-spectacular. I didn’t want the humans to use technology that didn’t exist. I wanted them to use what is available today—the tools that we could use to contact and talk with aliens.”

Villeneuve was astonished that the research uncovered that the method would be surprisingly low tech. “It was astonishingly shocking,” says the director, “because if you [want to] talk with aliens, you will use a whiteboard with a marker and say ‘hello.’ There are not a lot of ways to learn language, to express language. At the end of the day it’s like teaching kids, and that for me was a very striking image to see the banality of that process [within the context of] contact with something as impressive as another civilization. Patrice made sure that every little detail of the movie would look authentic, from the Hazmat suit that they are wearing to the equipment they are using. Objects of everyday life will be in contact with that new civilization, and we were trying to approach it at the most humble and human level.”

 

LANGUAGE AND SOUND DESIGN

Communication and the alien’s language are central to both the story and the structure of the film, both providing and revealing the narrative structure. “The beauty of the short story is that it was about language,” explains Villeneuve. “I fell in love with the short story because it was exploring language, in a beautiful, poetic, powerful way. The problem is that intellectual exploration of language can be mesmerizing in the short story, in a novel, on paper, but in a movie I needed something to create tension. The presence and impact of aliens takes a larger place in the movie than in the short story. I wish I could have had more space to explore language in the movie, but the movie didn’t allow it. That’s my only regret, I wish I had been closer to the short story in that regard.”

Both the written and “spoken” forms of the alien language posed specific challenges, as did creating the sound of the spaceship. “The production designer has a huge task on this project, which was to create the interior of the spaceship, but most importantly he had to develop the language,” explains Villeneuve. “Patrice had the idea to ask the artist, Martine Bertrand, who we both love. She came up with the idea of this abstract approach. I wanted the language to be almost frightening and very impressive—I didn’t want something that could relate to any human language—[I wanted] a language that comes from another way of thinking. Martine came up with the idea of abstract circles that look almost like coffee stains. Maybe the idea came from there… It’s one of my favorite things of the movie, how she developed that language.”

A great deal of work went into creating a believable language. “Patrice created a dictionary,” explains Villeneuve. “He created a structure, how to develop the words, how the words were constructed. There were piles of documents explaining to me how the language [worked]. It was the most beautiful thing to see the level of detail and passion that Patrice brought to the project, it was insane.”

Creating the alien’s spoken language was a challenge that Villeneuve only had to tackle in post-production. “When I was in post, there was another huge challenge that was in front of me which was to develop the way that the aliens talked,” says Villeneuve. “We had developed the written language, but then there was the sound. Joe Walker, my editor, talked about this man, Dave Whitehead, who lives in New Zealand, is well known for his work on a Neil de Camp movie or the Lord of the Rings. He’s a master of sound, one of those guys who has knowledge about sound waves, and who can explore and develop strange languages. He thought the idea was a beautiful challenge and started to develop the language with Joe Walker. It was a very long process and he was very generous. I’m very proud of the way the aliens talk. In fact, it’s not talking, it’s expressing emotions through sound. What I loved about David is that it had a deep logic, which was based on the way the aliens were deigned, their body.”

“The thing is, the most powerful sound is silence,” explains Villeneuve about the sound design. “I tried to let the movie breathe. The approach is quite minimalistic.  Sylvain Bellemare, the Supervising Sound Editor of the project, brought some striking sounds. The aliens are silent, but when they move or do something, the sounds are quite remarkable.”
“I needed someone that would approach sound in a crazy way and I found a crazy sound designer,” explains Villeneuve. “One of my friends, Sylvain Bellemare, was the perfect man to design the sound of this movie. Sylvain came up with this insane idea of that rocky shock like an earthquake sound for when the spaceship is moving, one of the most powerful sounds I have heard in the cinema.”

EDITING / POST PRODUCTION

“Each movie has its own challenges, and on this one, the biggest one was the editing,” explains Villeneuve. “ARRIVAL owes everything to Joe Walker. When we arrived in the editing room the screenplay was about this process that Eric [the screenwriter] was able to crack into creating a structure but we realized, as we were in the editing room, that that structure wasn’t dynamic enough and that the feeling of repetition that I was afraid of was present, and that there was some incongruity between some character behaviors.”

“In the end we approached the movie as if it was a documentary in some ways,” explains Villeneuve, “and re-structured and worked with what we had. We re-structured the movie in a way that felt less linear, that embraced more of the themes and main ideas of the movie. Joe did a fantastic job. I owe him a lot and I’m very proud.”

Villeneuve says he and Walker put in long hours during the editing process. “The editing process of a movie is my favorite part,” attests Villeneuve, “We worked very hard in the editing room to make this movie and when it came to life, we felt it strongly.”

“The thing is that when you read the screenplay sometimes, there are things that are written that are explaining to you what is happening, and then you get it,” says Villeneuve about how the story structure really only solidified in the editing room because of the challenges of telling a non-linear story. “In the movie, we realized that it’s very tough to go against a hundred years of cinema language. There are things that were said in the beginning of the movie that were so powerful that it was very difficult to make the audience switch and understand where we were going, what was happening, exactly.”

The narrative structure of the story is crucial to its meaning and that meaning is revealed by an unexpected plot twist. It took a lot of work to translate that structure from words on a page to the more visual medium of film. “It was a challenge because it was very efficient on paper,” explains Villeneuve, “but on the screen it was a challenge to change the audience’s perception in an effective way. It was a long process, a long back-and-forth process in the editing room.”

 

WRAP UP

“The vibe on the set is always from the top down,” says Levine. “If you have a great director who is brilliant yet listens and wants feedback, then you have a cast and crew that feel really comfortable. We had that here. What always stood out to me about Denis was he has these visions, or he wakes up with these thoughts, as if things are almost ordained. There’s a certainty to him in the gentlest way that makes you feel so confident with him directing. He’s a master at suspense and tension, but the key component to him is he gets the human component of a script, the deep emotion, the dramatic depth of each character. There’s a deep soul to him. He’s an artist. Every single time I see a film of his, it’s the greatest experience.”

“In my development as an image maker, I look to work on stories that get me that much closer to the human experience,” says Young about what interested him about ARRIVAL. “This one, with all of this nuance, might be the perfect sum of all the things I’ve been working on before, where we’ve been massively experimental but also at the same time massively raw. All those films where I tried to experiment with both of those things at the same time or separately, it seems like they came together in this film.”

“It’s an enormous burden to be original and still stay grounded but we’ve really pushed ourselves to be original here,” attests Ryder. “Denis has been a tremendous partner for all of us throughout the whole process of this movie, from script development through design, he came up with things we never would have thought of. I would have never in a million years have pictured the ships looking like they did or the movie looking like it does, but he had it in his head. We’re working with somebody pretty extraordinary here.”

Renner says of the final result, “It’s much bigger than I anticipated, not size-wise but in emotional scale, and also the vessels and the scope of the movie and cinematography. You see a real director and cinematographer’s hand on this picture. That comes from the visual effects—there are a lot of players involved in those sorts of things. But this movie’s all about Denis, he’s made it what it is through his thoughts and hard work. He’s very patient and thoughtful and he had this story told within a very insular pairing of actors.”

Though VFX are his livelihood, Morin hopes they’ll barely be noticed in ARRIVAL. “I don’t want them to talk about visual effects, I want them to get into the story,” says Morin. “It’s about a human story and, if we do it right, they’ll forget about us, get involved in the story and just enjoy the movie.”

“This movie is about a growing understanding of our place in the cycle of the universe,” says Whitaker. “It explores, inside of that, communication and time. What time means, if it exists, and if all we have is the present moment. That’s a very interesting concept and one that we all should look at.” Whitaker also appreciated Villeneuve’s skill and excitement about the project. “He’s very enthusiastic and has a clear vision of what he wants to see. There’s no wasted energy. When he sees what he wants he moves on. There’s a certainty to the way he does stuff and an excitement that has affected most of the crew.”

Whitaker also really enjoyed working with the other actors, particularly Adams. “She’s an extremely committed artist, she’s really focused and she has an immediacy to her emotions and feelings,” says Whitaker. “It’s really special and unique. When you live into a language so much that you start to dream in that language and start to change your mental patterns, we watch her struggling with that.”

“Amy Adams is not only one of the best actresses alive, if not the best, she’s also the most lovely of human beings, and a trooper,” enthuses Villeneuve. “She just wanted to give everything. She doesn’t question, she’s there to give and she’s very generous. She’s very easy to work with, very easy to direct. It was sunshine on set all of the time with Amy, even if you were shooting in the rain.”

Whitaker thinks audiences will be enthralled and conflicted about how the story unfolds. “People are going to be brought on a really interesting psychological and emotional journey as they go through the film,” says Whitaker. “They will be excited, too, because in a way you win when the world comes together and you win, too, when she has the child.”

“It’s a very suspenseful film, there’s something about it that’s Hitchcockian to me,” says O’Brien, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen completely. It’s stretched out in that Hitchcock way. Because it’s so mysterious and other worldly, audiences are going to be totally gripped to the screen the entire time.”

“I can’t wait to see this movie with an audience,” enthuses Levine, “because the floor will drop out of the theater. People will gasp, because you are so caught up in this story. You think you’re figuring it out and then you realize it’s something else completely, but it works perfectly. It’s a deeply emotional, powerful ending that I can’t wait to experience through other people’s eyes.”

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ABOUT THE CAST

Five-time Academy Award® -nominated and two-time Golden Globe®- winning actress AMY ADAMS (Dr. Louise Banks) has built an impressive body of work, challenging herself with each new role.

Adams was most recently seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, released by Warner Bros. on March 25, 2016. In the sequel to 2013’s highly successful Man of Steel, Adams reprised her role of Lois Lane opposite Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman.

Adams can next bee seen in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. Focus Features will release the film, based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel “Tony and Susan,” on November 18, 2016.

Adams recently wrapped production on Justice League Part One in which she reprises her role as Lois Lane opposite Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot. Directed by Zack Snyder, the Marvel film will be released by Warner Bros. in 2017.

Adams will next go into production on HBO’s high-profile drama series Sharp Objects in which she will star and executive produce with Jean-Marc Vallée at the helm as director. Based on Gillian Flynn’s New York Times best-selling book of the same name, the series centers on a reporter (Adams) who confronts the psychological demons from her past when she returns to her hometown to cover a violent murder. The series will be released in 2017.

Adams has teamed with Maven Pictures’ Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray to produce Object of Beauty, in which she is also set to star. The film is based on the novel by Steve Martin and follows a clever young art entrepreneur who climbs from gallery assistant to gallery owner.

Additional film credits include starring in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes opposite Christoph Waltz. In the biographical drama, Adams plays Margaret Keane, and Waltz plays her husband Walter Keane. The film tells the real-life story of the iconic couple who found immense success marketing paintings of large-eyed children in the 1950s and ’60s, with Walter taking the credit for his shy wife’s creations. Adams won a Golden Globe® for “Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy” and earned a BAFTA nomination for the performance.

Adams starred in David O. Russell’s American Hustle opposite Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner. Adams won a Golden Globe Award® for “Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy,” a Critics’ Choice Award for “Best Actress in a Comedy” and a SAG Award for “Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture” for her performance in the film. Adams’ role also garnered her fifth Academy Award® nomination and BAFTA nomination. Adams was also recently seen in Spike Jonze’s Her opposite Joaquin Phoenix and released by Warner Bros. on December 18, 2013.

Adams also previously starred in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The 1950s-set drama centers on the relationship between a charismatic intellectual known as “The Master,” whose faith-based organization begins to catch on in America, and a young drifter who becomes his right-hand man. Adams plays Peggy Dodd, the wife of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Adams’ role garnered her a Golden Globe® and BAFTA nomination in addition to her fourth Academy Award® nomination.

In summer of 2012, Adams played the “Baker’s Wife” in Into the Woods as part of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte.

Adams starred in David O. Russell’s The Fighter opposite Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. Adams played Charlene, a tough, gritty bartender from Massachusetts who begins dating boxer “Irish” Micky Ward (Wahlberg). The film revolves around Ward and trainer-brother Dicky Eklund (Bale), chronicling their early days in Massachusetts, through Eklund’s battle with drugs and Ward’s eventual world championship in London. Adams’ role garnered her Golden Globe®, SAG and BAFTA nominations as well as her third Oscar® nomination in five years. Adams also starred in Nora Ephron’s Julie and Julia, reuniting with costar Meryl Streep, having previously starred opposite Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in John Patrick Shanley’s Oscar®-nominated film Doubt, which earned Adams her second Academy Award® nomination.

Adams starred in Kevin Lima’s Enchanted opposite Patrick Dempsey and Susan Sarandon. The Disney film, a romantic fable that mixes live action with CG animation, was released November 21, 2007 and grossed over $300 million worldwide and earned Adams a Golden Globe® nomination for Best Actress.

Adams earned her first Academy Award® and SAG nominations for her role in Phil Morrison’s Junebug in 2005 and won an Independent Spirit Award, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, National Society of Film Critics Award, San Francisco Film Critics Society Award and the Breakthrough Gotham Award. Adams also won the Special Jury Prize for Acting at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival for her role as the pregnant, childlike Ashley, who is awe-struck by the arrival of her glamorous sister-in-law.

Adams’ other film credits include Robert Lorenz’s Trouble with the Curve opposite Clint Eastwood; Walter Salle’s adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s seminal beat generation novel On The Road; Disney’s The Muppets opposite Jason Segal; Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian opposite Ben Stiller; Christine Jeffs and Karen Moncrieff’s critically acclaimed film Sunshine Cleaning opposite Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin; Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War opposite Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Bharat Nalluri’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day opposite Frances McDormand; and Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Two-time Academy Award® nominee JEREMY RENNER (Ian Donnelly) starred in the 2010 Academy Awards® Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Winner of six Academy Awards® and inspired by true events, The Hurt Locker is the story of a bomb disposal team in Baghdad who has volunteered for one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. For his role as the self-assured Sgt. James, Renner was awarded the Breakthrough Actor Award at the Hollywood Film Festival, the Spotlight Award at the Savannah Film Festival and received Best Actor nominations from the 2008 BAFTA Awards and Independent Spirit Awards. Renner also garnered nominations for Breakthrough Actor and Best Ensemble Performance at the Gotham Awards, nominations for Leading Actor and Best Ensemble from the SAG Awards, and of course, a nomination as Best Actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The following year Renner was nominated for an Academy Award® as Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Town, directed by Ben Affleck for Warner Bros. An adaptation of the Chuck Hogan novel “Prince of Thieves,” the film centers on a thief (Affleck) and his best friend and member of his gang (Renner), and was released in the fall of 2010. For his role in The Town Renner was also honored with Supporting Actor nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes®.

In December 2011 Renner co-starred in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol opposite Tom Cruise for Paramount Pictures and directed by Brad Bird. In the spring of 2012 Renner starred as Hawkeye in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, the third highest grossing film in history. The actor next starred in The Bourne Legacy, a new installment of the popular Bourne franchise, and followed that up with Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a bona fide global hit that earned $220 million.

In 2012 Renner and filmmaker Don Handfield formed The Combine, a production company that creates, developes and produces high-quality, character-driven content for mainstream audiences. They began with The Throwaways for Crackle and in 2013 produced Kill The Messenger, which starred Renner as journalist Gary Webb and was released by Focus Features.  The Combine is also producing Knightfall, a tale of the Knights of Templar for The History Channel expected to air in 2017. The Combine also executive produced the upcoming feature The Founder, starring Michael Keaton, for The Weinstein Company – the story of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc is currently generating early Oscar buzz and will be released in November 2016. Also this year Renner co-stars opposite Amy Adams in the Denis Villeneuve feature Arrival for Paramount Pictures in November 2016. Renner then stars in Wind River opposite Elizabeth Olsen, which The Weinstein Company is scheduled to release in 2017.

In 2007, Renner was seen in three different features, including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for Warner Bros., directed by Andrew Dominik, in which Renner starred alongside Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, as a key member of James’ gang Wood Hide. He also starred in 28 Weeks Later, the highly anticipated sequel to 28 Days Later, and Take opposite Minnie Driver.

In 2006 he also starred in the acclaimed independent film 12 and Holding (Independent Spirit Award Nominee – John Cassavetes Award), demonstrating his dramatic range playing “Gus,” a firefighter who moves to a new town after the haunting loss of a young girl in a fire.

Other film credits included the independent film Neo Ned, which screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and swept the feature film category at the 11^th Annual Palm Beach International Film Festival in 2006. Neo Ned was awarded Best Feature Film, Best Director and the Best Actor Award went to Renner. The film was also awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking, Best Feature Film Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2006. These awards came after winning the Audience Award at the Slamdance, Sarasota and Ashland film festivals.

Renner also starred opposite Academy Award® winner Charlize Theron in Warner Bros.’ North Country, starred opposite Julia Stiles in A Little Trip to Heaven, and starred in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, Love Comes to the Executioner, Lords of Dogtown for helmer Catherine Hardwicke, and S.W.A.T. opposite Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson for Columbia Pictures.

The role that initially put Renner on the map and earned the actor an Independent Spirit Award nomination was his portrayal of “Jeffrey Dahmer” in the 2002 indie hit Dahmer.

With a background in theater, Renner starred in and also co-directed Search and Destroy, which was produced by Barry Levinson and received stellar reviews.

FOREST WHITAKER (Colonel Weber), one of Hollywood’s most accomplished actors, directors and producers, has showcased his talents in a multitude of demanding and diverse roles. In 2007, he earned critical acclaim for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, receiving the Academy Award®, BAFTA Award, SAG Award, and Golden Globe Award® for Best Actor. Whitaker’s intensive character work in films such as Lee Daniels’ The Butler, The Crying Game, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and Bird, for which he was named Best Actor at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, have made him one of the most versatile performers of all time.

In the past year Whitaker has shot a supporting role alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw. He recently finished filming Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama Arrival, opposite Amy Adams. Whitaker will also appear in Lucasfilm’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story alongside Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn. He then shot A&E Network’s remake of the 1977 miniseries, Roots, in which he took on the role of “Fiddler.”

In addition to all of his work in film, Whitaker made his Broadway debut in Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie, directed by Tony Award winner Michael Grandage earlier this year.

As president of Significant Productions, Whitaker aims to support young, talented filmmakers. In 2013, he co-produced Ryan Coogler’s directorial debut, Fruitvale Station. That film, the winner of Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize and Cannes Film Festival’s Best First Film, was distributed by The Weinstein Company. Significant Productions’ latest two films, Dope and Songs My Brothers Taught Me were also selected to debut in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where they received excellent reviews. Additionally, both films were selected for inclusion in the 2015 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Whitaker made his directorial debut with Strapped in 1993, for which he won the International Critics’ Award at the Toronto Film Festival. Since then, he has directed and executive produced Waiting to Exhale, Hope Floats and First Daughter. He has produced numerous other award-winning films and documentaries, including the Peabody Award winning Brick City, and has executive produced several made-for-television movies and miniseries.

Whitaker was the creator and producer of DEWmocracy.com, an interactive video game and website that allowed people to select a new flavor of Mountain Dew. Under Frank Cooper, he also directed the short film that opened the game. This campaign turned into the most successful launch of a soft drink in Mountain Dew’s history.

Over the past decade, Whitaker has devoted much of his time to his humanitarian work. He is the founder and CEO of The Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, which has current branches in Uganda, South Sudan, Myanmar, Mexico and the United States. He is also the co-founder and chair of the International Institute for Peace, UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation and a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. He previously served on the President’s Urban Policy Committee. Additionally, in 2014 he started collaborating with the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict as an Advocate for Children Affected by War, a topic on which he was invited to speak before the UN Security Council in September of that year.

MICHAEL STUHLBARG (Agent Halpern) has long been a lauded actor in the New York theater world, but it wasn’t until he played Larry Gopnik, the lead role in the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, that he earned serious recognition from the film community, including a Golden Globe® nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture.

Stuhlbarg’s other films include: Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival; Jobs, directed by Danny Boyle; Trumbo with Bryan Cranston; Miles Ahead with Don Cheadle; Edward Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice; Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln; Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine; Cut Bank; Hitchcock; Men in Black 3; Martin Scorsese’s Hugo; Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies; Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone; Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls; and Martin Scorsese’s short homage to Alfred Hitchcock, The Key to Reserva.

Stuhlbarg played the role of New York City mob boss Arnold Rothstein on HBO’s award-winning series Boardwalk Empire and has recurred on the Amazon series Transparent.

Upcoming projects include Miss Sloane with Jessica Chastain, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and Marvel’s Dr. Strange.

In 2005, Stuhlbarg was a Tony Award nominee and a Drama Desk Award winner for his performance in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. He has also been honored with the New Dramatists Charles Bowden Actor Award and the Elliot Norton Boston Theatre Award, the latter for his performance in Long Day’s Journey into Night. The actor’s other Broadway credits include the National Actors Theatre productions of Saint Joan, Three Men on a Horse, Timon of Athens, and The Government Inspector; Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides; Sam Mendes’ revival of Cabaret; and Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love.

Stuhlbarg has also worked numerous times with the New York Shakespeare Festival. His critically acclaimed credits include Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, the title role in Richard II, and Hamlet in Oskar Eustis’ production of the famous tragedy, for which he won a Drama League Award.

Other Off-Broadway credits include David Warren’s staging of The Voysey Inheritance, for which he received Obie and Callaway Awards and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination; Cymbeline, reprising his role in a U.K. stint of the production; Old Wicked Songs (Drama League Award recipient); Measure For Pleasure (Lucille Lortel Award nomination); and The Grey Zone.

Stuhlbarg received his BFA from The Juilliard School. He also studied at UCLA, at the Vilnius Conservatory in Lithuania’s Chekhov Studies unit, at the British-American Drama Academy at Baliol and Keble Colleges in Oxford, and, on a full scholarship, with French actor and mime Marcel Marceau.

Actor and filmmaker MARK O’BRIEN (Captain Marks) is best known to Canadian audiences for his role as “Des Courtney” on the long-running CBC award-winning comedy-drama TV series Republic of Doyle. He’s twice been nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award for Best Male Performance.

In the U.S., O’Brien was recently cast in the second season of the AMC drama Halt and Catch Fire. The series is set in the early 1980s, in the halcyon days of the computer tech revolution. O’Brien’s character, Tom Rendon is a savvy IT department head at a law firm, who has a passion for gaming.

O’Brien has appeared in several hit series including NBC’s Hannibal, where he played a recurring role as “Randall Tier,” a psychotic serial killer. He has also been featured on episodes of CTV’s Saving Hope, CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries and Syfy’s Warehouse 13, as well as the new Syfy series Killjoys. In 2010, O’Brien starred in the Sundance Film Festival selection Grown Up Movie Star alongside Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany.

O’Brien’s directorial credits include select episodes of Republic of Doyle, as well as nine short films, including Better People, which showcased in 10 film festivals across Canada and the United States, and Sweetieface, seen in film festivals across the Canada. Both films received critical acclaim, winning multiple awards including Best Short Film at the 2013 and 2014 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, Best Emerging Filmmaker at the 2013 Lakeshorts International Film Festival and Best Short Film at the 2013 Atlantic Film Festival. He was recently nominated for another Canadian Comedy Award, this time as Best Director of a television series for his work on Republic of Doyle.

O’Brien recently starred in Canadian indie films The End of Days, Inc., a dark comedy with a supernatural spin that recently premiered at the USA Film Festival in Dallas Texas, Len & Company directed by Tim Godsall, and The Dark Stranger alongside Katie Findlay, Enrico Colantoni and Stephen McHattie.

O’Brien holds a Bachelor of Arts from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a major in English Literature. In May 2015 the University awarded him with the Horizon Alumni Award for Best Career Achievement for an alumnus under the age of 35.

 

 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Acclaimed French-Canadian filmmaker, DENIS VILLENEUVE (Director) earned worldwide attention for garnering a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 83^rd Academy Awards® for his feature film Incendies, a drama about the legacy of civil war in Lebanon for a Montreal immigrant family. The French-language film is considered by the New York Times as one of the best movies of 2011.

In 2015, the Cannes Film Festival bestowed the Quebecois director’s film Sicario with a nomination to compete for the coveted Palme d’Or. His first film to screen in the main competition follows an idealistic FBI agent portrayed by Golden Globe® winner Emily Blunt whose hunt for justice thrusts her into the dark heart of a lawless U.S. and Mexican border where drugs, terror, illegal immigration and corruption challenge her moral compass. Oscar® winner Benicio Del Toro and Oscar® nominee Josh Brolin also star. The film received three Academy Award® nominations for Best Achievement in Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score (Jóhann Jóhannsson) and Best Achievement in Sound Editing (Alan Robert Murray).

In 2012, Villeneuve directed his first English-language film, Enemy. The eerie thriller stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a history lecturer who discovers an unexpected alter ego. The actor’s spellbinding performance won him critical raves and sealed the filmmaker’s reputation as one of cinema’s most exciting new voices. Adapted from a José Saramago novel and set in Toronto, Enemy collected the 2015 Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Canadian Feature.

Villeneuve made his Hollywood directing debut with Prisoners, a suburban-vigilante drama starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film received a 2014 Oscar® nomination for Best Achievement in Cinematography and National Board of Review Awards for Best Ensemble and as one of the Top Films of the year.

Cannes and major international film festivals have embraced Villeneuve’s films from early on in his career. In 2009 he helmed his third feature Polytechnique, a black-and-white French-language feature that dramatized the infamous massacre of 14 young women at Montreal’s Polytechnique School of engineering in 1989. The film made its world premiere at the Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight. In Canada, the film was honored with the Best Canadian Film of 2009 by the Toronto Film Critics Association and awarded nine Canadian Screen Awards and five Jutra Awards (Quebec film awards), most notably for Best Director.

            In 2008 Villeneuve’s savory short film Next Floor was honored with the Canal+ Award presented at the Cannes’ Critics Week. It was also shown in more than 150 festivals around the globe and reaped more than 50 awards.

His 1998 feature film debut August 32 on Earth (Un 32 août sur terre), starring Pascale Bussières, premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and was selected by over 35 film festivals including official selections at Telluride and TIFF.

Maelström followed, starring Marie-Josée Croze as a troubled young woman, and won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize at 2001 Berlin Film Festival, also taking home the SACD Prize from the Avignon Film Festival.

Villeneuve is currently in pre-production on his biggest project to date – the highly anticipated sequel to the cult classic Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling.

ERIC HEISSERER (Screenplay) is a screenwriter and author. In 2016, he wrote and produced hit feature Lights Out at New Line based on the short film by David F. Sandberg. Lawrence Grey and James Wan were also co-producers on the project and David F. Sandberg directed.

He made his directorial debut in 2013 with the film Hours, which he also wrote, starring Paul Walker and Génesis Rodríguez. Also in the works is another feature that landed on the Black List, Bird Box, which is out to cast – Andy Muschietti is directing and Scott Stuber will produce through his Bluegrass Films for Universal Pictures.

Heisserer is at work rewriting Bloodshot, the first of Sony’s launch of Valiant Comics to screen, for Neal Moritz, Valiant Comics and Sony Pictures, which Chad Stahelski (John Wick) will direct. He is also developing Harbinger, another Valiant Comic for Sony/Neal Moritz.

Also in development is Understand at Fox with 21 Laps, based on a short story by Ted Chiang. Additionally, Christine Boylan is adapting his Popcorn Fiction short story “Lost Vegas” for television with UCP – Heisserer is attached to direct the first two episodes.

Heisserer is also writing “Lone Wolf 2100 Chase the Setting Sun” for Dark Horse Comics, based on his relationship with them from the “Shaper” graphic novels he wrote for Dark Horse Books.

Heisserer’s books include the recent “150 Screenwriting Challenges.” He’s  written several short stories for the anthology site Popcorn Fiction, including “Hours,” which became the template for the movie of the same name. And has written several of the personal stories he collected from Hurricane Katrina survivors.

His previous feature film work also includes Final Destination 5, The Thing (2011) and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

Heisserer grew up in Oklahoma, where his father taught ancient history at Oklahoma University and took him on sabbaticals to rare and fascinating European locales. A self-described autodidact, Heisserer began his writing career in the mid-1990s in the tabletop game market, but he broke in as a screenwriter with an online epistolary story called “The Dionaea House,” a series of letters from the fictional Mark Condry to the author. (For the ten-year anniversary of “The Dionaea House”, he released an online companion story called “Exposure” on Reddit, which sold preemptively to Neal Moritz.) Warner Bros. bought the rights to “The Dionaea House,” which led to screenwriting jobs with Paramount, Warners, CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

SHAWN LEVY (Producer) is one of the most prolific filmmakers of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide. His latest project, this summer’s most talked about TV series Stranger Things, is a massive critical and commercial success.

While Levy is best known as a director of hit comedies and family films, his production company 21 Laps Entertainment has achieved substantial growth with a slate of film and TV projects encompassing multiple genres and collaborating with renowned filmmakers. These last few years have seen the company become one of the most noteworthy and unique of its kind. Along with Stranger Things, Levy and 21 Laps’ most recent productions include the successful family comedy Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner, and the critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama The Spectacular Now starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller.

Levy also produces the ABC comedy series Last Man Standing, starring Tim Allen and currently entering its sixth season, as well as the upcoming ABC comedy Imaginary Mary written by The Goldbergs creator Adam Goldberg, the pilot for which Levy directed as well.

Levy’s movies include the blockbuster Night at the Museum franchise, with Levy serving as both producer and director of all three films. The Night at the Museum films have earned over $1.3 billion in worldwide box office and feature such stars as Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Hank Azaria, Amy Adams, Christopher Guest, Jonah Hill, Rebel Wilson, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney. This Is Where I Leave You, a feature adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s best-selling novel, premiered at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and showcased an all-star cast that included Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver and Rose Byrne

Levy’s other helming efforts include the hit action comedy Date Night, starring Steve Carell, Tina Fey, James Franco, Mark Wahlberg, Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo, which grossed over $150 million worldwide. Levy’s father-son futuristic boxing Drama real Steel starring Hugh Jackman also resonated with audiences worldwide and earned over $300 million. Levy’s early directorial success includes the hit comedy The Pink Panther starring Steve Martin, Kevin Kline and Beyoncé Knowles, as well as another Martin-starrer Cheaper by the Dozen, which also included Bonnie Hunt and Ashton Kutcher and earned more than $200 million worldwide.

Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment has a profuse slate of films being released over the next six months. In addition to Arrival, Levy has the upcoming releases: Table 19, starring Anna Kendrick, from Fox Searchlight; Why Him? starring James Franco and Bryan Cranston, from 21st Century Fox for release on Christmas Day; and Fist Fight starring Charlie Day, Ice Cube, Jillian Bell and Tracey Morgan, to be released by New Line Cinema.

DAN LEVINE (Producer) is President of Shawn Levy’s production company 21 Laps Entertainment, based at Fox. Levine recently produced director John Hamburg’s Why Him? starring James Franco and Bryan Cranston, which will come out this Christmas. Prior to that, he produced the Disney hit Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner. Prior to that, he was an executive producer on Shawn Levy’s The Internship starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, as well as Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.

He joined Levy’s company in 2010 after serving as Paramount Pictures Executive Vice President of Production, working on such projects as Matt Reeves’ monster blockbuster Cloverfield, Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust, global hit G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the relaunching of the horror franchise Friday the 13th, and the Mark Wahlberg action movie Shooter.

Levine has alternated between producer and studio executive during his career. He was Senior VP of Production at Dimension for two years, overseeing features such as The Amityville Horror.

He previously served as Senior VP of Production at Jersey Films. There he executive produced the Ben Stiller-Jennifer Aniston comedy hit Along Came Polly and Richard LaGravenese’s Freedom Writers, co-produced Todd Graff’s Camp, and served as production exec on the 2001 indie hit Super Troopers.

Prior to that, Levine was a Vice President at New Regency, where he worked on Curtis Hanson’s Oscar®-winning L.A. Confidential, David Fincher’s Fight Club, Joel Schumacher’s courtroom thriller A Time to Kill, and City of Angels.

AARON RYDER (Producer) is the Co-President of Production and Acquisitions at FilmNation Entertainment. Since joining the company in 2009, veteran producer Aaron Ryder has established himself as one of the brightest and most prolific independent producers working today. Among the films Ryder has produced with FilmNation are: Jeff Nichol’s critically acclaimed Mud, a 2012 Cannes official selection starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Michael Shannon; The Raven with John Cusack; and Mark Tonderai’s House at the End of the Street starring Jennifer Lawrence. During the summer of 2015, Ryder produced The Founder, a film by John Lee Hancock starring Michael Keaton, as well as Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction epic Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker. He also executive produced Miss Sloane with Jessica Chastain and The Sense of an Ending with Jim Broadbent. At FilmNation, Ryder is also working on several development titles, including The Tunnels with Tobias Lindholm writing for Paul Greengrass to direct and Train Man with Julia Roberts attached to star.

Prior films Ryder has produced include his collaboration with director Christopher Nolan, starting with Memento in 2000 and then The Prestige in 2007 as well as the sci-fi, action film Transcendence with Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman directed by Wally Pfister. In 2008 Ryder produced the Sundance hit Hamlet 2 and the critically acclaimed TV Set for director Jake Kasdan. Other credits include My One And Only with Renée Zellweger, The Mexican, starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, and Donnie Darko, with Drew Barrymore and Jake Gyllenhaal.

In his 20-year career as a producer, executive and entrepreneur, DAVID LINDE (Producer) has been responsible for groundbreaking, commercially successful films involving some of the world’s most talented filmmakers. From critically acclaimed, independently produced films to studio blockbusters earning billions of dollars in box office revenue, Linde’s unique perspective maintains a balance between creativity and what is necessary to bring a feature film from inception to a global audience. Driven by a passion for connecting cultures, Linde is known as a champion of international filmmakers and creative talent and has worked with leading voices including Pedro Almodóvar, J.A. Bayona, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou.

In November 2015 Linde was named Chief Executive Officer of Participant Media, the global media company founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll, which is dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels social change.

In 2011 Linde founded Lava Bear Films, a production and financing company, with the support of Reliance Entertainment. This year, in addition to Arrival, Lava Bear productions include Jonas Cuarón’s Desierto, the thriller Shut In starring Naomi Watts, and The Forest starring Natalie Dormer.

Prior to the formation of Lava Bear, Linde served as chairman of Universal Pictures, where he successfully championed a broad outlook regarding international productions, animation and family entertainment, and distribution. Linde also ran acclaimed specialty film studio Focus Features and its genre division, Rogue Pictures, both of which were formed from Universal’s acquisition of the acclaimed independent production company Good Machine, of which he was a partner. While at Good Machine, Linde shepherded iconic titles such as Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Y Tu Mamá También. During his tenure at Focus, Co-Presidents Linde and James Schamus oversaw a diverse slate that was honored with a historic 53 Oscar^® nominations and 11 Academy Awards^®.

Linde spent the early portion of his career at Miramax, serving on the leadership team at Miramax Films and Miramax Films International, where he led the acquisition of Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway and Chen Kaige’s Palme d’Or-winning Farewell My Concubine, as well as the international distribution of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Wes Craven’s Scream and Anthony Minghella’s multi-Academy Award^®-winning The English Patient.

Linde serves on the board of directors of FilmIndependent and is on the board of trustees of New Roads School. Throughout his career, Linde has been recognized for numerous awards, including The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneer of the Year, General Electric’s Chairman Award for Performance Turnaround, the Anti-Defamation League’s Distinguished Entertainment Industry Award, the 21^st Israel Film Festival Visionary Award, New York Magazine: Best of the Industry Award, the Gotham Award for Distinguished Achievement, and the Locarno Film Festival’s Premio Raimondo Rezzonico award.

            STAN WLODKOWSKI (Executive Producer) enjoys producing feature films that shoot outside the United States. He is responsible for such movies as: Focus starring Will Smith, which shot in part in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts, which shot in New York, Italy, India and Indonesia; Push, starring Dakota Fanning, which filmed in Hong Kong; and Monte Carlo, which filmed in France. He also served as a co-executive producer on HBO’s successful series Rome, which shot at the famed Cinecittà Studios in Italy.

Other credits for Wlodkowski include last year’s Now You See Me, starring Morgan Freeman & Woody Harrelson, In The Valley of Elah, and Seraphim Falls.

Previously, Wlodkowski served as a co-producer on the Academy Award®-winning American Beauty, and as a producer on One Hour Photo with Robin Williams. He also served as a producer on three episodes of PBS’ acclaimed American Playhouse series when he first started in the entertainment business. For American Playhouse he produced Longtime Companion, the first movie about AIDS to get a wide release and major media attention – it earned costar Bruce Davison a Golden Globe and an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Critic Roger Ebert praised the movie, saying it contained, “one of the most emotionally affecting scenes in any film on dying.”

Born and raised in San Diego and a graduate of Cornell University, DAN COHEN (Executive Producer) began his career as an assistant at The Firm in 2005 and then worked at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment as a creative executive before joining Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps in 2010, where he currently serves as Senior Vice President. His producing credits include the 2013 indie hit The Spectacular Now, Cut Bank and the breakout Netflix series Stranger Things. He currently has three films in post-production: Arrival (Paramount, directed by Denis Villeneuve), Table 19 (Fox Searchlight, directed by Jeff Blitz), Fist Fight (New Line, directed by Richie Keen). He was a member of the 2014 Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen class.

As Executive Vice President of Production at FilmNation Entertainment, KAREN LUNDER (Executive Producer) draws on her extensive studio and independent film background to oversee the development and production of many FilmNation production titles. Lunder most recently produced Marc Webb’s upcoming drama Gifted starring Chris Evans, Octavia Spencer and Jenny Slate.  She executive produced Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction epic Arrival starring Amy Adams Jeremy Renner and Forrest Whitaker as well as the The Founder, directed by John Lee Hancock starring Michael Keaton which will both be released later this year. She also developed and co-produced Gavin Hood’s 2016 political thriller Eye In The Sky starring Helen Mirren. Upcoming projects that Lunder is overseeing for FilmNation include The Good House, an adaption of the best-selling novel to be directed by Jill Soloway for Meryl Streep & Robert DeNiro and The Robber, an action thriller that is being developed by JC Chandor.

Prior to joining FilmNation, Lunder was President of Production at Gil Netter Productions, where she developed and oversaw an ambitious slate of book adaptations including Marley and Me and The Blind Side.  Prior to that she headed up development for Landscape Entertainment, building the company’s comedy business and producing several comedies including Betty Thomas’ teen comedy John Tucker Must Die. She began her career in New York at October Films, working on various independent films such as Todd Solondz’s Happiness and Robert Duvall’s The Apostle.

TORY METZGER (Executive Producer) serves as President of Lava Bear Films, a production and film financing company. Before joining Lava Bear Films in 2011, she was the President of Production at MRC Studios where she worked with such filmmakers as M. Night Shyamalan, David Fincher, Ricky Gervais, Neill Blomkamp, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jay Roach and Robert Rodriguez. In her tenure at MRC, she oversaw the packaging and production of the company’s film slate including Ted, Seth MacFarlane’s hugely successful directorial debut, and Elysium, Neill Blomkamp’s follow up to District 9, was responsible for launching The Night Chronicles, Shyamalan’s anthology film series, as well as working on a series of original thrillers to be produced by David Fincher.

Prior to her years as an executive and producer, Metzger was an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for 18 years. At CAA, she represented such artists as Tom Cruise, Ang Lee, Cameron Crowe, Spike Jonze, John Wells, Edgar Wright, Nicole Holofcener, Callie Khouri, Danny DeVito, Michael Mann, Susanne Bier and Robert Benton. In her career as an agent, she was also involved in the financing and packaging of films including Brokeback Mountain, The Last Samurai, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Being John Malkovich and Mission Impossible I, II and III. She also helped clients launch successful multi-platform ventures such as the Jackass television series and the films, which followed. In her final year at CAA, Tory signed Shane Smith of Vice Magazine and helped to craft the initial plan for what has now become Vice Media. She and her CAA associates’ work with Shane and his partner Eddy Moretti resulted in a deal with MTV that was the first step in the Vice expansion.

Metzger is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on The Advisory Board of the UCSB Carsey-Wolf Center. She was named to The Hollywood Reporter’s annual “Women In Entertainment Power 100” in 2006 and 2007, and was previously recognized in Filmmaker Magazine as one the leading agents in the independent film industry.

 

MILAN POPELKA (Executive Producer) is the Chief Operating Officer at leading independent entertainment company FilmNation Entertainment. Popelka’s responsibilities include overseeing all day-to-day operations and finance for the company.

FilmNation boasts an industry-leading slate of diverse, high profile titles, both for sales representation and production/finance. On the production/finance slate, Popelka served as Executive Producer on Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction epic Arrival starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner which the company financed and produced, as well as on Ritesh Batra’s Sense of An Ending starring Jim Broadbent which FilmNation financed. The company’s other upcoming productions include McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc biopic The Founder, a John Lee Hancock film starring Michael Keaton, Judd Apatow produced comedy The Big Sick, and Marc Webb’s Gifted starring Chris Evans.

International sales credits include, among others: Academy Award for Best Picture Winner The King’s Speech; Alexander Payne’s six-time Academy Award nominated Nebraska; Academy Award winning The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch; Rian Johnson’s Looper; and Lenny Abrahamson’s Room starring Brie Larson.

Prior to joining FilmNation, Popelka oversaw creative/finance at Samuels Media (Michael Clayton), worked in the Independent Finance Group at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), and served as a management consultant in the entertainment practice of McKinsey & Company.

BRADFORD YOUNG (Director of Cinematography) is a cinematographer who studied under the tutelage of filmmaker Haile Gerima. As a cinematographer, Young is most concerned with finding the sublime in the ordinary. His work’s ambition is to explore and celebrate small local things, photographically.

His recent film contributions include Selma, for which he was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 2015 Independent Spirit Awards, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Mother of George, both of which he was awarded the 2013 Sundance US Dramatic Competition Excellence in Cinematography award for. Other films include Dee Rees’ Pariah, for which he won the 2011 Sundance US Dramatic Competition of Excellence in Cinematography Award, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, Tina Mabry’s Mississippi Damned, Paola Mendoza’s Entre Nos and Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City.

            In 2014, Young also shot Edward Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice and J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year. He also recently completed Beat-up Little Seagull helmed by Andrew Dosunmu and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kiefer Sutherland.

            In 2009, Filmmaker Magazine selected Young for its annual survey “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” And in 2010, Variety Magazine selected the talented cinematographer in their “Up Next – 25 Masters of Their Craft” profile of filmmakers moving up the ladder of success.

            In 2014, Young created a three-channel video installation titled Bynum Cutler. Inspired by late playwright August Wilson, the film featured black monuments set against the backdrop of Weeksville’s historic Bethel Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Crown Heights Brooklyn in a tribute to the pioneering Black women, men and children who embarked on countless journeys in search of refuge.

Young is a 2014 inductee into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

            PATRICE VERMETTE (Production Designer) received an Oscar® nomination for his historical drama The Young Victoria, from director Jean-Marc Vallée. Elements of his designs for the film have been displayed in the exhibit De Fil en Aiguilles at Le Musée de l’Amérique Français in Quebec City, Canada.

Over the past 22 years, Vermette has art directed over 600 television commercials in Canada and abroad, and served as production designer on 11 feature films and more than 40 music videos.

Arrival marks Vermette’s fourth collaboration in a row with Denis Villeneuve, having designed for the director’s 2015 release Sicario as well as  Prisoners and Enemy.

            Vermette’s other feature film work includes Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore and C.R.A.Z.Y. For the former, Vermette received Canadian Screen Award and Directors Guild of Canada Award nominations and won the Jutra Award. Vermette’s work from C.R.A.Z.Y. has been showcased in an exhibit at the Museum of Civilization, celebrating 100 years of Quebec filmmaking, including a full-scale rebuild of a bedroom set from the movie. The designs also garnered Vermette a Canadian Screen Award from the Canadian Film Academy, the Jutra Award from the Quebec Film Academy, and awards at Spain’s Gijon Film Festival.

He designed two films for Ricardo Trogi: 1987 and, earning Vermette another Canadian Screen Award nomination and Directors Guild of Canada Award, 1981. He also designed for Fernando Colomo’s La Banda Picasso and Kim Nugyen’s La Cité, for which he received a Jutra Award and Directors of Guild of Canada Award nominations.

This is JOE WALKER’s (Editor) second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve, following the 2013 thriller Prisoners. He’s also proved himself a formidable film editing talent with a trilogy of films for director Steve McQueen, including 2014 Academy Award® for Best Motion Picture of the Year winner 12 Years a Slave, for which he was nominated for an Oscar®.

Walker has edited such films as Michael Mann’s cyberthriller Blackhat (2015), The Escapist (2008) written and directed by Rupert Wyatt, Harry Brown (2009) starring Michael Caine as a modern-day vigilante, and Brighton Rock (2010), a reworking of the Graham Greene classic that set its action against a backdrop of the Mod and Rocker riots of 1964.

In 2010, Walker cut the innovative documentary-feature Life in a Day for Academy Award®-winning director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott. A unique cinematic experiment, it was filmed by YouTube users around the world on a single day in July 2010 and is distilled from the 4,500 hours of footage submitted. The movie premiered at Sundance in January 2011.

Walker’s most notable partnership has been with artist-turned-director Steve McQueen. Their first film, Hunger (2008), was an unflinching portrayal of the IRA hunger strikes at Long Kesh starring Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands. It won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2011, he once again joined the team of McQueen, Fassbender and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt to cut Shame (2011), which told the story of a handsome, successful Manhattanite navigating the reckless terrain of sexual obsession on a path towards self-destruction. Their third collaboration was 12 Years a Slave (2013), the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man kidnapped and sold into slavery, set in 1840s Louisiana. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano and Paul Giamatti. 12 Years a Slave won three Academy Awards® for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nyong’o and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Ridley. In her acceptance speech, Nyong’o paid tribute to Walker, describing him as “the invisible performer in the cutting room.” The film was awarded the Golden Globe Award® for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized it with the Best Film and the Best Actor award for Ejiofor.

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON (Composer) is a Berlin-based composer originally from Iceland. His varied and eclectic output includes commissioned works for Bang on a Can, Theatre of Voices and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, as well as a collaboration with the New York-based experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison on the film The Miners’ Hymns.

Jóhannsson was awarded a Golden Globe® for Best Film Score for The Theory of Everything, directed by James Marsh. His music for the film also earned Jóhannsson an Oscar® nomination as well as BAFTA, Grammy and Critics Choice Award nominations for best original score. The Theory of Everything focuses on the life of famed physicist Stephen Hawking and stars Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar® for his leading role as Stephen Hawking, and Felicity Jones. Jóhannsson’s other recent film scores include Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Lou Ye’s Blind Massage and So Yong Kim’s For Ellen.

Jóhannsson received Oscar®, BAFTA and Critics’ Choice nominations for his work on Denis Villeneuve’s critically-acclaimed film Sicario, starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro.

After a period spent primarily concentrating on film scores, this year Jóhannsson sees the release of several new music projects, some of which have been a long time in the making. Jóhannsson is also working on his first studio album in four years, since the release of his “Miner’s Hymns” in 2011. A new piece from Jóhannsson, “Drone Mass,” was also premiered in March 2015 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in collaboration with 2014 Grammy-Award winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and American Contemporary Music Ensemble. “Drone Mass” was recorded in Denmark in June, 2016 and released through the Sonos Luminous record label.

            “Last and First Men,” a new audiovisual piece, is also in the making and was performed as a work-in-progress at Festival Kortrijk in Belgium in May 2015, with live music performed by the Spectra Ensemble. The piece combines film footage Jóhannsson shot with cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen on various locations in the republics of the former Yugoslavia, with new music composed by Jóhannsson. The title is inspired by the 1930 science-fiction novel of the same name written by Olaf Stapledon.

Jóhannsson started studying piano and trombone when he was 11 but stopped formal musical studies in high school, feeling hampered by the constraints of academic music. After studying literature and languages at university, he spent 10 years playing in indie rock bands, concentrating on multi-layered feedback-drenched guitar compositions.

Writing music for plays, dance and theatrical performances led to work on film soundtracks. Jóhannsson scored more than a dozen movies, including The Good Life (Eva Mulvad, DK 2010), Varmints (Marc Craste, UK 2008) and For Ellen (So Yong Kim, US 2012) before his work with director Denis Villeneuve on Prisoners and Josh C. Waller on McCanick. His music has also found a home in art house films across the globe, from Lou Ye’s Mystery (CN 2011) to János Szász’s recent prize winning drama Le Grand Cahier (HU 2013).

Jóhannsson has collaborated with pop artists such as Marc Almond, Barry Adamson, Finnish electro band Pan Sonic, The Hafler Trio, English avant garde composer Andrew M. McKenzie, CAN drummer Jaki Liebezeit, Stephen O’Malley of the dark metal band Sunn O))) and many others.

RENÉE APRIL (Costume Designer) most recently worked with director Denis Villeneuve on Sicario starring Amy Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro and Victor Garber. She also designed the costumes for Villeneuve’s films Prisoners and Enemy. She teams up again with Villeneuve on the upcoming Untitled Blade Runner Project.

            April designed the wardrobes for Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lighting Thief and the 2006 blockbuster comedy Night at the Museum. Prior to that she earned a Costume Designer’s Guild Award nomination for her wardrobe in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain.

            Throughout her career encompassing four dozen credits as designer and costumer, April has collaborated with directors as diverse as Edward Zwick on Pawn Sacrifice, Roland Emmerich on 10,000 B.C. and The Day After Tomorrow, George Clooney on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Alan Rudolph on The Moderns and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Norman Jewison on Agnes of God, Bruce Beresford on Black Robe (for which she received an Australian Film Institute nomination for costume design), Randa Haines on Children of a Lesser God, David Mamet on Heist, Billy Ray on Shattered Glass, Sir Richard Attenborough on Grey Owl, and Vincent Ward on Map of the Human Heart.

April also designed the wardrobes for Marcus Nispel’s Pathfinder, Fernando Meirelles’ Cannes Palme d’Or nominee Blindness, Bill Paxton’s period sports drama The Greatest Game Ever Played, Chazz Palminteri’s fantasy Noel, Keith Gordon’s thriller Waking the Dead, The Education of Little Tree, and the award-winning telefilm Million Dollar Babies, the true story of a 1930s Canadian woman who gives birth to quintuplets, for which April shared a Gemini Award (Canadian television awards) for Best Costumes. She has won additional Gemini Awards for her designs for the TV series Tales from the Neverending Story and the TV movie The Hound of the Baskervilles. She was also nominated for her work on Revenge of the Land.

April is a native of Montreal. In addition to her Gemini Awards, he work in her native country has garnered her three Canadian Screen Awards for The Red Violin, the aforementioned Grey Owl, and The Bay Boy. She earned two additional Canadian Screen Award nominations for Pen Densham’s The Kiss and Beresford’s Black Robe.

            In addition to her work in film and television, April designed the wardrobe for Cirque du Soleil’s final show in Japan.

###

Unit Production Manager First Assistant Director Second Assistant Director		STAN WLODKOWSKI DONALD L. SPARKS BRIGITTE GOULET
Louise Banks	CAST	AMY ADAMS
Ian Donnelly Colonel Weber Agent Halpern Captain Marks General Shang 8-Year-Old Hannah 12-Year-Old Hannah 6-Year-Old Hannah Dr. Kettler Private Lasky Private Combs CNAC Anchor Environmental  Techs Dr. J. Bydwell Richard Riley Press Secretary Australian Scientist British Scientist CIA Officer Dan Ryder Preacher Chinese Scientists Russian Officer Swedish Scientist Sudan Representative African  Representative Sierra Leone Representative Japanese Minister Venezuelan Representative Chinese Man Grad Student with Smartphone Cryptographers Science Team Members Communications  Ops Nurses Lieutenant Soldier TV Anchors Motion Capture Heptapods		JEREMY RENNER FOREST WHITAKER MICHAEL STUHLBARG MARK O’BRIEN TZI MA ABIGAIL PNIOWSKY JULIA SCARLETT DAN JADYN MALONE FRANK SCHORPION LUCAS CHARTIER-DESSERT CHRISTIAN JADAH LUCY VAN OLDENBARNEVELD ANDREW SHAVER PAT KIELY SONIA VIGNEAULT MARK CAMACHO SABRINA REEVES JULIAN CASEY TONY ROBINOW LARRY DAY MATTHEW WILLSON RUTH CHIANG RUSSELL YUEN SERGIY MARCHENKO ANANA RYDVALD BINEYAM GIRMA ABDELGHAFOUR ELAAZIZ ABDUL AYOOLA ALEX M. YEUH DANIEL ESTEBAN ALBERT KWAN BRITTANY TEO JOE COBDEN LORNE BRASS GENEVIEVE SIROIS VICTOR ANDRES TURGEON-TRELLES MICHAEL  NANGREAVES REDA GUERINIK ADRIEN BENN SASHA SAMAR KATHLEEN STAVERT KATTIA THONY LEISA REID BRENT SKAGFORD GURDEEP AHLUWALIA SHAWN CAMPBELL BRIAN DUNSTAN DAN DURAN LORI GRAHAM ORLA JOHANNES JOHN MOORE SANGITA PATEL HAL ROBERTS CAMILLE ROSS OLA STURIK TAMMIE SUTHERLAND MAX WALKER MARC-ANDRÉ GOULET PAUL-ANTOINE TAILLEFER MARTIN PELLETIER JR.
Stunt Coordinator Amy Adams Stunt Double Jeremy Renner Stunt Double Amy Adams Stand-In Jeremy Renner Stand-In Forest Whitaker Stand-In Michael Stuhlbarg Stand-In		MARC DESOURDY KRISTA BELL MAXIME LAFERRIERE CHRISTINA KELLY PAUL VIGER DAVE CAMPBELL MATHIEU CODERRE
	CREW
Production Manager Production  Coordinator		HÉLÈNE ROSS KATHY-ANN  THOMAS
Supervising VFX Editor		JAVIER  MARCHESELLI
Post Production Coordinator First Assistant Editor VFX Producer		JOHN SYLVA MARY LUKASIEWICZ SANDRA GERMAIN
Supervising Sound Editor Supervising Re-recording Mixer DI Colorist		SYLVAIN BELLEMARE BERNARD GARIÉPY STROBL JOE GAWLER

Alien Foley Effects Artist		SOUNDTRACK GROUP New York, NY BARTMART AUDIO Ottawa, ON NICOLAS BECKER
Foley Artist Foley Mixer Foley Effects Mixers Re-Recording Assistant Technical Support Mels Studios Sound Project Manager Mels Studios Head of Operations SFX Sound Editing Studio Sound Editing Studio SFX Recording		GREGORY VINCENT STEVEN  GHOUTI OLIVIER GUILLAUME NIELS BARLETTA GABRIELLE LABELLE JOLY CHRISTOPHE BERTRAND YANICK GAUTHIER JOEY SIMAS LÉONARD VASCO MARCELLE CADIEUX MARTIN CAZES SYLVAIN BELLEMARE STUDIOS MELS PATRICK RIOUX SIMON GERVAIS
Foley Recording Studio Foley Studio Technician Foley Recording Studio Foley Studio Technician		POLY SON POST PRODUCTION Audi Riberolle, Paris, France GUILLAUME  CAMBOLY YELLOW CAB STUDIOS Paris, France CLÉMENT  FAURE-BRAC
	MUSIC
Music Written, Arranged, and Produced by		JÓHANN  JÓHANSSON
Orchestrations Orchestration  Assistant		JÓHANN JÓHANSSON ANTHONY WEEDEN SAM JONES
Additional  Orchestration		THOMAS BRYLA
Vocals Vocal Conductor Arrangements for Vocal Sessions Producer / Technical Engineer for Vocal Sessions		THEATRE OF VOICES PAUL HILLIER JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON OWEN ROBERTS PREBEN IWAN

Visual Effects Production Staff Support ACHIM SCHUHMACHER, RAYNAULT VFX ÉTIENNE LAROCHE, RAYNAULT VFX CASSANDRE SAURÉ, FOLKS VFX

VISUAL EFFECTS BY HYBRIDE TECHNOLOGIES

President and Head of Production PIERRE RAYMOND • Visual Effects Financial Controller MICHEL MURDOCK Visual Effects Executive Producer THIERRY DELATTRE • Visual Effects Supervisor PHILIPPE THÉROUX

Compositing Supervisors RICHARD MARTIN • JEAN-PIERRE FLAYEUX

Computer Graphics Supervisors NICOLAS-ALEXANDRE NOËL • LAFLÈCHE DUMAIS • Visual Effects Producer LOUISE BERTRAND Visual Effects Coordinators JOANIE CROTEAU • MARTINE LOSIER • KARINA MARIANO • DEBORAH ZADZORA

Layout / Tracking STEVE PELCHAT • ALEXANDRE ALIN • ALAIN LACROIX • BENOIT LEFEBVRE • SAMUEL LORIAULT-GOULET • BENOIT MORIN Modelers MARCO TREMBLAY • MIGUEL BÉRUBÉ OUELLET • ROBERT DE LA CRUZ • MATHIEU LALONDE • DAVID ROBERGE

Animators STEVE CADY • MARC AUBRY • EMMANUEL GATERA • CAROLINE LABRIE • JOSEF SY

Character Rigging MOSS BADRAN • STÉPHANE JEAN-MARY • Textures & Lighting MARYSE BOUCHARD • MICHAËL BENTITOU • JULIEN CHABOT • CHRISTOPHE DAMIANO • VASSILIOS LANARIS • CHRISTIAN MÉNARD • ALEXANDRE TESSIER • VALÉRIE VILLENEUVE FX Animators LARI KARAM • JULIEN DUBUSSET • JEAN-FRANÇOIS GALLANT • PASCAL LORTIE LANGLOIS • APOORVA SHAH

Motion Graphics GEOFFREY LAUZON • ÉDOUARD BUTTIERO • Technical Leads PATRICK PICHÉ • MATHIEU LECLAIRE • SYLVAIN BERGER • AHMIDOU LYAZIDI • ERIC THIVIERGE • DAVID THOMLISON • EMMANUEL PELLETIER • Digital Compositors OLIVIER BEAULIEU • NADINE HOMIER • XAVIER BOURQUE • MATTHIEU CHÂTELIER • MATHIEU GIRARD • BRUNO-PIERRE JOBIN • XAVIER LAROCQUE •

JEAN-MARC LAURIN • MAXIME LEMIEUX • ANNA MARIA PACCHIONI • SEBASTIEN RIOUX • KATY SAVOIE • MICHA SHER • VÉRONIQUE TREMBLAY • RAPHAËL VALLÉ • JEAN-FRÉDÉRIC VEILLEUX • Production Assistants MATHIEU BOUDREAU • FÉLIX CLÉMENT • JEAN-SÉBASTIEN LÉTOURNEAU

Technical Support JASON BOHBOT • CÉDRIC BONNAFFOUX • MÉLANIE COTTON • LUC DESMARAIS • STEPHAN GERVAIS • OLIVIER PAINCHAUD • ALEXANDRE PILON

Communications SYLVIE TALBOT • ANNE TREMBLAY • Administration CAROLINE BÉLISLE • DOLORÈS TARDIF VISUAL EFFECTS BY RODEO FX

VFX Supervisor ARNAUD BRISEBOIS • Compositing Supervisor NGUON VISSAL ONG • CG Supervisor / Lead Look Dev JEAN-SEBASTIEN GUILLEMETTE VFX Executive Producer SÉBASTIEN MOREAU • VP Development JORDAN SOLES • VP Production ISABELLE LANGLOIS

VFX Producer ANNIE CLICHE • VFX Coordinators MARINA POPOVA • LOUIS-CHARLES LAPOINTE •THIBAUD GALBOIS

VFX Production Assistants MARC-ANDRÉ ROY • KARL ALEXANDRE LAMARRE-PARENT

VFX Editor GUILLAUME POULIN • Concept Artist DEAK FERRAND • Previs Artists ALEXANDRE MÉNARD • COLIN GREEN Matchmove Lead ETIENNE POULIN ST-LAURENT • Lead Layout FABRICE VIENNE

Matchmove Artists ETIENNE JUBINVILLE • DAVID MCKAY • RENE ALLEGRETTI • JEAN-FRANCOIS MORISSETTE

Layout Artist DOMINIQUE MOISAN • TD Artist Matte Painting ERIC MC GUIRE • Matte Painter FRANCOIS CROTEAU Animators JONATHAN GREGOIRE • ELODIE GILBERT-LACHAPELLE • Lead Modeler DOMINIC PICHÉ

Modeling Artists JOSE SAMSON • TIMOTHY BLAKE • ALEXANDRU BANUTA • MATHIEU PHANEUF • MAXIME PHILIPPON

Texture Artists SARA FONTAINE • ROMAIN COTE • VÉRONIQUE COMEAU • Rigging Lead EDY SUSANTO • Rigging Artist SERGIO MUCINO FX Artists PIERRE ROUSSEAU • JAMES DONG • Lighting Artists VÉRONIQUE LEVESQUE LEVESQUE • DAWID BORKIEWICZ

Compositors MICHEL FRENETTE • PHILIPPE BIENVENUE • DAVID MONFETTE

Roto Artists DOMINIQUE RICHER • MAXIME PEARSON • BEATRICE PALIN • ANDREANNE LAMOUREUX • MARIE-SOLEIL CHABOT VISUAL EFFECTS BY OBLIQUE FX

VFX Supervisor ALEXANDRE LAFORTUNE • VFX Executive Producer BENOIT BRIÈRE • VFX Producers SANDRA GERMAIN • NOÈMIE JACQUES VFX Coordinator JEAN-FRANÇOIS LAFLEUR • VFX Technical Leads DAVID RAYMOND • FRANCOIS LORD

CG Supervisor GUILLAUME MAINVILLE • Tracking & Layout Artists DAVID RAYMOND • THOMAS CHESNY

Matte Painting Artists ANTOINE ROULEAU • CATHERINE HÉBERT • Modeling Artists MARIO FRASER • MARC-ANDRÉ POULIN • MATHIEU BEAUDOIN • CHRISTOPHER GONNORD • JEAN OLIVER ESTHER • Textures Artists JESSICA VALLÉE • MY PHONG NGUYEN

Rigging Artist JOSÉE CHAPDELAINE • FX Artist DAVID RAYMOND • Animation Artist ÉLAINE PHANEUF Lighting / Shading Artists GABRIEL MORIN • FRÉDÉRIC GAGNON • Lead Compositing Artist LOUIS-ALEXANDRE LORD

Compositing Artists MARIE-PIER COUTURE ALAIN • ALBAN KASIKCI • MICHAEL BEAULAC • PIERRE-SIMON LEBRUN-CHAPUT Roto Artists MATHIEU TREMBLAY • RANDY SANTANDREA • MAXIME PEARSON • LOUIS-PHILIPPE CLAVET • VALENTIN DELBROUCQ

Accountant YAN LAMBERT-LAGEAU VISUAL EFFECTS BY ALCHEMY 24

VFX Supervisor / Producer JEAN-FRANÇOIS (“JAFAZ”) FERLAND • Project Manager JACK BRAYER VFX Architect / Technical Lead OLIVIER PÉLOQUIN • Compositing Supervisor DIDIER BERTRAND Senior Digital Compositors ANDRIS PAKALNS • YI ZHANG • GAEL HOLLARD • MAXIME LAPOINTE Digital Compositors HESTON L’ABBÉ • JESSICA FRANCOEUR-DUCHARME • PATRICK LEMAY HARDY

Digital Compositor / VFX Editor DOMINIC DAUPHIN • Digital Compositor / Lead Roto BRYAN HSU

Roto Artists ALAIN MORIN • SIMON CHASSÉ • PHILIPPE COURNOYER • WILLIAM PERREAULT • MAXIME DESFORGES

VFX Executive Producer CATHERINE NADEAU • VFX Executive Assistant RACHEL TERRIEN • VFX Head of Finance FRANÇIS LAROSE VISUAL EFFECTS BY RAYNAULT VFX

VFX Art Supervisor MATHIEU RAYNAULT • CG Supervisor SYLVAIN THEROUX • VFX Producer JOSIANE FRADETTE

VFX Coordinators ALBAN BERG • NATHALIE CYR • Lead Compositing VINCENT POITRAS • Camera Match Move HERNAN VIETRI CG Artists FANNY BERTHIAUME • STEPHANIE MORIN • ROBERT RIOUX

Matte Painting ELIOTT BEAUDON • FRED DUPERE • FREDERIC ST-ARNAUD

Compositing Artists FANNY BERTHIAUME • AMÉLIE REY • System Engineer CURTIS LINSTEAD VISUAL EFFECTS BY FLY STUDIO

Executive Producer JEAN-FRANÇOIS TALBOT • VFX Supervisor JEAN-PIERRE BOIES • Artistic Lead CHARLES BERTRAND Production Coordinator CHANTAL CARON • Media Coordinator ARIANE BÉRUBÉ • Lead Compositing MATHIEU JOLICOEUR

Compositors LYNE LEPAGE • MATHIEU TAGGART • Compositing / Motion Design CHRISTOPHER BYRON Motion Designers EDOUARD LEE • JEAN-FRANÇOIS VÉZINA • ALEXANDRE LAPOINTE • CG Artist SIMON PELLETIER

VISUAL EFFECTS BY MELS

Creative Lead LOUIS-MARTIN DUVAL • Motion Design Coordinator JULIE HARTON

Motion Designers PHILIPPE CHAMBERLAND • TOBIASZ FILIPOWICZ • PIERRE-LUC LÉVESQUE • ÉRIK GAGNON

3D Artist MATHIEU GOULET-AUBIN • Visual Effects Supervisor ALAIN LACHANCE • Visual Effects Producer ALEXANDRA VAILLANCOURT Visual Effects Coordinator YANN JOUANNIC • Compositing Supervisor HUGO LÉVEILLÉ

Compositors SAMUEL BOISVERT • VINCENT FORAND • JOSÉ LUIS GOMEZ • GABRIEL ROY

Lead Services Visual Effects MATHIEU BOULANGER • Visual Effects Assistant Editor MARTIN FOURAT

I/O Operator SYLVAIN THIBODEAU • Head of Visual Effects BENOIT TOUCHETTE • VP of Sales & Creative Services FRANÇOIS GARCIA VISUAL EFFECTS BY FRAMESTORE

VFX Supervisor IVAN MORAN • Compositing Supervisor ANTHONY LUIGI SANTORO • CG Supervisors MATHIEU BERTRAND • JASON QUINTANA VFX Producer DANIEL BOOTY • VFX Line Producer DONALD KENNEDY III • VFX Coordinator ROBERTA MURPHY

Head of Art Department / Concept Artist MARTIN MACRAE • Modelers JAMES STONE • FÉLIX ARSENAULT Texture Artist THOMAS GILLET • Rigger CHRISTOPHE FEUILLEBOIS • Trackers STUART MUNRO • MATHIEU PARENT

Animators BERND ANGERER • LOÏC MIREAULT • Digital Matte Painter SITHIRISCIENT KHAY Environmental Technical Lead BASTIEN MULLER • FX Leads DANNY LEVESQUE • KEVIN BROWNE FX Artists GOBY HSIAO YUN CHOU • PIERPAOLO NAVARINI • ANTONIO COVELO • RAÚL PÉREZ

Lighting Technical Lead BRITTON PLEWES • Compositors LUKE DRUMMOND-HAY • BJOERN GOTTWALD • SIMON-PIERRE PUECH • ANDREW BARRY Editor SASHA LEIGH IZADPANAH • Support FABIEN DENNI • EVA RAGGINI • DAVID BEGIN

VISUAL EFFECTS BY SHED

VFX Producer RENAUD CÔTÉ • Visual Effects Supervisor SYLVAIN LEBEA • Production Lead CHARLES DE GAGNÉ Technical Lead MAXINE ROBERGE • Lead Animator PIERRE-HUGUES DALLAIRE

Animators DAVID ST-AMANT • CAMILO GUAMAN • JONATHAN PEPIN GAGNÉ

Lead Modeler MIKHAIL SEMIONOV • Rigging CARLOS VALCARCEL • Character TD MIGUEL CAMPOS VFX Artists PHILIPPE SYLVAIN • HAKIM HARROUCHE • LAURENT MAKOWSKI • OLIVIER ROUILLARD Online Assistants LÉANE DORÉ-MORIN • DOMINIQUE BELLETÊTE • MATHIEU POIREL

VISUAL EFFECTS BY FOLKS VFX

Digital Effects Supervisor PHILIPPE THIBAULT • Digital Effects Producer AMÉLIE POITRAS • Digital Effects Editor FRÉDÉRIQUE SCHMIDT Compositors SIMON DEVAULT • CHRISTOPHE TRÉPANIER • XAVIER DOYON • GAËL CHOPIN

Previs Services Provided by The Third Floor, London SPLINTER UNIT

Second Unit Director                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      MARIE-JULIE  DALLAIRE

Second Unit Director of Photography                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 YVES BÉLANGER

Camera Operator                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              HUGUES  TREMBLAY

1st Assistants Camera                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      DOMINIC  LAPOINTE

2nd Assistant Camera		CHLOÉ GIROUX LACHANCE MARIE-HÉLÈNE  TREMBLAY
Camera Trainee Video Assist 1st Assistant Director 2nd Assistant Director 3rd Assistant Director Script Supervisor Sound Mixer Boom Operator Key Dresser Key Grip Assistant Make-Up Artist Assistant Craft Services		ERIN WEISGERBER MICHAEL LAROUCHE MARIE-JOSÉ BOURASSA DANDY THIBAUDEAU CARL KOURI MARTINE LÉTOURNEAU FRANÇOIS  GRENON PHILOMÈNE DORION-LAURENDEAU MARIANE CARTER CHRISTIAN SAUVAGEAU SHERRY HU RACHEL CORBER
	VFX PLATE UNIT
Camera Operator 1st Assistant Camera 2nd Assistant Camera Video Assist Camera Utility		MARC CHARLEBOIS CHRISTIAN  CAPÉRAA JEAN-FRANÇOIS TOUSIGNANT STEPHANIE GIRARD-HAMELIN AMANDINE  SCHELLE
	AERIAL UNIT
Aerial Director of Photography Aerial Camera Technician Helicopter Pilot		HANS BJERNO ERIC GROOME PAUL DUBOIS
	ADDITIONAL UNIT
Line Producers Production  Manager		PAUL BARBEAU MARTIN HENRI MICHELLE QUINN
Production  Coordinator Additional Unit Director of Photography Camera Operator 1st Assistant Director Supervising Art Director Script Supervisor Assistant Production Office Coordinator Accounting Key Wardrobe Mistress Gaffer Key Grip Hair Make-Up		HÉLÈNE MULLER PIERRE GILL FREDERIC CHAMBERLAND PASCAL ELISSALDE NICOLAS LEPAGE MONA MEDAWAR VICTORINE TAMAFO NATHALIE LAGACÉ CYNTHIA ST-GELAIS RENÉ GUILLARD KEITH KERR RÉJEAN GODERRE JOAN-PATRICIA  PARRIS