Authors' Biographies

Katy Carter

Kate was raised on a diet of Disney and Police Academy, and her favourite film is Drop Dead Fred . She will not be drawn into debate on this. Kate studied film to postgraduate degree level, specialising in feminist theory, though she isn't averse to the odd chick flick. She regularly haggles with the editor in chief over words such as ‘rambunctious’ and ‘cathartic’. Kate has a particular love of all Disney films and a dislike of horror films.

Heather Chappell

Heather has a degree in History and French and started her career teaching English as a foreign language, having spent a year teaching in Paris. She then moved into marketing and held a series of positions in new media before joining the UK Film Council, where she worked in marketing and events for over six years. Heather developed a love of film from the moment she saw her first black and white classic. She enjoys a range of genres and is open to seeing any film with a good story.

Angie Errigo

Angie Errigo is a contributing editor of Empire magazine, writes for several newspapers and is a regular on BBC Radio 2's The Weekender, Michael Parkinson's Sunday Supplement and LBC's Paul Ross programme. Having studied film and journalism at San Francisco State University, Angie moved to London for an early career at New Musical Express and Smash Hits. She and Jo Berry wrote the book Chick Flicks and her all-time favourite films include The Battle of Algiers, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers , Seven Samurai and Notorious.

Charles Gant

Charles Gant is film editor of Heat magazine. Before that, he was deputy editor of The Face (RIP). He writes a monthly column about arthouse box-office in Sight & Sound, and contributes to publications including Pop, Arena Homme Plus and Saturday Times Magazine. He sees about 250 new releases each year, and his favourites in 2007 so far are The Lives of Others and This is England. He doesn't have a favourite film of all time, but Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line and Thomas Vinterberg's Festen are definitely up there.

Niall Heseltine

Niall has a film studies degree from Middlesex University. He previously worked for Slate films, co-producers of The Last King of Scotland and is an aspiring screenwriter. Niall likes a variety of film genres, and a few of his favourite films are The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, Fight Club, Tombstone (Yes, Tombstone!) and Transformers: The Movie (The animated original, as opposed to Transformers – released in 2007.)

Annie Joyce

Annie is freelance journalist and has spent a number of years working in publishing, film and IT.  Her favourite film list changes with the tides but The Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, Fargo, The Green Mile, The Matrix and The Last Castle are right up there.

Sophie Mitchell

Sophie, who studied English and American Literature at Manchester University (specialising in Political Film and American New Wave Cinema), is a big film fan. Having worked for a number of film festivals, she particularly enjoys seeing new talent prosper. Sophie is attracted to dynamic, visually creative films with heart-warming stories and includes Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet, Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie amongst her favourites. She’s ashamed to say that she knows very little about British Cinema but is working on it!

Jez Paxman

Jez studied history at Trinity College Dublin and spent a number of years working in Irish television before moving to London where he now works as a marketing strategist. His favourite films include Raging Bull, Chinatown and more recently Walk the Line.

Allan Regan

Whilst Allan studied design at university, he spent much of his spare time watching films. He is an unashamed owner of every single Schwarzenegger film (minus Junior and Jingle All The Way for obvious reasons) and is a self confessed Star Wars nerd. Having shot and edited several of his own short films, he is a big fan of innovative cinema and counts Fincher and Aronofsky as two of his favourite directors. His main belief is that in cinema there is always one exception to every rule. For example, Bruckheimer + Bay = awesome film (except Pearl Harbour), James Cameron + a budget = awesome film (except Titanic).

Andrew Wallace

Andrew began his love affair with film at the Filmhouse Theatre in Edinburgh, consummating it during the Film Festival with an unforgettable evening with Ellen Barkin. An occasional reviewer of films, books and music, Andrew lives near London and is currently working on his second novel.

Penny Watson

Penny first fell in love with independent film at The Angelika in New York – where a programme of specialised film was mixed with blockbusters. Having taken dance classes and music lessons for years, Penny had a love for the theatre which led her to do a Performing Arts degree at Middlesex University. From there she moved into publishing in New York before returning home to London to work in experiential marketing, exhibitions, events and design. Penny still dances, sings and plays the piano. She also goes to see as many films as time allows.