The Board
Elizabeth Karlsen
Chair
Elizabeth Karlsen co-founded Number 9 Films with Stephen Woolley in 2002 after a long collaboration under the Palace Pictures and Scala Productions banners where she co-produced Neil Jordan's The Crying Game, nominated for six Academy Awards, and Mark Herman's Little Voice, which was nominated for six Golden Globe Awards, an Academy Award and six BAFTAs, including Best Picture.
At Number 9, her credits include Ladies In Lavender and Mrs. Harris, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005 and was nominated for a total of 12 Emmy, 3 Golden Globe Awards, 3 Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Producer's Guild of America Award. She was also the recipient of the Women's Image Network Award.
She and Stephen went on to produce Anand Tucker's And When Did You Last See Your Father?, which was selected by Edinburgh, Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals and nominated for 7 British Independent Film Awards; and the critically acclaimed, award-winning feature documentary Sounds Like Teen Spirit. Recent productions include Perrier's Bounty set for release in March 2010, following its Toronto International Film Festival world premiere. Currently in post-production is Made in Dagenham, a social comedy set during the 1968 Ford machinists strike, set to be released in the UK by Paramount Pictures International in September 2010.
Forthcoming Number 9 productions include: an adaptation of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations; Dusty: Goddess of the Sixties, a decade in the life of British soul singer Dusty Springfield, an adaptation of Taichi Yamada's ghost novella Strangers; and The Lonely Doll.
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Lizzie Broadbent
Lizzie Broadbent brings international business experience from her work in investment management, business consultancy and marketing. She has particular experience in the areas of strategy development, operating model design, performance evaluation and operational effectiveness. She currently works for Shell, with global responsibility for Marketing Operations in Lubricants. She has always been an avid film-goer, reads widely about film and is a useful addition to any pub quiz team.
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Caroline Cooper Charles
Caroline is currently Head of Creative Development at Warp X where she has been responsible for a diverse slate of low-budget feature films including the cat-and-mouse thriller Hush, kaleidoscopic music documentary All Tomorrow's Parties and inventive road-trip comedy Bunny and the Bull. As Executive Producer Caroline's credits include Xiaolu Guo's forthcoming release She, A Chinese, winner of the Golden Leopard for best film at Locarno Film Festival 2009 and Andrea Arnold's Oscar winning Wasp. Alongside her work for Warp, Caroline's production company Lifesize Pictures manages the UK Film Council's nationwide short film programme including Digital Shorts, Cinema Extreme, Digital Nation, the short film Completion Fund and the Virgin Media Shorts competition. As well as being on the board of Birds Eye View since 2007 Caroline brings to the organisation her previous experience as director of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.
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Geraldine Kelly
After a short stint in New York, Geraldine has spent the rest of her professional career in London working first for a U.S. investment bank and more recently for a major European financial institution in various positions. She is currently a Managing Director focussing on Credit Risk Management at ING Bank N.V. She has a keen interest in the arts including film, theatre and music, and joined the Board in 2008.
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Polly Leys
Polly Leys runs independent drama production company Hillbilly Films and Television with Kate Norris, which has an overhead and development deal with talkbackTHAMES and Fremantle Media Enterprises. In 2006 Polly and Kate produced the Coming Up strand of 8x30' films for Channel 4. Focussing on new writers and directors, the films included work by Kate Hardie, Amanda Boyle and Debbie Tucker Greena nd received excellent reviews. Hillbilly is now in development on projects with Simon Beaufoy, Rachel Bennette, Aschlin Ditta and David Greig. Most recently they produced Debbie Tucker Green's directorial debut Heat which premiered at the 2009 London Film Festival. Polly's previous credits include co-producer of The Full Monty, The Closer You Get and The Emperor's New Clothes (all for Redwave Films); assistant producer on Palookaville (Redwave Films) and The Crying Game (Palace Pictures). As well as being on the board of the Birds Eye View Film Festival, Polly is also a member of BAFTA and has previously served as vice chair of Women in Film and Television.