Derek Power is an Anglo American talent manager and film producer largely specializing in representing European and American film artists: actors, directors, composers and casting directors.
Casting Director Nancy Bishop CSA lives and works in London and Prague. She has created an extremely active international casting career on such films as ‘Ophelia’ starring Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley, which has launched recently in July 2019 via IFC Films, while Matthew Weiner’s ‘The House of Special Purpose’ was a part of his Amazon ‘Romanoffs’ series, and the Netflix upcoming 2020 release of ‘The Liberator’ Executive produced by Jeb Stuart are other recent assignments. Earlier features cast by her have included ‘November Man’ with Pierce Brosnan, ‘The Last Knights’ with Clive Owen, as well as Brad Bird’s ‘Mission Impossible IV’, ‘The Bourne Identity’ and ‘Wanted’ to name some of more than sixty other films and TV shows on which she has worked. She founded the Acting Department at the Prague Film School and in addition to her casting activity, conducts a busy round of acting workshops all over the world.
Executive Producer Power was responsible for bringing Dennis Hopper’s cult noir ‘The Hot Spot’ to the screen starring Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connolly together with a moody score by Jack Nitzsche performed by John Lee Hooker and Miles Davis. Derek also produced Tobe Hooper’s ‘The Funhouse’ for Universal Pictures, and Executive Produced Anthony Perkins’ Lucky Stiff for New Line Cinema. Power collaborated closely with Peter Weir on two early films and was responsible for the US and Canadian sale of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ and the financing and sale of Power’s Production of Weir’s ‘The Last Wave’. As a talent manager Power cast Sting in his first starring role as an actor in the MGM film ‘Brimstone & Treacle’ which experience subsequently led him into a thirty year relationship with the rock band The Police. Their 2007-8 Reunion tour was an enormous $370,000,000.00 worldwide success.
By guiding Sir Ben Kingsley into a series of films that included ‘Anne Frank’, ‘Sexy Beast’, and ‘The House Of Sand And Fog’, Kingsley was able to earn multiple Award nominations, including those for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the Oscars©.
Bishop introduced Actor-Director Jiri Madl to Derek Power, and Madl is enjoying a warm response to his charming feature film debut ‘To See The Sea’ which he both wrote and directed. Madl has since written and directed his second film ‘On the Roof (‘Na Strese’) to be released in September 2019. Armed with notable successes as a star performer in his native Czech Republic, the multilingual artist is preparing a third film as writer-director: ‘Very Short Wave’, while juggling Festival appearances from Korea to Montreal, and from Los Angeles to Moscow.
Swiss Writer/Director/VFX Producer Claudio Faeh’s next film will be ‘Acolyte’ written by ‘John Wick’s’ Derek Kolstad. Besides ‘Sniper: Reloaded’ Executive Produced by Power, previous films directed by Faeh include Faeh’s ensemble action epic ‘Northmen, A Viking Saga’, ‘Hollow Man 2’ for Screen Gems, with Christian Slater as The Hollow Man. Faeh also Produced Joe Dante’s Venice Film Festival Award winner ‘The Hole 3D’ for Disney, and he Executive Produced ‘Starship Troopers: Marauder’ for Sony Stage 6. Faeh is in active development on several new films, including his passion project ‘Acolyte’.
Director Robert Dornhelm has enjoyed an extraordinarily varied career both as a feature film maker, including the lush theatrical version of Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’, Oscar Foreign Film selection ‘Requiem For Dominic’ and ‘Echo Park’ –while as a documentarian ‘The Children Of Theatre Street’, ‘She Dances Alone’ are celebrated verité films. He received a nomination for the Emmy winning mini-series ‘Anne Frank’. He just wrapped the sequel to his miniseries ‘Maria Theresa’, filmed in his hometown of Vienna. Other of his films that have filmed in Austria include the tragic story of ‘The Crown Prince Rudolf’ and his re-creation of Tolstoy’s eight-hour ‘War And Peace’. followed that. The recent ‘K2’, and ‘Out Of Control: Udo Proksch’ were also filmed in Vienna, while ‘The Amanda Knox Story’ shot in Rome and Perugia.
Power is Executive Producer of Stewart Copeland’s 2014 edit and restoration of ‘Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ’, the landmark 1925 black and white silent film starring Ramon Novarro, directed by Fred Niblo, and produced by Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg and Florenz Ziegfeld. This version is a live symphonic performance of the score composed and performed with Drums and Percussion by Copeland.
Power’s film-music composer clients include J. Peter Robinson who has scored many of Roger Donaldson’s films including ‘The Bank Job’, ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’, and ‘Cadillac Man’. Power is of counsel to legendary British minimalist composer Michael Nyman, whose score for James Marsh’s ‘Man On Wire’ helped earn that film’s Academy Award in 2009. Nyman’s haunting score for Jane Campion’s Cannes Golden Palme winning ‘The Piano’ has sold more than 4,000,000 copies worldwide. Peter Golub enjoys a successful Broadway career as well as being the composer of powerful scores for films like ‘Frozen River’, ‘Countdown to Zero’, ‘Wordplay’, and ‘The Laramie Project’ and is Director of the Composer’s Lab at the Sundance Institute.
A member of BAFTA, the European Film Academy and is an artist and publisher member of both ASCAP, and BMI. Power travels regularly to Europe and points further East.
Credits:
411: A Film by Oliver Power starring F Murray Abraham- Executive Producer 2015
Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ, Stewart Copeland Orchestral Version- Executive Producer – 2014
Sniper: Reloaded- Executive Producer – 2011
Bhutto (documentary) – Executive Music Producer – 2010
Mercy – Executive Music Producer – 2009
Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out (documentary) – Executive Producer – 2006 Morgan’s Ferry – Executive Music Producer – 2001
Captain America – Soundtrack (writer: “Written in the Wind”) (producer: “Written in the Wind”) – 1990
The Hot Spot – Executive Producer – 1990
Class of 1999 – Music Supervisor – 1990
Short Time – Music Supervisor – 1990
Lionheart – Music Supervisor – 1990
Cat Chaser – Music Supervisor – 1989
Lucky Stiff – Executive Producer – 1988
The Night Before – Music Supervisor – 1988
Youngblood – Music Supervisor – 1986
Highlander – Music Supervisor – 1986
Head Office – Music Supervisor – 1986
The Police: Synchronicity Concert (video documentary) – Executive Producer – 1984
Brimstone & Treacle – Original Casting – 1982
The Funhouse – Producer – 1981
Running Scared – Executive Producer – 1980
The Dark – Executive Producer – 1979