ROCK MONKEY PRODUCTIONS

A Film Company of Gibraltar, U.K.

director’s cut

Based in Gibraltar, United Kingdom, Rock Monkey Productions was established to develop, produce and financially exploit independent entertainment with diverse casts and unique stories rarely told in traditional Hollywood films. Our fare will be marketed to established streaming companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBOMax, as well as the multitude of emerging streamers who are hungry for quality content.

Rock Monkey’s stories will traverse the world of dramatic arthouse, as well as the
realms of sci-fi, horror, fantasy and dark comedy. These stories will be told by artists and filmmakers with diverse voices.

Our projects will include feature films, TV and emerging digital publishing (books and graphic novels).

Owner/ Partner

Fay Lawrence Grant

Biography

Born in Paignton, a seaside town on the coast of Torbay in Devon, England, Fay fell in love with ballet and dance at an early age. As a child, she entered and won numerous dance competitions. This led to a successful career as a professional dancer, actress and Lady Godiva model. Fay had roles in BBC and ITV productions. Later, her artistic expression turned to painting and photography. Fay has photographed the exotic sights of Malaysia, Thailand, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and the Caribbean.

Moving to America, Fay owned a British style pub and restaurant in Sarasota, Florida. Her restaurant was voted number one in the Herald Tribune and was a financial success. Returning to Europe, Fay opened “Picasso’s Urban Tapas Bar & Restaurant” in Estepona, Spain. Named after the famous artist, the restaurant displayed many of Fay’s paintings. “Picasso’s” became a favorite of locals and the expat community.

Ready for a new adventure, Fay executive produced first a short film, then two independent films before fully producing the film “Dark Light,” which is her second film in competition at the 2021 Marbella Film Festival. Fay Lawrence-Grant is currently an executive producer on Rock Monkey’s premier project, “Pretty Dark Horses,” a short film based on the feature length screenplay of the same name; which will be submitted to major film festivals.

Owner/ Partner

Sandie Lenton Forrest

Biography

Sandie was born in Shakespeare’s county, Warwickshire in the centre of England, geographically as far from the sea as possible and that could be one reason that the sea became so important to her as soon as she was able to plan her own life. She
attended a boarding school from the age of 9 where drama became her safety net from the rigors of the strict regime. She fully intended to become a stage director, but that was in the days where women were streamlined into being secretaries, nurses or teachers, and her best laid plans went astray along with many others.

Secretarial temping in London in the ‘70s gave Sandie an insight into various businesses, but her travel bug and imagination got the better of her and she spent a couple of years as an airline stewardess before returning to college as a mature student to gain her BA in Interior Design. The ‘80s saw Sandie owning her own Real Estate Agency in Central London where she met her future husband and together they formed and ran a successful property development company until a financial crash in 1989 persuaded them to move to Spain.

For ten years Sandie and her husband Tony, ran a small Estate Agency with branches inland and on the coast and which combined introducing Rural Tourism into Spain in partnership with a leading UK Tour Agency. Sadly in 1999 they had to return to the UK for Tony’s impending lung surgery and even more sadly he died in January 2000 leaving his widow bereft. Two years later she partnered up with an American and together they moved to the Philippines where they formed and ran a company which manufactured the heavy equipment to treat toxic and hazardous waste, alongside a treatment facility. In 2007 they moved to Penang, Malaysia and Sandie became involved with the International Women’s Association where she took various roles, culminating in the Chair. Sandie then formed the one and only Asian branch of The Arts Society, holding the position of Chair till she decided to relocate back to Europe in early 2020.

Sandie is now resident in Gibraltar, still travels whenever life and budget permits; is involved again with a Spanish branch of The Arts Society and still looks for  interesting projects. It is ironic that after six decades she has turned back to Drama for her inspiration. With such a varied career it could be said that Sandie is ‘Jill of all Trades and Mistress of None’, or it could be said that she is an experienced entrepreneur with many years of vast knowledge in many fields. Either way it is true that she brings all her many attributes to Rock Monkey Productions.

Owner/ Partner

Carlton Holder

Biography

After college, where Carlton was a literary major and competitive gymnast, Carlton became a Hollywood movie stuntman in Los Angeles, where he doubled Arsenio Hall, Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, David Chappelle and performed fight scenes with Eddie Murphy, Jean-Claude Van Damme and many more. He later segued into stunt coordinating and second unit directing. Carlton began reading scripts on the movie sets he worked on and decided to start writing.

Carlton’s first script “Bridge Of Dragons” sold to Millennium Films and became an HBO World Premiere movie starring Dolph Lundgren (“Rocky IV”, “Expendables”). The first TV pilot he wrote, “The Underworld”, was picked up by Tribune Entertainment who ordered a pilot presentation starring Talisa Soto (“License To Kill”). Carlton coproduced and co-directed the presentation. Later, he wrote the crime action film “El Padrino”, starring Jennifer Tilly and Faye Dunaway.

Carlton has also written for Saban Entertainment, as well as serving as creative consultant on a children’s series that was in development there. Carlton directed the Proof of Concept for his TV series “Teenage Wasteland”, which was in development with producer Benedict Carver at EOne and later producer Arnold Rifkin at Cheyenne Enterprises. He also second unit directed the film “Bravo” for Carlos Gallardo (Producer of “El Mariachi” and “Once Upon A Time in Mexico”). In addition, Carlton second unit directed 50 episodes of the Pay-Per-View series “Fight Zone” for producer Brad Fuller, co-owner of Platinum Dunes with Michael Bay.

Carlton’s latest scripts include a feature film reboot of the public domain “Fu Manchu” franchise re-imagining the good doctor as an anti-hero, the TV pilot “Mindbender”, about an African American Cold War spy at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement and “Pretty Dark Horses”, a drama about the relationship between a gymnastics coach and his child-athlete in a culture of abuse; which Carlton plans to direct.

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