Eva Green, winner of this year’s Orange Rising Star Award, joined her fellow jurors today to cast their final votes for the nominees of next year’s award. It is the only award to be voted for by the public at The Orange British Academy Film Awards in 2008; and votes can be made online at www.orange.co.uk/bafta from 8th January, when the five nominees will be announced.

Potential Rising Stars are proposed by BAFTA members and the distributors to create a long list of names which is reduced to five nominees by a panel consisting of actors, directors, producers, media representatives and BAFTA Film Committee members. Today, the final five nominees were decided by secret ballot so both the jury and the public will have to wait until an official announcement is made on the 8th of January before voting can begin.

This year’s Orange Rising Star Jury members are Eva Green (Actress), Duncan Kenworthy (Jury Chair and BAFTA), Alex Zane (XFM ), Jenny Borgars (Producer), Dan Storey (MTV), John Madden (Director), Jina Jay (Casting Director), Shamraiz Younis (Producer), Finola Dwyer (Producer and Chair of the BAFTA film committee), Nik Powell, (Director of the NFT), Ian Nathan (Empire), David Edwards (Daily Mirror), Alex O’Connell (The Times) and Charles Gant (Film Journalist).

The Award recognises actors who have recently broken into mainstream cinema with eye catching performances in at least one feature length film during the award year (1 January –
31 December 2007). The Award is not intended as a true ‘beginner’s award’ and nominees will usually have already appeared in several films, nor is it intended to be for child actors. In exceptional circumstances, a star-making debut will be considered. Nominees will usually be aged between 18 and 32. This is the third year of The Orange Rising Star Award, with James McAvoy receiving the award in its inaugural year followed by Eva Green in 2007.

The Orange Rising Star Award was created in honour of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning casting director whose career spanned three decades and over ninety films before she died in 2004. Mary helped launch the careers of many stars in films as varied as Gosford Park, Master & Commander, Notting Hill and Withnail & I, among countless others. She worked with notable directors such as Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Clint Eastwood and Ridley Scott, contributing to the creation of some of the silver screen's most memorable characters.

About BAFTA
The Academy exists to support, develop and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the viewing public.

About Orange
Orange is a key brand of the France Telecom Group, providing mobile, broadband, fixed, business and entertainment services across Europe. It is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with more than 163 million customers on five continents.

In June, 2006, Orange became the single brand for mobile, broadband and multi-play offers. In addition, Orange Business Services became the new banner for business communications solutions. Orange Business Services is present in 166 countries with network reach in 220.

In the UK, Orange provides high quality GSM coverage to 99% of the UK population. At the end of June 30 2007, Orange had over 16.7 million customers in the UK - 15.2 million active mobile customers and over 1.6 million Internet customers.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Personal Communications Services Limited.

Further information about Orange and France Telecom can be found on the Orange website at www.orange.co.uk or the France Telecom website at www.francetelecom.com