For Film

Bert's journey in the movie industry goes way back to when he worked in a cinema, seeing great movies such as Stop Making Sense. From there he went on to work on a lot of different productions before founding his own company, Caviar. Starting out with advertisement, the company quickly expanded into features. Since then, his credits include movies such as The Diary of a Teenage Girl, The Rider and most recently the wonderful Sound of Metal.

Listen to Bert talk about his way from selling cinema tickets to producing international movies, the coincidences and funny stories that led him to these films and the joy of late night Cannes negotiations. 

Growing up in Dublin, one of Ed’s closest friends was Lenny Abrahamson, with whom he started making films early on. When Ed founded his company Element Pictures later on with Andrew Lowe, the two continued collaborating together. After making some waves with films such as Frank or Garage, the company’s big international year was 2015 with both Room and The Lobster. They went on to produce more unique films such as Disobedience and The Favourite.

Most recently, Ed and Lenny collaborated again on the wonderful series Normal People. Listen to Ed talk about his way from Filmmaking Society at Trinity to the Oscars, the Irish Film Community and why he was hoping to not like Normal People when first reading it - but thank god he did.

Alexa Karolinski ist the co-creator and writer of the great Netflix miniseries Unorthodox.                         

The series focusses on 19 year old Esty, who slips away from her Orthodox community in Williamsburg. As Esty arrives in Berlin, she begins to explore the uncertain prospects of a new life and pursues an audition at the Berlin Music Conservatory.

Unorthodox is loosely based on Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. It is also is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish.

Listen to Alexa talk about her way as a filmmaker, adapting the story of Deborah Feldman for the screen and getting all the details right. She also tells me why the reactions to Unorthodox make her feel positive about the world - something we can all need right now.

Naima started her way in the film industry in sales before following her passion for producing. She joined Emilie Georges at Memento and her breakthrough project was nothing else than Call me by your name. A project that had been long time in development, Emilie and Naima felt that they had to give it a go with Luca Guadagnino attached to direct. Still, production was tricky with a short time window and struggle to find public money. Listen to Naima talk about the whole experience CMBYN, producing movies that matter today and about that feeling of pure joy when you first screen a movie and every single one on the team suddenly loves each other. 

After watching the series Edge of Darkness when he was 13, Chris knew he wanted to work in TV. He started out at the BBC and worked his way up to becoming Head of Drama, working on shows such as MI5. He then joined Two Brothers Pictures, where he produced series such as Cheat, The Widow or Back to Life. Two Brothers Pictures has been in the spotlight recently for producing Fleabag, a series which Chris followed closely from the inside. Listen to him talk about becoming a producer and adapting to the changes in the television landscape, what makes a good script and what it was like to watch Phoebe Waller- Bridge in action.

Founded in 2004, Umedia has become one of the most important financing and producing partners for international productions in Belgium, making use of the tax shelter system. Their level of implication varies between helping with financing such as for the genre hit Revenge or acting as an active producing partner on films such as Mandy with Nicolas Cage. As COO, Bastien is a part of selecting these projects and working on them. Listen to him talk about the variety of projects Umedia is a part of, coproductions with the US and what special gear a producer absolutely needs when working on the set of Mandy.

After 10 years of producing solid arthouse movies, Jonas and Max found themselves in a so called producers midlife crisis: They were established producers, but knew that their outreach in terms of audience was limited. Through some coincidences, they started pitching the first feature by Patrick Vollrath 7500 all around Hollywood and ended up with Film Nation and Endeavor as partners. Since then, they focus on coproductions with the US and have movies such as Stowaway with Anna Kendrick and Toni Colette coming up. Listen to them talk about about their way from getting their first projects made to surviving the producers midlife crisis, their first glimpse at Hollywood (involving encounters with two Oscar throphies in one trip) and how they were being seen as two crazy German guys on their first trip to the US.

Dennis started out as a film critic, writing for newspapers such as The New York Times and Artforum, before turning to programming.  Since 2013 he’s the director of programming at Film Society of Lincoln Center and on the selection committee of the upcoming New York Film Festival. Listen to Dennis talk about the identity of the Festival and the programming process, the independent cinema scene in New York and our shared passion for John Cassavetes. 

Jennifer discovered the work of a sales agent during an internship at Europa Corp and immediately loved it. After handling sales for A+E Networks and Protagonist she landed her ultimate dream job at Lionsgate. What always drew her to Lionsgate was their ability to be in a space between arthouse and superhero movies – prestige movies with a commercial aspect as she describes it. Listen to her way from intern preparing in panic a festival bible to her position now, the DNA of Lionsgate and the phenomenon John Wick 3. You'll also learn what her favorite sales territory is - but don't tell anyone. 

Since a young age, the Curzon logo always got Cate excited and made her discover arthouse cinema. After her first experiences at the BBC and agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, she got the chance to work for her dream label in acquisitions. Since then, she’s made some great picks, always keeping an eye on the balance between British and foreign language films. Listen to her talk about her way from a break-up to Curzon, the process of buying movies such as Gloria Bell or The Souvenir and that special adrenaline rush when hearing the words "We got a deal".