‘Athena’ Producer Iconoclast Powers Subsequent Projets by Leo Berne, Elias Belkeddar, Stated Belktibia

Iconoclast, the worldwide manufacturing group behind Romain Gavras’ Venice competitors movie “Athena,” is setting a wide-ranging slate of tasks with rising filmmakers from completely different audiovisual fields, together with Leo Berne from the artists collective Megaforce, and Elias Belkeddar and Stated Belktibia from the collective Kourtrajmé. The corporate can also be producing the following tasks of Concord Korine and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, amongst others.

In a uncommon interview, Nicolas Lhermitte, who co-founded Iconoclast with Mourad Belkeddar, says the corporate has emerged from the pandemic with a report variety of developed tasks. “We took the chance through the pandemic to develop quite a lot of tasks, and in the present day we have now round 30 tasks within the pipeline, spanning movies and collection which are arrange at our studios in France, the U.S. and Germany,” says Lhermitte, who provides that Iconoclast aspired to “accompany multi-disciplinary artists to enterprise from one area to a different, movies, TV collection, branded content material, and music movies.”

The corporate is on the brink of shoot “Rokya,” the characteristic debut of Belktibia, a narrative of witches set in a Parisian suburb, starring Golshifteh Farahani (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Lifeless Males Inform No Tales”) and co-written with Elias Belkeddar and Louis Penicaut (“The Bureau”). Belktibia beforehand directed the brief “Ghettotube,” which performed at Tribeca. The Jokers will distribute “Rokya” in France.

Iconoclast can also be creating “I’m a Monster,” the characteristic debut of Berne, who beforehand directed the critically acclaimed genre-bending brief “The Censor of Desires” (co-directed with Raphael Rodriguez), which was short-listed at this 12 months’s Oscars. Like Gavras, Berne has a observe report in music movies by means of the collective Megaforce.

Berne’s characteristic debut can be a style movie geared toward Gen Z audiences involving an orphan woman combating a monster to guard her sibling. Lhermitte says the movie may even speak about in the present day’s society and can probably be shot in English. “The borders between Europe and the U.S. have opened up, and we see that People are the primary to contact us once they spot one among our skills, that was the case with Leo Berne,” he says.

Iconoclast is well-established within the U.S., the place it beforehand delivered the newest movies by Gus Van Sant (“Don’t Fear, He Gained’t Get Far on Foot”), Julian Schnabel (“At Eternity’s Gate”) and Korine (“The Seashore Bum”). Lhermitte says the corporate was working with Korine on his subsequent challenge.

Iconoclast can also be producing “Omar La Fraise,” the characteristic debut of Elias Belkeddar, whose “Un Jour de mariage” gained greatest brief at Cannes. Co-written by Elias Belkeddar, Thomas Bidegain (“A Prophet”) and Jerome Pierrat (“The Final Panther”), “Omar La Fraise” is headlined by Benoit Magimel and Reda Kateb, who performs a retired gangster who has been laying low for 20 years in Algeria. The movie has been already boarded by Studiocanal, which is dealing with worldwide gross sales, in addition to French broadcaster France Televisions.

Lhermitte says the involvement of Netflix in “Athena,” which marks Gavras’ most bold movie up to now and the streamer’s first French movie competing in Venice, displays the shifting industrial fashions.

“‘Athena’ is a movie that might have taken us a really very long time to finance,” says Lhermitte. “As we’re seeing in Venice with a number of movies by administrators like Gavras, Noah Baumbach and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, platforms have gotten like movie studios, and dealing intently with administrators who’ve a robust imaginative and prescient, giving them the likelihood to entry audiences world wide at a time when the theatrical distribution panorama is changing into an increasing number of polarized.”

Iconoclast has additionally been increasing its worldwide presence by means of its three way partnership with Berlin-based StickUp Movies to type Iconoclast Movies Germany. The brand new banner, represented by CAA, is creating and producing a number of characteristic movies and collection.