Fremantle COO Andrea Scrosati on Their Six Films at Venice

Final yr Andrea Scrosati – who’s group COO and continental Europe CEO of Fremantle – was at Venice with two movies. This yr Fremantle’s acquired six pics launching from the Lido, three of them in competitors, which is a bigger contingent than any of the U.S. studios or streamers. 

Fremantle’s enterprise mannequin, which entails a cluster of firms largely throughout Europe that they both totally personal or are majority buyers in, has been bearing fruit on their movie facet. Their output has grown “from 8 to 32 delivered motion pictures in two years,” Scrosati says. 

And the multi-pronged firm’s Venice lineup – which incorporates Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” Emanuele Crialese’s “L’Immensità,” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Everlasting Daughter” – is a mirrored image of that.

Scrosati spoke to Selection in Venice about his imaginative and prescient for the way Fremantle is spawning a variety of movies from its natural agglomeration of firms.

So what’s the Fremantle mannequin?

It’s a mannequin the place we purchase or we spend money on impartial labels. Our job is to make them stronger and larger. I feel the number of firms that we personal and have invested in, by way of geography and by way of cultural focus is fairly distinctive. And there are occasions when all of this comes collectively in an attention-grabbing approach. Venice is one among these.

We now have six motion pictures screening right here. What’s attention-grabbing is the variety, as a result of it exhibits loads. “Bones and All” is an Italian manufacturing with an Italian director. Nevertheless it’s an English-language film with a global solid [Timothée Chalamet]. It’s a style film, but in addition YA. With “L’Immensità” you will have an Italian director making a film in Italian with a worldwide star [Penelope Cruz]. A really private, very intimate story.  With “The Everlasting Daughter” [in which Tilda Swinton plays two roles] it’s a totally totally different method, clearly coming from Ingredient Photos [the Dublin-based shingle co-headed by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe].

Then you will have Paolo Virzì’s “Siccità,” a worldwide story, but in addition a really Italian film. And moreover you will have the 2 movies we’ve got at Horizons, “Amanda” and “Notte Fantasma,” that are in partnership with one other producer. They present the method we’ve got in investing in new expertise and likewise supporting new producers.

So it’s decentralized. Is that the technique?

Sure. What’s occurring at present [in Venice] is the results of this technique. It’s occurring sooner than we anticipated. I feel the explanation for that is our mannequin. If we have been making use of the historic U.S. studio mannequin, in the end all centralized, with one individual green-lighting, we couldn’t have gone from 8 to 32 delivered motion pictures in two years.

Do the varied firms inside Fremantle speak to one another?

What was fascinating yesterday on the premiere of “L’Immensità” is that we after all had the movie’s producers, Mario Gianani and Lorenzo Gangarossa of Wildside. However we additionally had Lorenzo Mieli [head of The Apartment], Luca Bernabei [head of Lux Vide], and the group from Ingredient. In the present day we’re having a lunch with all of the writers from all of the groups, together with from Ingredient, who shall be exchanging concepts. 

On the one hand this mannequin accelerates [production] as a result of there may be a whole lot of inventive trade, however there may be additionally a whole lot of trade by way of infrastructure. However, as a result of there may be inventive independence and entrepreneurship, it’s very a lot about giving the chance to those labels to be entrepreneurial. That’s the reason behind the acceleration and Venice is a concrete demonstration of this.

The important thing factor for us are our producers. That’s the mannequin. And I do suppose we’ve got an authentic mannequin. The quantity of centralized infrastructure we give them may be very excessive. We share the expertise offers. We share the enterprise intelligence. On the infrastructure facet Olivia Slater, who was the pinnacle of manufacturing for Wildside, is now our world head of manufacturing. She was in Riga two days in the past as a result of we’re capturing [Kirill Serebrennikov’s] “Limonov” there. However we want to use that set for one thing else. Since she’s throughout all of the slate meaning you possibly can join the dots.

Fremantle remains to be largely identified for “X Issue” and “Idol” and it’s been lively within the scripted TV house. Why are you ramping up the function movie facet?

There’s a larger demand. Theoretically this might look like counterintuitive as a result of the field workplace is struggling. However there may be clearly a lot larger demand as a consequence of the truth that at present motion pictures are consumed in so many various methods. There may be extra request as a result of you will have many extra gamers. However then that truly interprets to the truth that you will have extra audiences asking for motion pictures, as a result of they’re consuming extra motion pictures at residence. The massive change occurred when through the pandemic streamer viewing switched to the TV set. When households began watching Netflix, Apple, Amazon and Disney on the TVs at residence. Films are for collective viewing. And in the end what occurs with a number of episode dramas is in lots of circumstances whenever you get to episode three or 4, the collective side begins to peter out and other people begin watching the remainder alone. That doesn’t occur with a film. This has generated very attention-grabbing knowledge for streamers.