Ilya Stewart Launches Europe-Based mostly Manufacturing Outfit Hype Studios

Producer Ilya Stewart has launched an unbiased studio based mostly in Europe that may function on a world scale, working with worldwide expertise and specializing in English-language function movies and tv collection, Selection can solely reveal.

Hype Studios is the brand new enterprise from Stewart, the previously Moscow-based producer who in recent times has been a fixture on the Cannes Movie Competition, the place his collaborations with Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov, together with “Petrov’s Flu” and “Tchaikovsky’s Wife,” have premiered in competitors.

Among the many co-productions with American and European companions presently on Hype Studios’ slate is Zach Wigon’s “Sanctuary,” starring Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott, which premieres as a Particular Presentation subsequent month on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition and was produced with Rumble Movies and Mosaic Movies, together with Charades. Additionally on the slate is Pietro Marcello’s French-language “Scarlet,” produced in partnership with CG Cinéma’s Charles Gillibert, which opened this yr’s Administrators’ Fortnight in Cannes and can obtain its North American premiere on the New York Movie Competition.

With Hype Studios, Stewart will construct on his longstanding partnership with Serebrennikov to develop movie and tv initiatives for international audiences from a brand new artistic hub in Berlin. As a part of his evolution and ongoing enlargement into worldwide productions since co-founding Hype Movie in 2016, Stewart will proceed to deal with expertise relationships to nurture a roster of worldwide administrators, with plans to increase into expertise administration.

Present productions embrace two movies from Serebrennikov. “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie,” an English-language function produced with Wildside and Chapter 2 and co-produced by Pathé, is customized from Emmanuel Carrère’s novel and stars Ben Whishaw as the unconventional Russian poet and dissident Eduard Limonov. One other venture in partnership with CG Cinéma, “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” is being tailored by Serebrennikov from Olivier Guez’s best-selling and Renaudot Prize-winning novel.

Different upcoming English-language initiatives embrace writer-director Malgorzata Szumowska’s “The Gambler Wife,” an adaptation by the two-time Berlinale prize winner of Andrew D. Kaufman’s e-book about Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s spouse Anna Snitkina. Additionally, two authentic English-language initiatives are in growth with director Philip Yuryev (“The Whaler Boy”), and an authentic style venture with Egor Abramenko, whose sci-fi horror “Sputnik” is getting an English-language remake from Matt Reeves’ sixth & Idaho Productions and Village Roadshow, with Stewart producing and Abramenko serving as govt producer. Hype Studios will probably be unveiling a slate of tv initiatives at a later date.

The primary addition to the corporate’s workforce is producer Aleksandr Fomin. With a background in worldwide gross sales and co-productions at Bac Movies, Pulsar Content material and Logical Photos, Fomin will deal with operations from Paris.

Stewart has produced a number of unbiased movies which have launched at Cannes and different main worldwide movie festivals. His first collaboration with Serebrennikov, “The Student,” premiered in Cannes’ Un Sure Regard sidebar in 2016. That was adopted by “Leto” (2018), “Petrov’s Flu” (2021) and “Tchaikovsky’s Spouse” (2022), all of which bowed within the pageant’s official competitors.

Stewart served as govt producer on Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come,” starring Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston and Casey Affleck, which premiered on the Venice Movie Competition in 2020. He additionally produced Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker Vadim Perelman’s German-language Holocaust drama “Persian Lessons,” starring Nahuel Perez Biscayart and Lars Eidinger, which premiered in Berlin in 2020, and Abramenko’s “Sputnik,” which bowed on the Tribeca Movie Competition in 2020.