Global Flicks: Women In Film Launches India Chapter, Granting Vast Opportunities To Indian Women
Logical Picutures
Africa: Logical Pictures is launching a new African venture that will see the production, financing, and distribution of African content, thus expanding its global footprint into the fast-growing entertainment industry. According to the group’s head, Frédéric Fiore, the move will help position Logical Pictures as the preferred financing partner and the leading production company on the continent. Launched in 2016, the Logical Pictures Group has become a leading player in film and TV equity, producing, financing, and distributing a range of content in France and internationally through key investments in film banners such as Pulsar Content and the Jokers Films. The group has 11 films at this year’s Cannes Festival. Central to the group’s Africa strategy is the creation of a new financing vehicle named the Logical African Stories fund. The fund will invest in content, production and distribution companies, and physical facilities, as well as packaging and fundraising for third-party projects. Logical Pictures Africa will focus on six key territories on the continent. In French-speaking markets, they include Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Benin. Investments in English-speaking territories will center on Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. A slate of 18 films and TV series is already in different stages of development and production, including Let the Earth Burn, a crime drama set in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains from Sundance prize winner Sofia Alaoui and The Bridge creator Måns Mårlind.
Gravitas Ventures has picked up the documentary Stylebender for North America. Stylebender will tell the story of UFC former world champion Israel Adesanya, focusing on his origins, family upbringing, and his struggles as a shy, Nigerian kid growing up in rural New Zealand in the 2000s. We see Adesanya working with his trainer and mentor, Eugene Bareman, as well as his therapist, as he discusses issues of masculinity, bullying, and mental health. Zoë McIntosh followed Adesanya, known in the ring as “the last stylebender,” for five years making the non-fiction feature. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.
Shooting is underway on Son of the Soil, a thriller from Action Xtreme out of Nigeria. The film was drawn up by Action Xtreme CEO Chee Keong Cheung, who directs and produces. The film follows former Nigerian soldier Zion Ladejo, who is tortured by his past and must return to Nigeria following the untimely death of his sister. Determined to find those responsible, he embarks on a “campaign of vengeance.” The film is currently being shot in Lagos, Nigeria. British-Nigerian actor Raz Adoti has written the script, takes on the lead role, and is producing. He is known for roles in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated Amistad, the action-horror Doom, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and many more. He will next be seen in sci-fi action horror The Experiment, which is also from Action Xtreme and is directed by Cheung. Further casting includes Africa Movie Academy Award Best Actress nominee Iretiola Doyle (Fifty, Arbitration), Sunshine Rosman (Flawsome, Finding Messiah), and Philip Asaya (Cake, Slum King).
Dimpy agrawal
Asia: Women In Film (WIF), Los Angeles, is launching an India chapter. The news came at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16. Guneet Monga Kapoor, Oscar-winning producer of The Elephant Whisperers, will lead WIF: India. The initiative, part of the global WIFTI (Women In Film & Television International) network, is committed to advancing gender equity in Indian screen industries. WIF: India aims to bring parity and opportunities for women seeking careers in the screen industries. An advisory council of industry leaders will be assembled with representation from across India to support the programming and advocacy of WIF: India, including research, mentorship, and creative labs for women filmmakers. The Cannes announcement comes at a perfect time, for 2024 is a landmark year for India at Cannes with nine films from the country, with a majority by or about women. This includes Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, the first Indian film in competition in three decades.
“Throughout its 50 years, WIF has worked to transform the culture in Hollywood by helping build the pipeline of emerging women creatives. My hope for WIF: India is to help lower the systemic barriers in accessing these jobs for women, as well as excite a new era of transformation – by offering mentorship, networking, and opening up fellowships, workshops, and an industry helpline to help sustain the careers of those currently in the industry,” Monga Kapoor said. “Women are truly the future and alongside WIF and WIF: India, we hope to tap into that limitless potential, building parity and opportunities for women seeking careers in the screen industries.”
Dimpy Agrawal’s Gubbara Entertainment has unveiled a $1 million script development fund aimed at empowering Indian feature filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival’s market. Agrawal previously served as a producer at Netflix India and her credits include some of the streamer’s top titles from the territory such as Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies, Vishal Bharwaj’s Khufiya, and Vasan Bala’s Monica, O My Darling. The fund is a significant move for India where spec scripts are the norm and development funds are in their infancy. It is designed to provide support to both emerging and established talent, offering financial assistance to develop narratives that have the potential to travel worldwide.
“At Gubbara Entertainment, we recognize the transformative influence of storytelling. Our mission with this development fund is to champion diverse voices and narratives in cinema, resonating locally and globally. As young members of the film fraternity, we were eager to be the change we aspire to see, thus giving birth to the idea of this development fund,” said Agrawal.
Diversity, both in content and in terms of the characters explored, appears to be the driving force behind a number of Taiwan-backed productions spread out across this year’s Cannes Film Festival Program. Mongrel, the first feature from Taiwan-based Singaporean filmmaker Chiang Wei Liang explores the lives of undocumented workers, in this case, one (played by Thailand’s Wanlop Rungkumjad) who cares for the disabled. Mongrel, a Taiwan-France co-production is one of four films that have made it to Cannes thanks in part to the support of the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and its Taiwan International Co-Funding Program (TICP), which offers financial backing for projects. Through its first partnership with the Civil Society of French-Language Publishers in Cannes, TAICCA said it hopes to “raise awareness about Taiwan’s rich and diverse literary landscape to producers worldwide, forging connections across continents and cultures.” Launched in January, TICP 2.0 provides investments from Taiwan’s National Development Fund that cover up to 49% of the total budget with no limit, aiming to aggregate an increased volume of Taiwanese content for global audiences, according to the TAICCA. In addition to financial support for Mongrel, TAICCA offered networking opportunities to connect the film’s producers with industry talent, and also aided in promotion and distribution, both domestically and internationally. TAICCA has also been helping Taiwanese filmmakers push the boundaries of cinema, in particular with its support of the island’s ever-growing immersive film community through the likes of its Innovative Content Grant for International Co-Funding or Co-Productions program.
Across his 25-year career, Jia Zhagke has become the de facto face of Chinese cinema, and the Cannes Film Festival has arguably been the most important institution for his career. Beginning with his 2002 drama Unknown Pleasures, the 53-year-old auteur has landed in Cannes’ main competition seven times – more than any other Chinese filmmaker in the festival’s history. Jia returns to Cannes this year with Caught by the Tides. Caught by the Tides is composed almost entirely of improvisational footage Jia has been shooting across China with his troupe of longtime collaborators since 2001. Like virtually all of Jia’s work, the new film centers on the presence of his wife and muse, the gifted Chinese actress Zhao Tao. Zhao stars as a young woman named Qiaoqiao who is swept up in the times and carried across China in pursuit of her runaway lover, Brother Bin (Li Zhubin). The film spans a nearly 25-year stretch of real-time, creating a temporal portrait.
“Twenty years later from when the film started, everything today is much more orderly, but people have lost their passion and their motivation. This curve of emotion that runs through the film is my personal feeling — this is what I have been through — but I believe it’s also a common emotion among the people of China,” said Jia.
Karla Melo - Instagram
Latin America: Chilean actor and singer Karla Melo will star in Relatos de una Mujer Borracha, which translates to “Stories of a Drunk Woman” in English. The new comedy feature, featured by producer Storyboard Media at this year’s Marché du Film, is based on a series of popular Chilean comedy novels by author Martina Cañas. As an actor, Melo is best known for starring in the hit Chilean drama El Reemplazante and Prime Video’s S.O.S Mamis 2: Mosquita Muerta. Relatos de una Mujer Borracha is a semi-autobiographical story, focusing on Martina, a young woman who enjoys going out with friends, attending parties, and occasionally opening a bottle of wine. However, some argue Martina’s free time is too focused on drinking. Relatos de una Mujer Borracha is directed by Chilean filmmaker Gabriel “J.G.” Biggs (Pleure en silence), who has spent the last several years in France doing commercial work with major global figures and brands including Katy Perry, Alicia Keys, Coca Cola and Christian Lacroix.
Paris-based sales house Charades has sold the Argentinian Western-inspired documentary Gaucho Gaucho across much of Europe. The film — which won a Sundance Jury Prize in January and recently played at CPH:DOX — has landed deals with Tandem (France), Filmin (Spain), Selmer Media (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark), M2 (Romania, Poland, Hungary. Ex-Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria), Praesens (Switzerland) and Bantam Films (Benelux). A U.K. sale is currently under discussion. Directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, the duo behind the box office hit The Truffle Hunters, Gaucho Gaucho explores the story of a community of cowboys and cowgirls in Northern Argentina who live outside the modern world. Produced by Dweck and Kershaw for Beautiful Stories Prods., the film is shot in black-and-white film and celebrates the beauty and passion of a group of skilled Argentine cowboys and cowgirls, known as gauchos.
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Rivers of Dust, Anna Muyleart’s Geni and the Zeppelin, and Pearl Motel, from Jorge Furtado, feature among potential nine brand new projects announced at the Cannes Festival by Globo Filmes, the film co-production arm of Brazilian TV giant Globo. Above all, additions to Globo Filmes’ development slate underscore two of its biggest investment priorities. One is social relevance and the other is diversity. The company is reportedly looking for more female, Black, and indigenous filmmakers and cineastes from outside Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
“In Brazil, we have a mix of cultures. We are a continent. We have to show it all.” said Maíra Oliveira, who wrote 2023 Disney+ Aruna’s Magic.
Leading Spanish-language streaming service, ViX, has released a first-look pact with Emmy-nominated Mexican actor-producer Juanpa Zurita and ARCO Entertainment Media, the company he co-founded in 2022 with Brenda Tubilla. The two-year deal, announced May 14 at Televisa Univision's 2024-25 Upfront presentation, grants ViX first-look rights to Zurita’s upcoming projects, which would include Spanish-language series and feature films. Zurita’s rise in fame as a digital content creator has garnered him close to 90 million followers across all social media platforms. According to ViX, his participation as an actor in the 2023 ViX Original film ¿Quieres ser mi hijo? contributed to its success.
Shadi Adib
Middle East: Saudi-backed 3SIX9 Studios launched in Cannes with the promise of “bringing Hollywood to the Kingdom.” The new film and TV outfit has four co-founders and had four projects to talk about in Cannes. The co-founders are actor and producer Daya Fernández, who is CEO; Inga Vainshein Smith, a former VP of Production at Paramount and who serves as President; actor and producer Amaury Nolasco, best known for Prison Break, and Saudi businessman Sheikh Mohammed Youssef El Khereiji. The first movie project will be Bunny Run, an action comedy written by Jayson Rothwell, which will be shot in Saudi Arabia this Fall.
Spanish sales, distribution, and production company Filmax has picked up international rights to the upcoming kids and family animated feature The Light of Aisha. Xavier Romero and Llorenç Español billed the film as one of the first Spanish animated features to showcase Spain’s rich Arab history. The film is predicted to have the potential to be a cultural touchstone for years to come. The CG-animated film tells the story of Aisha, a young girl living in XI-century Al-Andalus in the south of modern-day Spain. Born into a family of calligraphers, Aisha would much rather work as a pyrotechnic artist on the popular fireworks displays used to celebrate all manner of important occasions. The Light of Aisha marks the feature debut of rising star director Shadi Adib, whose 2018 student short Fuse was a festival hit, playing in competition at some of the world’s most important animation events, including Annecy and Zagreb.
Oscar-, BAFTA-, Golden Globe- and Grammy-winning composer A.R. Rahman, veteran producer Bobby Bedi, and the Technicolor Group have unveiled a film project based on Mulla Nasruddin at the Cannes Film Festival. Also known as Nasreddin Hodja, Nasruddin was a 13th-century folklore character from what is now Turkey, known for his pithy wit and humorous wisdom. Stories about him appear in the Islamic folklore of the Middle East, the Balkans, India, and China. The International Nasreddin Hodja festival is celebrated every year in Turkey. With this film, the creators aim to revive the musical form of film in which the musical numbers take the story forward. A team of Arabic, British, and Indian writers are currently working on the script and the project will have an A-list international cast and director, Bedi said.
