Nine leading independent film and TV production companies from eight different countries have set up a creative and development alliance to jointly develop a slate of high-end drama series and feature films, reports THR.
Spearheaded by France’s Haut Et Court, whose credits include Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster (2015) and the French-Israeli series No Man’s Land, The Creatives will include No Man’s Land co-producers Israel’s Spiro Films, Versus Production in Belgium and Masha Productions in the U.S., as well as German group Razor Film (Quo Vadis, Aida?, Waltz With Bashir) Dutch company Lemming Film, a co-producer on The Lobster, the Norwegian group Maipo Film (State of Happiness, Homesick), French company Unité, which produce Netflix drama Mythomaniac and new British shingle Good Chaos, founded by ex-Protagonist CEO Mike Goodridge, whose upcoming productions include Ruben Ostlund’s new film Triangle Of Sadness.
The Creatives have signed a three-year partnership deal with Fremantle to develop and fund high-end drama series for the international production giant. The Creatives team will work together with Christian Vesper, President of Global Drama at Fremantle, and Fremantle’s Global Drama Team.
The move by these independent outfits to unite is a response to seismic changes in the global television and film industries driven by the explosion of streaming services, which have boosted demand and fueled production but also concentrated financial and creative power in the hands of small number of streaming and studio players.
Haut Et Court, Co-Founder Carole Scotta said The Creatives was set up to “protect the independent development process that has been the backbone of storytelling in Europe for decades. We unite in order to stay as free and creatively interesting as possible, and supply films and series which audiences will respond to.”
Scotta said The Creatives were committed “to offer fair conditions to the talent we work with and to strengthen the long-term relationships with our writers, showrunners, and directors as well as with new talent,” a nod to concerns among the creative community that the new boom in production could come at the cost of worsening conditions for the creatives themselves. “Fremantle have given us their full support and importantly, complete creative freedom,” Scotta added.
Christian Vesper, President of Global Drama at Fremantle said the deal underlined his company’s commitment to “proudly support the independent production community and the array of exceptional talent that it represents.”
