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INDUSTRY France

Wild Bunch is building the future

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- The European mini-major is continuing to grow and diversify by trying its hand at TV series

Wild Bunch is building the future

By announcing the creation of a branch dedicated to the co-production and international distribution of TV series yesterday, European mini-major Wild Bunch has opened up a new domain for it to explore. Already quite a key player in the film industry in the area of sales (under its own name, and via its French subsidiaries Elle Driver and Versatile), and also benefiting from a distribution network in five European countries (France, Germany, Austria, Spain with Vertigo, and Italy with Bim), a VoD platform (FilmoTV) and a plentiful catalogue of over 2,200 titles, the group managed by triumvirate Vincent Grimont, Brahim Chioua and Vincent Maraval continues to forge ahead.

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Following its successful merger with Senator in Germany and the announcement at Cannes last May of the creation of Insiders, a sales company based in Los Angeles that specialises in ambitious US independent films (with projects by Jeff Nichols, Sean Penn and Taylor Sheridan, among others), Wild Bunch is now leaping aboard the TV series express train, which it is investing in with the aim of introducing projects with an international reach, facilitating co-production and funding, and distributing and selling. Dubbed Wild Bunch TV, the group’s new department is beginning its operations with two series consisting of eight episodes: one is Italian, with Medici: Masters of Florence (the shoot for which has been under way since August in Bracciano with a cast including Dustin Hoffman and Richard Madden (produced by Lux Vide and Big Light Productions), while the other is Spanish, with Four Seasons in Havana (an adaptation of the crime novels by Leonardo Padura – staged by Tornasol Films).

But this new playing field won’t stop Wild Bunch from carrying on its expansion on the film side of the business, with such titles as the immense animated project Playmobil by Bob Persichetti, which will be produced by On Entertainment (Dimitri Rassam and Aton Soumache, set to be completed at the end of 2017), and the upcoming movies by the Dardenne brothers (La fille inconnue [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
film profile
]
), Cristian Mungiu (Family Photos [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Cristian Mungiu
interview: Cristian Mungiu
film profile
]
), Emmanuelle Bercot (La fille de Brest, about the Mediator scandal), Nicole Garcia (Mal de pierres [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
), Radu Mihaileanu (The History of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) and Michaël Dudok de Wit (the animated film The Red Turtle [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, co-produced by Studio Ghibli), to mention just a few European gems in an always top-notch line-up, which also includes L'odyssée [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Jérôme Salle, The Dancer [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Stéphanie di Giusto and Snowden [+see also:
trailer
interview: Oliver Stone
film profile
]
 by Oliver Stone.

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(Translated from French)

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