News

Independent cinema champion extends activities into television

Wild Bunch is extending its activities into the co-production and distribution of TV series with the creation of Wild Bunch TV, overseen by the company’s head of international sales, Carole Baraton.

“Wild Bunch TV will initiate international TV series from all around the world, provide coproduction and financing services, and, finally, distribute and commercialize them worldwide,” the company said in a statement.

The firm has pulled together a team of professionals experienced in the TV entertainment business, comprising Diana Bartha (development and international distribution), Thomas Triboit (acquisitions) and Aurélia Porret (marketing).

Veteran international fiction producer Georges Campana is also on board as an advisor.

Paris-based Wild Bunch, which has been pulling together the new TV division since before Cannes, will make its debut outing at Mipcom with two initial acquisitions Medici: Masters of Florence and Four Seasons in Havana.

Medici: Masters of Florence is the latest project from prolific...

Paris -- The U.K.'s Channel 4 and French networks Canal Plus and Arte are heading on a small screen pilgrimage to Israel for Peter Kosminsky's mini-series "Homeland," Canal Plus said on Friday (June 11).

The film will be produced by David Aukin and Hal Vogel from the U.K.'s Daybreak Pictures in co-production with Channel 4 and by Georges Campana for Breakout Films with Canal Plus and Arte France on board from Gaul.

The four-episode, 60-minute mini-series is set to air in 2011 on Channel 4 followed by broadcasts on Canal Plus and Arte.

The film follows a young girl from London who goes to Israel after discovering her dying grandfather's journal recounting the horrors of his experience in the British army during the time of the Holocaust.

Kosminsky will mix the fictional story with eyewitness accounts from real British, Israeli and Palestinian veterans.

"Homeland" stars Claire Foy,...

PARIS -- French producer Georges Campana, who left Vivendi Universal subsidiary Le Sabre in July, is setting up his own company, Breakout Films, and has put together an initial slate of English-language movies and miniseries. Breakout is one of the three main shareholders in production entity Screensaver International, alongside German producer Peter Paulich and Australian director-producer Mario Andreacchio. The three previously partnered on the movie Paradise Found, in which Kiefer Sutherland starred as painter Paul Gaugin. "The ambition is to make feature films and event miniseries, always with at least one major partner in Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and so on," Campana said recently. Ignoring the movie adage about never working with animals or children, Campana's first project as producer involves working with baby animals. Five of them. The family movie Two Brothers Running, directed by Andreacchio, is scheduled to start shooting in South Africa at month's end. "It's a sort of road movie centered on two baby elephants who have to make a journey through the African bush," Campana said.

PARIS -- French producer Georges Campana, who left Vivendi Universal subsidiary Le Sabre in July, is setting up his own company, Breakout Films, and has put together an initial slate of English-language movies and miniseries. Breakout is one of the three main shareholders in production entity Screensaver International, alongside German producer Peter Paulich and Australian director-producer Mario Andreacchio. The three previously partnered on the movie Paradise Found, in which Kiefer Sutherland starred as painter Paul Gaugin. "The ambition is to make feature films and event miniseries, always with at least one major partner in Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and so on," Campana said recently. Ignoring the movie adage about never working with animals or children, Campana's first project as producer involves working with baby animals. Five of them. The family movie Two Brothers Running, directed by Andreacchio, is scheduled to start shooting in South Africa at month's end. "It's a sort of road movie centered on two baby elephants who have to make a journey through the African bush," Campana said.