The momentum is slowly building for our new film DAGGERS DRAWN.
We have started getting some initial casting suggestions and we are initiating work with the artist, Misha Papic, to create a few conceptual images for the main “look” of the movie.
Still the structure of the financing and production is my main concern at the moment. The recent government EIS initiative has prompted us to start up a Launch Marketing fund (Caravan LM 1) for which we are seeking subscriptions to a total of £ 2 Million.
Since we posted info about our funding strategy on our website under the invest tag, we were approached by the FT Investment Adviser with an offer to advertise our fund release.
We have let them have plenty of background info and we will be running an ad in their Film Investment Feature section in the Aug 9 issue. Look forward to seeing what that can bring. I have actually had the thought fly through my mind: “How does one advertise for film money?” “Can one put an ad in the FT?” - I suppose I should have found out ages ago, but better late than never.
At the time of publication I will myself be in Locarno, meeting with European producers and staff from Eurimage.
I will also attend a Co-production forum arranged by the European Producers’ Club and meet with a delegation of Central Asian producers at the Festival.
The more efforts we make into setting this new film project in motion, the more it becomes evident that a new financial structure is needed for the combined effort of production and launch.
I am specifically looking for a German co-producer with an interest in action-horror as I definitely want to secure the biggest EU territory. Let’s see what happens in Locarno.
Then it’s time for Sweden again as August means end of the Swedish general holiday shut-down. There is a serious stake in the Swedish side of this production and we are looking for co-operation with the Swedish Film Institute and also one of the three local studio+fund constellations.
Our long time collaborator, Swedish Academy Award winning Cinematographer Marten Nilsson has read the script and is keen to be on board. We hope for this to be possible depending on how the co-production structure works out.
In the meantime an associate producer in LA is working hard on getting US funding into the picture.
All things taken into account my mental note to myself is to work on establishing an organic structure whereby funding can flow into our pending projects.
Fingers crossed.
Ps I have just outlined a remake slate for our Swedish films and excluded Summertime as I felt that it was a cute coming of age comedy but maybe too locally specific (Malmo, Sweden). Then as I checked this morning’s harvest of comments on the clips uploaded on Youtube a guy was repeatedly marveling at “how good this film is”... hm...!