Yahoo Finance Indie Production Alliance the Creatives Looks to Lure Investment, Forge Unified Front Against Market Challenges: ‘Together, We Are Stronger’
French media executive Romain Bessi, who as Variety exclusively announced has been named CEO of the alliance of independent production companies known as the Creatives, said on Tuesday that the group is now searching for financing that will allow it not only to remain competitive in a difficult market but to continue to grow its reach.
“We need to invest in people, in development. We need to invest in a few things in order to grow faster and grow stronger,” Bessi told an industry audience at Rome’s MIA Market. “For that, we need a partner. We don’t want to sell the Creatives. We want to find a partner to join us and reach another level.”
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The Creatives was launched in 2021 as a long-term partnership between its member companies to forge co-productions, launch strategic joint ventures, share information and combine networks.
The decision to hire Bessi, who played a key role in building France’s Newen Studios and Studiocanal into international powerhouses, was born out of a joint desire to formalize the group’s activities in response to the increasingly challenging market conditions for indie producers.
“There was a pressure from all of us to take ourselves to the next step and see how we could work together more formally, and how our companies could be integrated more,” said U.K. producer Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos, who likened the collective formed over informal chats during the pandemic to a “coffee club.”
“The markets have been more challenging over the last two years,” said Bessi, citing disruptions such as the retrenchments at global streaming platforms, the continued decline in linear advertising, the dwindling audiences among traditional broadcasters and the consolidations among studios and other media giants.
“The market overall is still far bigger than it was five or 10 years ago. It is smaller than it was two years ago, but far bigger than it was in the past,” he continued. “And the market has become far more selective. [Commissioners] spend less money, but they…spend the money on experienced producers who can deliver.
“[The Creatives] is a safe house for talent. It’s a safe partner for commissioners. The fact that they know each other, they trust each other, it makes things so much easier,” he said.
Sharing the stage with Goodridge and Bessi in Rome on Tuesday, during a session moderated by Variety’s Nick Vivarelli, were producers Leontine Petit of Lemming Film (Netherlands); Synnøve Hørsdal of Maipo Film (Norway); Carole Scotta of Haut et Court (France); and Roman Paul of Razor Film (Germany).
The group’s other member companies are Spiro (Israel), Unité (France), Masha (U.S.) and Komplizen Film (Germany).
Collectively the group’s members, whose footprint spans eight countries, have produced a total of some 330 films, such as “The Lobster,” “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” post-Bataclan attack drama “You Will Not Have My Hate” and Sandhya Suri’s “Santosh,” which is the U.K.’s submission to this year’s international feature film Oscar race. On the TV side, they’ve generated more than 50 shows including “The New Pope” and Clive Owen crime drama “Monsieur Spade.”
While the challenging market conditions have sparked a wave of consolidations, both in the U.S. and overseas, Scotta, of Haut et Court, noted that the member companies were determined to resist the overtures of deep-pocketed media entities. “Most of us have been approached by investor groups, and…we needed to find a way to stay independent that fit the way we were working and the DNA we all share,” she said.
Bessi described the Creatives’ partnership as a “very unique situation.”
“They are forming a group of producers that is owned by producers. It is not owned by a TV network. It is not owned by equity investors. It is owned by producers, so it’s a different mindset,” he said.
With partners in Europe’s three strongest markets — the U.K., France and Germany — as well as access to top-shelf talent and decades of collective producing experience between them, the alliance is positioning itself for the long haul.
“When [the Creatives] was founded…the platforms were just sweeping into Europe and kind of buying up all the talent, buying up all the production companies. We were coming together to figure out how we could collectively combat that,” said Goodridge.
“That attack by the platforms didn’t really pan out — they’ve retrenched a bit. But our alliance got stronger, because it’s really tough out there. The independent film landscape these days is terrifyingly hard. And TV, of course, is in a huge slump worldwide. Everybody says survive till ’25, but we’re combating that together.”
Razor Film’s Paul echoed that sentiment.
“Together, we are stronger,” he said. “We don’t believe so much in competition because that makes all of our lives more miserable and actually smaller. In cooperation, we empower each other. And in this business model that we’re working in, it is a form of self-empowerment as well.”
Pictured: Romain Bessi (l.) and Leontine Petit
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