The Hollywood Reporter is honoring Italia and Andrea Scrosati, CEO and CEO of Fremantle, who will receive the Producer of the Year award. The award will be presented on September 3 in Venice during a gala evening organized as part of the film festival.
The award will be presented annually to an independent producer outside of the United States whom THR considers “the most exciting and innovative company of the year.”
With a global network of nearly 50 companies ranging from German giant UFA (Deutschland ’83) and Italian TV group Lux Vide to Israeli Abot Hameiri (Shtisel) and Passenger Richard Brown (True Detective), and revenues in excess of $2.5 billion ( Euro). 2.3 billion) last year, Fremantle became one of the largest international independent groups.
But what made him Best International Producer of the Year was a corporate strategy spearheaded by CEO Jennifer Mullin along with Scrosati and Vesper to capitalize on the talent of the biggest producers while keeping in mind independent films, winning over companies like l’Irish Element. Pictures, producers of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning The Favourite, Wild Italians (HBO’s My Brilliant Friend) and The Apartment (Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla). At the same time, he also forged connections with top creatives through deals with the likes of Angelina Jolie, directors Edward Berger and Johan Renck, creator Neil Cross, and acclaimed producer Nicholas Weinstock.
This bustling Fremantle business, which has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars acquiring a dozen companies since 2021, has never been about growing and making money, but investing in talent for the long term. And now the growth has come, with revenues for the first half of this year exceeding 1.1 billion dollars (1 billion euros), very high figures, which, however, did not go to the detriment of quality and production, always cutting edge. At least five Fremantle productions premiered at the Venice Film Festival this year. In addition to “Poor Man” Lanthimos and “Priscilla” Coppola, there will be “The Last Day of Alba” by Saverio Costanzo with Lily James, Willem Dafoe and newcomer Rebecca Antonachi, the crime film “Adagio” by Stefano Sollima with Italian participation. stars Pierfrancesco Favino and Toni Servillo and Aeneas, the second film directed by Pietro Castellito.
Fremantle’s upcoming films include Bloodless directed by Angelina Jolie, an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s best-selling novel starring Salma Hayek and Demian Bichir, and Luca Guadagnino’s version of William Burroughs’ cult novel Queer starring Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig. .
A leader in entertainment, Fremantle boasts an international network of production teams and companies in over 30 countries and produces over 12,000 hours of original programming, distributes over 60 formats, and broadcasts 450 programs a year, totaling over 20,000 hours. content in over 200 territories.
Fremantle is also a leader in the world of branded and digital entertainment, with over 300 million subscribers across 1,400 social channels and over 100 billion views across all platforms. It is part of the RTL Group, a global leader in broadcast, content and digital technology, itself a division of the international media giant Bertelsmann.
In Italy, Fremantle produces, among others, such successful programs as The X Factor, Italia’s Got Talent, Un Posto al Sole.