For Film

Growing up in Dublin, one of Ed’s closest friends was Lenny Abrahamson, with whom he started making films early on. When Ed founded his company Element Pictures later on with Andrew Lowe, the two continued collaborating together. After making some waves with films such as Frank or Garage, the company’s big international year was 2015 with both Room and The Lobster. They went on to produce more unique films such as Disobedience and The Favourite. Most recently, Ed and Lenny collaborated again on the wonderful series Normal People. Listen to Ed talk about his way from Filmmaking Society at Trinity to the Oscars, the Irish Film Community and why he was hoping to not like Normal People when first reading it - but thank god he did.

Alexa Karolinski ist the co-creator and writer of the great Netflix miniseries Unorthodox.                          The series focusses on 19 year old Esty, who slips away from her Orthodox community in Williamsburg. As Esty arrives in Berlin, she begins to explore the uncertain prospects of a new life and pursues an audition at the Berlin Music Conservatory. Unorthodox is loosely based on Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. It is also is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish. Listen to Alexa talk about her way as a filmmaker, adapting the story of Deborah Feldman for the screen and getting all the details right. She also tells me why the reactions to Unorthodox make her feel positive about the world - something we can all need right now.

Naima started her way in the film industry in sales before following her passion for producing. She joined Emilie Georges at Memento and her breakthrough project was nothing else than Call me by your name. A project that had been long time in development, Emilie and Naima felt that they had to give it a go with Luca Guadagnino attached to direct. Still, production was tricky with a short time window and struggle to find public money. Listen to Naima talk about the whole experience CMBYN, producing movies that matter today and about that feeling of pure joy when you first screen a movie and every single one on the team suddenly loves each other.

After watching the series Edge of Darkness when he was 13, Chris knew he wanted to work in TV. He started out at the BBC and worked his way up to becoming Head of Drama, working on shows such as MI5. He then joined Two Brother Pictures, where he produced series such as Cheat, The Widow or Back to Life. Two Brother Pictures has been in the spotlight recently for producing Fleabag, a series which Chris followed closely from the inside. Listen to him talk about becoming a producer and adapting to the changes in the television landscape, what makes a good script and what it was like to watch Phoebe Waller- Bridge in action.

Founded in 2004, Umedia has become one of the most important financing and producing partners for international productions in Belgium, making use of the tax shelter system. Their level of implication varies between helping with financing such as for the genre hit Revenge or acting as an active producing partner on films such as Mandy with Nicolas Cage. As COO, Bastien is a part of selecting these projects and working on them. Listen to him talk about the variety of projects Umedia is a part of, coproductions with the US and what special gear a producer absolutely needs when working on the set of Mandy.