Producers from Ireland, Romania, Spain, Bulgaria, Germany and Ukraine are the winners of the first series of pitching competitions, the results of which were announced by Netflix and the European Producers Club (EPC) at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.
The Pitch Contest, created by EPC and Netflix with support from the Netflix Creative Equity Fund, aims to create new opportunities for underrepresented communities in the entertainment industry.
The first prize, which comes with $50,000 (€50,000) in development funds, went to producer Anna Mannion of Tri Moon Films Ireland. Second prize and $20,000 in funding went to Microfilm Ada Solomon of Romania. Netflix and EPC also selected four third-place winners: Mariela Besuevsky of Tornasol Media of Spain, Marticka Bozhilova of Agitprop in Bulgaria, Gabriel M. Walter of German production company Caligari and Olena Yershova of Ukrainian/Turkish company Tato Film. All four will receive $5,000 to help turn their idea into a series.
“As part of the launch of the EPC Gender Charter, we have established this dedicated scheme for female producers together with the Netflix Creative Capital Fund,” said Gudni Hummelvoll, President of the European Producers Club. “Women producers are rarer in the big picture. We feel the need to open up new opportunities and improve their availability in the market. We are delighted that the scheme has resulted in high-profile female producers from a wide range of countries, from Romania and Bulgaria to Ireland, Germany and Spain and many others.
Netflix and EPC launched the series initiative at the Series Mania television festival in March. The competition was open to EPC producers working for women-owned companies. After a selection process by an independent jury comprising Cia Edstrom, Francine Raveney and Olivier Kohn, the competition finalists gathered at Netflix’s European headquarters in Amsterdam to present their projects to the Netflix content team.
“Congratulations to the winners!” said Chris Mack, director of Grow Creative at Netflix. “It was exciting to see performances from producers across Europe and great to partner with the European Producers Club to empower women. We know how important behind-the-scenes performance is to on-screen performance, which is why we support initiatives like this with Netflix’s Creative Equity fund.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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