First Look Media has promoted Maria Zuckerman to President of Topic Studios. She will continue to report to the company’s CEO Michael Bloom.
Zuckerman will continue to lead the Studio’s creative vision and overall strategy, including development, financing, and production across feature films, documentaries, television, and podcasts. She joined the Studio in May of 2019 as EVP & Head of Topic Studios.
During her tenure, Topic Studios has expanded with a broad range of award-winning film projects, as well as ramping up their TV division and full-service podcast studio. In addition, the Topic Studios has brought in world-class creators such as Pablo Larraín, Destin Daniel Cretton, Awkwafina, Kevin Macdonald, Chris Smith, Nikyatu Jusu, Adam Leon and Toni Collette.
Zuckerman’s promotion comes just weeks after Topic Studios, along with its partners The Intercept and the Invisible Institute, were lauded as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the podcast Somebody, and the...
Zuckerman will continue to lead the Studio’s creative vision and overall strategy, including development, financing, and production across feature films, documentaries, television, and podcasts. She joined the Studio in May of 2019 as EVP & Head of Topic Studios.
During her tenure, Topic Studios has expanded with a broad range of award-winning film projects, as well as ramping up their TV division and full-service podcast studio. In addition, the Topic Studios has brought in world-class creators such as Pablo Larraín, Destin Daniel Cretton, Awkwafina, Kevin Macdonald, Chris Smith, Nikyatu Jusu, Adam Leon and Toni Collette.
Zuckerman’s promotion comes just weeks after Topic Studios, along with its partners The Intercept and the Invisible Institute, were lauded as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the podcast Somebody, and the...
- 7/28/2021
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
This Line of Duty review contains spoilers.
Marcus Thurwell, you old bastard. You get, what, four mentions by name in series three? We’ve never even seen your face before today, and now you’re our chief suspect in the search for the Fourth Man. Oh, what fools you’ve made us look. Fans have spent the last five years sizing up every inspector, sniffer dog and lampshade in Central Police as a potential H, and now we learn that he likely retired in 2005 and has been masterminding the lot while sipping a chilled Estrella Damm on the Costa del Crime.
If any more names from the past turn up in series six, Ofqual are going to have to accredit an official Line of Duty qualification. Before viewers are allowed to watch the next episode, we’ll need to show evidence of having achieved a merit grade or above. For access to the finale,...
Marcus Thurwell, you old bastard. You get, what, four mentions by name in series three? We’ve never even seen your face before today, and now you’re our chief suspect in the search for the Fourth Man. Oh, what fools you’ve made us look. Fans have spent the last five years sizing up every inspector, sniffer dog and lampshade in Central Police as a potential H, and now we learn that he likely retired in 2005 and has been masterminding the lot while sipping a chilled Estrella Damm on the Costa del Crime.
If any more names from the past turn up in series six, Ofqual are going to have to accredit an official Line of Duty qualification. Before viewers are allowed to watch the next episode, we’ll need to show evidence of having achieved a merit grade or above. For access to the finale,...
- 4/18/2021
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Mediawan Rights, the commercial division of French independent media powerhouse Mediawan founded by Pierre-Antoine Capton, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse in 2015, is poised to step up its premium documentary clout through its dedicated sales unit.
Presided by veteran sales executive Valerie Vleeschhouwer, Mediawan Rights has signed an exclusive partnership deal with Forbidden Stories, the production banner behind many critically-acclaimed investigative documentaries, such as “Green Blood.” The outfit was founded by Laurent Richard, an award-winning French documentary filmmaker and producer who won the Prix Europa Award for the European Journalist of the Year in 2018.
Mediawan is already a leader in the docu landscape with outfits such as Cc&c (Clarke Costelle & Co), Black Dynamite and Troisième Œil, and the recent acquisition of Lagardere Studios, which comprises key documentary producers such as Imagissime (“Who Killed Little Gregory?”), Maximal Productions, 909 productions, Electron Libre productions and Réservoir Prod, as well as Aito Media in Finland,...
Presided by veteran sales executive Valerie Vleeschhouwer, Mediawan Rights has signed an exclusive partnership deal with Forbidden Stories, the production banner behind many critically-acclaimed investigative documentaries, such as “Green Blood.” The outfit was founded by Laurent Richard, an award-winning French documentary filmmaker and producer who won the Prix Europa Award for the European Journalist of the Year in 2018.
Mediawan is already a leader in the docu landscape with outfits such as Cc&c (Clarke Costelle & Co), Black Dynamite and Troisième Œil, and the recent acquisition of Lagardere Studios, which comprises key documentary producers such as Imagissime (“Who Killed Little Gregory?”), Maximal Productions, 909 productions, Electron Libre productions and Réservoir Prod, as well as Aito Media in Finland,...
- 4/14/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Mamoudou Athie, star of breakout feature film Patti Cake$, is to star in and produce a feature film set in the Sahara Desert.
Athie, who is also set to star in Jurassic Park: Dominion, has teamed up with Vespucci Group to develop Chighali, a project based in Mauritania, the North African country where he is from. It is based on an audio story, produced by Vespucci, and written by journalist Sahar Zand.
The story follows Sidi, whose first memories including camels, sand storms, scorpions, and sand dunes towering like buildings. Raised in a nomadic tribe on the far edge of the Sahara desert, Sidi doesn’t have a father like the other kids. He dreams of meeting him, even after his mom explains he’s gone away to heaven, a journey from which he won’t return. When Sidi discovers that many years ago a foreign documentary crew had visited the tribe,...
Athie, who is also set to star in Jurassic Park: Dominion, has teamed up with Vespucci Group to develop Chighali, a project based in Mauritania, the North African country where he is from. It is based on an audio story, produced by Vespucci, and written by journalist Sahar Zand.
The story follows Sidi, whose first memories including camels, sand storms, scorpions, and sand dunes towering like buildings. Raised in a nomadic tribe on the far edge of the Sahara desert, Sidi doesn’t have a father like the other kids. He dreams of meeting him, even after his mom explains he’s gone away to heaven, a journey from which he won’t return. When Sidi discovers that many years ago a foreign documentary crew had visited the tribe,...
- 2/18/2021
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s a tough time to be a journalist.
Digital upstarts are faltering and newspapers are running on fumes. The freelance market for glossy magazines has dried up along with their ad sales. That’s left many top reporters looking for a way to support their work.
Enter the Vespucci Group. Founded by producers Daniel Turcan and Johnny Galvin, the three-year-old production company and incubator is helping to fill that gap by getting in on buzzy stories and penetrating investigative reports from their inception. In return for supporting journalists’ projects, the company gets the rights to develop their finished work as podcasts, television shows, streaming series or feature films.
“It’s a harmonious relationship,” says Galvin. “It’s no secret that journalism is under threat and reporters are underfunded. The core of our company is the relationships we have established with about 150 working journalists around the world.”
Since it was...
Digital upstarts are faltering and newspapers are running on fumes. The freelance market for glossy magazines has dried up along with their ad sales. That’s left many top reporters looking for a way to support their work.
Enter the Vespucci Group. Founded by producers Daniel Turcan and Johnny Galvin, the three-year-old production company and incubator is helping to fill that gap by getting in on buzzy stories and penetrating investigative reports from their inception. In return for supporting journalists’ projects, the company gets the rights to develop their finished work as podcasts, television shows, streaming series or feature films.
“It’s a harmonious relationship,” says Galvin. “It’s no secret that journalism is under threat and reporters are underfunded. The core of our company is the relationships we have established with about 150 working journalists around the world.”
Since it was...
- 12/17/2020
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
First Look Media’s Topic Studios announced Christy Gressman, formerly with podcast network Night Vale Presents, as VP, executive producer of podcasts, and revealed several new shows in development.
Gressman was formerly a partner and executive producer at Night Vale Presents, whose podcasts include “Welcome to Night Vale,” “Sleep With Me,” “Conversations With People Who Hate Me,” and “The Orbiting Human Circus.” At Night Vale, she oversaw network-wide show development, production and distribution.
Based in New York, Gressman — who first joined Topic Studios in January 2020 — reports to Maria Zuckerman, EVP of Topic Studios. In her new role, Gressman will lead Topic Studios’ podcast vertical, overseeing all aspects of series creative and production, as well as distribution strategy. She will help define the editorial vision, build the brand’s presence in the podcast marketplace, and drive the audio business as part of Topic Studios’ overall strategy across TV, film and documentaries,...
Gressman was formerly a partner and executive producer at Night Vale Presents, whose podcasts include “Welcome to Night Vale,” “Sleep With Me,” “Conversations With People Who Hate Me,” and “The Orbiting Human Circus.” At Night Vale, she oversaw network-wide show development, production and distribution.
Based in New York, Gressman — who first joined Topic Studios in January 2020 — reports to Maria Zuckerman, EVP of Topic Studios. In her new role, Gressman will lead Topic Studios’ podcast vertical, overseeing all aspects of series creative and production, as well as distribution strategy. She will help define the editorial vision, build the brand’s presence in the podcast marketplace, and drive the audio business as part of Topic Studios’ overall strategy across TV, film and documentaries,...
- 6/23/2020
- by Variety Staff
- Variety Film + TV
Today,Tina Brown Live MediaandWomen in the Worldannounced the initial participants for the11th annualWomen in the World Summitto be held at Lincoln Center in New York City. This year's Summit will take place fromThursday, April 2toFriday, April 3and will feature a bold line-up - including actress,icon and best-selling authorDemi Moore, Emmy and Golden Globe winnerPhoebe Waller-Bridge, female Kurdish warriorCommander Nesrin Abdullah, Nobel laureateEsther Duflo,Surviving R. Kellydocumentariandream hampton,European Central Bank PresidentChristine Lagarde, Hong Kong activistDenise Ho, journalist and activistGretchen Carlson, Endeavor CMOBozoma St. John, andCorinne Vella, sister of heroic murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, with more compelling participants to be released.
- 2/13/2020
- by TV News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Steven Soderbergh has crafted a sharp and funny tale about rapacious greed and the exploitation of the working class — it’s called “High Flying Bird,” and you should check it out on Netflix if you haven’t already. Also coming to Netflix is Soderbergh’s second feature of 2019, “The Laundromat,” and it’s a well-intentioned hot mess.
Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (the “Contagion” writer adapts Jake Bernstein’s non-fiction book “Secrecy World”) attempt to follow the “Big Short” playbook of taking complicated financial concepts and breaking them down for a mainstream audience, complete with actors talking to the camera. For all their good intentions, though, “The Laundromat” flails about, with an excess of bad ideas that undercut the justifiable outrage over the events depicted.
A reminder: In 2016, a whistleblower released more than 11 million documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, detailing the labyrinth of shell companies and holding...
Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (the “Contagion” writer adapts Jake Bernstein’s non-fiction book “Secrecy World”) attempt to follow the “Big Short” playbook of taking complicated financial concepts and breaking them down for a mainstream audience, complete with actors talking to the camera. For all their good intentions, though, “The Laundromat” flails about, with an excess of bad ideas that undercut the justifiable outrage over the events depicted.
A reminder: In 2016, a whistleblower released more than 11 million documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, detailing the labyrinth of shell companies and holding...
- 10/17/2019
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
A high-end TV series that will delve into the 2017 assassination of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is being developed by New York’s Topic Studios in partnership with U.S. incubator Vespucci Group and Italy’s Indiana Production.
Prominent Israeli film and TV writer Noah Stollman is on board to pen the screenplay, giving the project strong cachet.
The as yet untitled series is based on the book “Murder on the Malta Express” co-authored by British investigative journalist John Sweeney with Italy’s Carlo Bonini (“Suburra”) and Maltese journalist-blogger Manuel Delia.
“Through Manuel, John, and Carlo we have unprecedented access to an extremely timely story set against the backdrop of the global threat on journalism,” producer Daniel Turcan (“Marjorie Prime”) co-founder of Vespucci Group said in a joint statement.
The book investigating who killed Daphne Caruana Galizia published by Maltese imprint Midsea Books will be released on Sunday, October...
Prominent Israeli film and TV writer Noah Stollman is on board to pen the screenplay, giving the project strong cachet.
The as yet untitled series is based on the book “Murder on the Malta Express” co-authored by British investigative journalist John Sweeney with Italy’s Carlo Bonini (“Suburra”) and Maltese journalist-blogger Manuel Delia.
“Through Manuel, John, and Carlo we have unprecedented access to an extremely timely story set against the backdrop of the global threat on journalism,” producer Daniel Turcan (“Marjorie Prime”) co-founder of Vespucci Group said in a joint statement.
The book investigating who killed Daphne Caruana Galizia published by Maltese imprint Midsea Books will be released on Sunday, October...
- 10/14/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Ahead of the Venice premiere of The Laundromat, actor pays tribute to murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
Meryl Streep, the star of The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh’s irreverent comedy about Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that masterminded offshore tax schemes for some of the world’s most rich and powerful, has praised the reporters who uncovered the story.
In Soderbergh’s film, Streep plays a fictional Texan widow who digs into the fate of her late husband’s savings, ultimately exposing the company directors, Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, played in the film by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.
Meryl Streep, the star of The Laundromat, Steven Soderbergh’s irreverent comedy about Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that masterminded offshore tax schemes for some of the world’s most rich and powerful, has praised the reporters who uncovered the story.
In Soderbergh’s film, Streep plays a fictional Texan widow who digs into the fate of her late husband’s savings, ultimately exposing the company directors, Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, played in the film by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.
- 9/1/2019
- by Catherine Shoard
- The Guardian - Film News
“The Laundromat” is the story of a terrible joke “that’s being played on all of us,” Meryl Streep, one of the film’s stars, said Sunday.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the Netflix movie takes a blackly comic look at the investigation into the Panama Papers, a trove of documents that were leaked to journalists in 2016 and that revealed global schemes set up by a Panamanian law firm to help companies and rich clients around the world avoid billions of dollars in taxes. Streep plays a middle-class woman who is cheated of money she’s owed and starts asking uncomfortable questions.
Although the approach is humorous in many ways, the subject matter is deadly serious, both Soderbergh and Streep said Sunday in Venice, where the Netflix film is having its world premiere. “This is an entertaining, flash, funny way of telling a very, very dark, black-hearted joke, a joke that...
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the Netflix movie takes a blackly comic look at the investigation into the Panama Papers, a trove of documents that were leaked to journalists in 2016 and that revealed global schemes set up by a Panamanian law firm to help companies and rich clients around the world avoid billions of dollars in taxes. Streep plays a middle-class woman who is cheated of money she’s owed and starts asking uncomfortable questions.
Although the approach is humorous in many ways, the subject matter is deadly serious, both Soderbergh and Streep said Sunday in Venice, where the Netflix film is having its world premiere. “This is an entertaining, flash, funny way of telling a very, very dark, black-hearted joke, a joke that...
- 9/1/2019
- by Henry Chu
- Variety Film + TV
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.