The female trio combine strong experience and a solid reputation within the Scandinavian film and TV industry. Denward was notably Head of Production and Distribution at the Swedish Film Institute and most recently Nordic Head of Production at Svensk Filmindustri. Croneman was associated for more than a decade to Bob Film where she produced quality TV dramas (The Regicide, The Sacrifice) and feature films (Sanctuary, In Your Veins). Anthony has worked for two decades for Memfis Film, and nurtured among others, the career of Joseph Fares (Jalla! Jalla! Zozo).
Allan Hansen, CEO of Nordisk Film said: “The talent is out there [in Sweden] but the projects are lacking, the big, high quality films aimed at a large audience. These films have been hard to finance in Sweden but with this venture we want to change the situation.”
The Scandinavian powerhouse will handle domestic distribution on Avanti’s films and TrustNordisk world distribution while TV projects will be offered to major international television groups for co-financing. No project has yet been named.
Interview with Charlotta Denward, Anna Anthony and Anna Croneman:
Can you outline Avanti’s strategy and vision?
Charlotta Denward: We feel that there is a true divide on the Swedish market between small arthouse films and commercial films that sometimes lack in quality and international appeal. Norway and Denmark fill this gap on their domestic market with bigger budget films. We want to put pressure on the Swedish film financing system and deliver these types of projects.
How many films and TV dramas do you intend to produce each year within what budget range?
Anna Croneman: Our ambition is to produce 1-2 feature films per year with budgets ranging between €2-€3 million and within the first five years, a couple of bigger films also targeting the international market, plus one TV drama.
Can you mention some projects in your pipeline?
Anna Anthony: Avanti’s first year will mainly be about development and pinpointing the films we feel are lacking and that we are passionate about. We want to take our time but have quite a few projects in development. Hopefully our first film will start filming in 2016.
Are you looking at mixing original stories with adapted material?
AC:It is probably hard to opt out adaptations on well-known titles where the industry is today. But we want to embrace the challenge of finding the great original stories, stories we can package in a way that they stand the chance to reach a large audience. We all bring with us writers and directors that we have longstanding relationships with, and we have a couple of book rights and several scripts in development. There are also some specific directors and writers in sight that we would love to work with. We will nurture old relationships and look for new ones, while remaining very focused to optimise what we can do.
CD: What’s a bit sad is that because of the difficult financing conditions for film, people are afraid to lose money and go for formats, sequels, well known IPs. There is an American producer Lynda Obst who says: ‘pre-awareness is the enemy of originality’. If you look at the Top 10 lists, 8 out of 10 films are remakes, successful book adaptations. It’s a bit scary. Only 5-10 years ago it was the opposite. We want to find original stories, told in a compelling way to make people want to spend their SEK100 for a cinema ticket. Before you could make good dramas and find an audience. Today, people stay at home and watch not 2 hours but 10 hours of The Legacy, House of Cards etc, so we need to up our stakes on the feature film side.