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After 15 years of staging the Zurich Film Festival, directors Viviana Vezzani and Karl Spoerri stepped down at the end of 2019 to take their expertise to the next level and launch a film financing agency. Then the pandemic hit.
Los Angeles and Zurich-based SPG3 Entertainment was founded in 2020 by Spoerri and Urs Wietlisbach, founders of international private equity firm Partners Group, and Alfred Gantner, with Vezzani serving as Chief Operating Officer. But gaining momentum amid the COVID crisis has its own challenges, not to mention the creative separation of being a financier rather than a hands-on producer of a project.
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Last year, the duo launched the Zurich Boulevard Productions banner, with a view to becoming more active in feature films and capitalizing on the strong talent relationship they’ve built as a result of running the festival.
The company’s slate includes Bill Pohlad’s Venice 2022 theme song “Dreamin’ Wild,” starring Casey Affleck and Zooey Deschanel , and the musical “Greatest Days,” starring Aisling Bea. Post-production projects include “Thelma & Louise,” an action comedy starring Joan Squibb, Fred Hetzinger, and Parker Posey; and “Nyad,” based on marathon swimmer Diana Nyad , directed by Oscar winners Jimmy King and Elizabeth Chai Wasaheli, and starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.
“We started from a financing perspective, and then we realized that in some projects we were more of an investor in projects that we really wanted to develop or play a more active role in,” Spoerri said. “We thought it would be nice to have a separate entity more focused on that part.”
Vezzani added: “It’s also possible to develop something from scratch and then have other people fund it. We also want to have that flexibility so that we don’t need to do both on all projects.”
Zurich Avenue’s next installments include a feature film adaptation of the 2022 bestseller “Great For You,” about a wedding weekend gone wrong and the complexities of female friendship. Writer Celia Laskey is adapting her book for the screen.
Also on the slate is “Hansen,” a new series based on Ellin Carsta’s German series of books, currently in eight volumes. These books have sold almost 2 million copies in Germany. “The Deadline” screenwriter Nicki Bloom will pen the script, and production will take place in Hamburg, Vienna and Cameroon.
With the WGA strike underway and the specter of a Big Three strike looming over Hollywood, European independent producers will start to become increasingly attractive to US players, putting financial production houses like Zurich in a good position. About 50 percent of the writers and talent the agency currently works with are European, many of whom speak German.
The company’s development program included “Bad Company,” a feature-length exposé based on the collapse of the German company Wirecard and the ensuing scandal. The film is directed by Robert Schwentke.
Also in production is the psychological thriller “The Perfect Marriage,” directed by Israeli “Lost Alice” screenwriter Siegel Alvin from a screenplay by Academy Award nominee William Breuyles. This project was produced by Patrick Wachsberger and Ashley Stern of Picture Perfect Federation.
“Some people like to develop 100 projects at the same time, but our philosophy is to focus on a few developments that we really believe in so that they grow naturally,” Vezzani said. “We like to take our time.”
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