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"Roma" by Alfonso Cuarón
Production Notes |
Read more at in70mm.com The 70mm Newsletter
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Written by: Text and images by Netflix |
Date:
18.09.2019 |
The most personal project to date from Academy Award®-winning
director and writer Alfonso Cuarón, Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza
Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in Mexico City’s middleclass
Roma neighborhood. Delivering an artful love letter to the women
who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and
emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst Mexico’s
political turmoil of the 1970s. Roma marks Cuarón’s first project since
the groundbreaking Gravity in 2013. Roma premiered at the Venice
Film Festival where it was awarded the Golden Lion. After receiving the
Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the film received a rapturous
response from festival audiences around the globe. Produced by
Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media, Roma will launch globally on
Netflix as well as theatrically around the world in December.
"Roma" is presented in 70mm at the 15th Todd-AO Festival, Schauburg
Cinerama, Karlsruhe, Germany
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15.
Todd-AO 70mm-Festival 2019
• Destination Film: Roma in 70mm
• 70mm Blow Up List
2018 - by in70mm.com
Original titel:
Roma (2:15) Filmed in: Digital media. Principal photography in:
Alexa 65. Presented on: The curved screen in 7OMM with 6-track
DATASAT stereo. Aspect ratio: 2,21:1. Country of origin:
Mexico. Production year: 2018 World Premiere: 30 August
2018 (Venice Film Festival). German premiere: 06.12.2018.
The most personal project to date from Academy Award®-winning
director and writer Alfonso Cuarón, Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza
Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in Mexico City’s middleclass
Roma neighborhood. Delivering an artful love letter to the women
who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and
emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst
Mexico’s political turmoil of the 1970s.
Academy Awards, 2018
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Best Foreign Language Film of the Year - Mexico
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Best Achievement in Directing - Alfonso Cuarón
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Best Achievement in Cinematography - Alfonso Cuarón
Academy Awards
Nominee, 2018
Best Motion Picture of the Year - Gabriela Rodriguez, Alfonso Cuarón
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Yalitza Aparicio
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Marina de Tavira
Best Original Screenplay - Alfonso Cuarón
Best Achievement in Production Design - Eugenio Caballero, Barbara
Enriquez
Best Achievement in Sound Editing - Sergio Diaz, Skip Lievsay
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing - Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighanm, José
Antonio García
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More in 70mm reading:
Destination Film: Roma in 70mm
15. Todd-AO
70mm-Festival 2019
Internet link:
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About the Production
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For the past three decades, the films of
Academy Award®-winning
director Alfonso Cuarón have transported audiences to unfamiliar
worlds, including a Victorian girl’s school, an infertile dystopian future,
Harry Potter’s enchanted world and the vast emptiness of outer space.
In his latest project, Roma, Cuarón returns to the Mexico City of his
childhood, where a family struggling to remain whole finds strength from
an unexpected source. The filmmaker began thinking about making a movie based on memories
of his childhood home and the neighborhood around it more than 15
years ago. After the overwhelming worldwide success of Gravity, Cuarón
decided it was time to move forward with his passion project. “While I
was finishing my previous film, I promised myself that my next would
be something simpler and more personal,” he recalls. “I realized that it
was finally the moment in which I could go back and do a film in Mexico,
but with all the resources, tools and techniques I’ve acquired over the
years.” With a shooting schedule that spanned 108 days, his longest ever, Cuarón was truly able to focus on the details of what he and his family
could recall of this moment in time. According to David Linde, CEO of Participant Media,
“I love the way he
goes from an epic film like Gravity to very intimate dramatic stories,”
he says. “He’s one of the few directors who can make expansive stories
that are just as intimate and dramatic as smaller films. Everything he does
has an element of the personal.”
Set
in 1970 and 1971 in the then down-at-its-heels Colonia Roma
neighborhood, the film would be a portrait of his family, his community
and of Mexico during a pivotal political moment in the country’s history.
Like the family depicted in Roma, Mexico itself was undergoing a
shattering transformation. A series of student demonstrations aimed at
promoting democracy climaxed in the infamous Corpus Christi Massacre,
when a government-supported paramilitary group known as Los
Halcones (the Hawks) brutally killed almost 120 people.
Roma is the first film Cuarón has shot in the country of his birth since
Y Tu Mamá También, and he was determined to make the experience
quintessentially Mexican. “It was very freeing to shoot a film in my mother
language again,” he says. “The Spanish we speak is Chilango, which is
the accent that denotes you are from Mexico City. I dream in Chilango.
It’s very organic and instinctual for me. There was a certain subtlety of
the language that I wanted to rescue from the time period.”
The casting team interviewed thousands of people and Cuarón chose
a smaller number whom he asked to talk about themselves in brief oncamera
interviews. The filmmaker team was very thoughtful about the
process because it was so particular, in part, because of the need for
their resemblance to be almost exact to the actual people they were
portraying. “We did a huge search for all of the main characters who are
based on people he has known for more than 50 years,” says producer
Gabriela Rodriguez, “It was a very important part of the storytelling
process that we needed to get exactly right.” Cleo is played by Yalitza Aparicio, a young woman with no acting
experience who was discovered by the film’s dedicated casting director
in a rural village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
“Our whole casting team
went from little village to little village. That’s how we found Yalitza. I
asked Yalitza who her real best friend is and she introduced us to Nancy
García,
who in turn plays her best friend Adela in the movie,” says Cuarón. Coming to Mexico City for the film was only her second visit to the capital.“Yalitza is not a professional actress but she is the most amazing actress
I’ve ever worked with,” says Cuarón. “In some ways she was being Yalitza,
but she was also conveying something different. She learned how to
assume her role in the smallest details and gestures. Without Yalitza, this
film would fall apart.”
The cast members never saw a complete script of the film (nor did the
crew, only Cuarón had the entire script throughout shooting). Each
character knew his or her own story, as well as the group’s history.
The film was shot in chronological order — which is very unusual for a
feature —and Cuarón talked each of them through what was going on in
each scene. “Sometimes I would just tell them what we were doing. For
specific dialogue, I would give it to them in the morning, so they could
learn it and have a sense of what was happening. The whole idea was to
disrupt the notion of a pre-rehearsed scene.”
Cuarón assembled an exclusively Mexican crew who could contribute their
own knowledge and memories to the film. “I really needed people who
understood what I was talking about because I wanted everybody to be a
resource, either in terms of research of the period or their own memories.” |
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Production designer Eugenio Caballero, the Oscar® winner behind the
stunning imagery of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, was brought in
to recreate the Roma of Cuarón’s past. “To work with Alfonso on a project
about Mexico and in some ways about my childhood was extremely
exciting,” he says, “Most of the scenes were shot where the actual events
occurred, but we had to transform virtually every location we used.”
For the main location where most of the film takes place, Caballero
literally
built a near exact replica of Cuarón’s childhood home. He constructed a
set within an actual house that had the historical feeling they were looking
for. “Our main set is the family’s home,” he says, “We wanted not only
to recreate the time, but also to reflect their personalities by including
particular things that Alfonso and I remembered.”
The production company reinforced the structure, tore down existing
walls and installed moveable walls. In the home’s courtyard, an elaborate
system of rails and drapes could manipulate the light to resemble day or
night, rain or shine. “We had amazing flexibility to stage scenes without
interruption as the actors went from room to room,” says Cuarón.
To dress the set accurately, Cuarón contacted his family members to
retrieve whatever furniture and personal items from the house were still
in existence. He also relied on old family photos and what they could all
recall from memory. “The rooms are full of our stuff,” he says. “There’s
an old chair that was in my grandmother’s house. The dining room, the
breakfast room, and the living room have a lot of the original furniture.
There is a portrait that’s supposed to be Sofia and is actually my mother.
Many of the objects in the children’s rooms are things we kept or
reproduced for the film. Even Borras the dog is identical to my childhood
dog, right down to the name.”
Viewing the completed set for the first time was unexpectedly emotional,
recalls the director. “I did not anticipate the impact it would have on me
and my family. They came to visit the set and had the same reaction I did.
We had not only re-created the interior of the house, but we changed
the façade and parked exactly the same cars on the street outside. It
was home.”
According to Caballero, re-creating the economic and social contrasts of
1970s Mexico City was perhaps the most satisfying part of this job. “On
the one hand, there is Insurgentes Avenue, which was the most elegant,
upscale part of the city at that time,” says the production designer.
“There is the middle-class neighborhood of Roma. And then we see the
beginning of Netzahualcóyotl, a sprawling slum that was just starting
to develop in those years. It’s like a lost city in the sense that they
didn’t
have any infrastructure.”
The reenactment of the student demonstration and the Corpus Christi
Massacre was staged at the massive intersection of Mexico-Tacuba
where the actual events took place, which is now a constantly busy part
of the city. Hundreds of cars, extras and stunt performers were brought
in to reenact the notorious tragedy. “We had to build the furniture store,
from where the action is seen, and totally transform the street to match
the historic references,” says Caballero. “It’s a very well-documented
event that we could rebuild on the very place that it happened.”
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That was the film’s most difficult location, says producer Nicolás
Celis. “We took over one of Mexico City’s main avenues, as well as the
surrounding streets, and that took months of work,” he explains. Shooting
the scene as authentically as possible wasn’t simple: bicycle lanes were
removed, the street was repainted to remove the lines now dividing the
lanes; poles were removed and neighbors’ water tanks were covered. “A
lot of work had to be done over several months so that the street would
look like it did in 1971.”
Costume Designer Anna Terrazas also had to go back in time to find
and create period clothing that would stand out in a black in white film,
which requires finding the right textures and designs. “Alfonso was very
involved in the fittings we did for the key cast and even the hundreds of
extras to make sure we had the period right and as he remembered it,”
said Terrazas. She also relied on Cuarón’s old family photos to recreate
exact replicas of the family’s wardrobe to dress the cast.
Cuarón and his sound team created Roma’s dense audio tracks using
Dolby Atmos, which allows sounds to be precisely placed and moved in
three-dimensional space. He first used the system on Gravity, which won
Oscars® for both sound mixing and sound editing. “Atmos was in diapers
back then, but I was so impressed,” he says. “I wanted to see what
Atmos would do in an intimate film. With visuals, you see foreground,
midground and background. We wanted the sound to have the same kind
of layering.”
Sound can be every bit as evocative as visual images, and each street in
Mexico City has its own unique soundtrack, according to Cuarón. “That’s
something I wanted to honor. Different street vendors call attention to
themselves by shouting, or with whistles or flutes or bells. Each car in
traffic sounds different. The sounds have to move from one place to the
other when the camera is moving. When we finished the mix, we sent the
files to Dolby and they told us that there had to be a mistake. These files
were six times bigger than any others that they had ever received. It was
not a mistake ― it was just the amount of detail that we put into it.”
Cuarón also worked with music supervisor Lynn Fainchtein to select
source music reflective of what was heard in Mexico City during the
years the story takes place. The soundtrack includes songs by Mexican
singers, English-language rock bands of the era — popular with young
middle-class Mexicans at the time — and even Mexican covers of
English-language classics, such as Mexican rock pioneer Javier Batiz’s
interpretation of “House of the Rising Sun,” heard during Cleo’s visit to
the impoverished shantytown where her ex-boyfriend is living.
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About the Cast
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YALITZA
APARICIO (CLEO) Yalitza was born in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca in
1993. She holds a degree in education and aspires to become a teacher
upon completion of her exams but also has additional opportunities
ahead of her since the film has been completed.
Yalitza went to her local community center to accompany her sister to the
casting call and ended up trying out and being selected. She is very close
with another actress from Roma, Nancy García, who lives in a nearby
town in Oaxaca. Yalitza also developed strong relationships with the child
actors that formed her family on set.
Yalitza took advantage of working in Mexico City and visited Chapultepec
Park and the pyramids of Teotihuacán. She loved being on set and seeing
how spaces were transformed. She also enjoyed working with Cuarón and
building the relationship of trust they came to share.
MARINA
DE TAVI RA (SOFIA) is a Mexican theatre, film, and television
actress. Her career has mainly developed on the Mexican stage working
with the most prestigious directors in the scene. She has played the lead
parts in stagings of playwrights like Bertold Brecht, Harold Pinter, David
Mamet, and Ximena Escalante. In film she has worked with directors like
Rodrigo Plá (in the film winner of the Lion of the Future Award in Venice
2007), Carlos Carrera, Issa López, Mariana Chenillo, Hari Sama and
Alfonso Cuarón in his most recent film Roma. Her most recent TV work
includes the series “Ingobernable” for Netflix, and “Falco” for Amazon
directed by Ernesto Contreras. Her work has been nominated and
awarded by various theatre critics and journalist associations in Mexico.
NANCY GARCÍA (ADELA) was born in 1994 in the small Mexican
town of Santa María Yucuhiti, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca and currently lives in
Guadalupe Miramar, a community embedded in the Mixteca Oaxaqueña.
Passionate about sports, she is a leader in a female athletic movement,
advocating for women to have more opportunities in this area. She also
dreams of opening a pastry shop.
García learned about the casting for Roma because of Yalitza Aparicio,
one of her best friends, who invited her to the community center in
Tlaxiaco so she could help with a translation in the Mixteco language.
Upon arriving, García was interviewed and then asked to perform a scene.
Aparicio, who was already in Mexico City, gave her the assurance she
needed to travel to the capital for the second phase of casting where she
got the role. Nancy thoroughly enjoyed her experience on set, working
alongside Yalitza and with director Cuarón as well as the cast and crew.
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About the Filmmakers
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ALFONSO
CUARÓN (DIRECTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER,
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY, EDITOR) is a two-time Academy
Award® winner who has written and directed a wide range of acclaimed
films. He most recently won two Oscars® for directing and editing the scifidrama Gravity, which he also co-wrote with his son Jonás. Cuarón also
produced the highly praised box-office hit, which starred Sandra Bullock
and George Clooney.
Cuarón made his feature film directorial debut with Sólo con Tu Pareja
(Love in the Time of Hysteria), a dark comedy starring Daniel Giménez
Cacho and Claudia Ramírez. The film, 1992’s biggest box-office hit
in Mexico, earned Cuarón an Ariel Award as co-writer. He made his
American feature film debut with A Little Princess, a critically acclaimed
1995 adaptation of the beloved children’s book. The film was nominated
for two Academy Awards® (Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction)
and Cuarón won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association New
Generation Award.
This success was followed in 1998 by Great Expectations, a contemporary
adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic novel that starred Gwyneth
Paltrow, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft, and Ethan Hawke. With his next
feature, Cuarón returned to Mexico to direct a Spanish-speaking cast
in the funny, provocative, and controversial road comedy Y Tu Mamá
También, for which he and his brother Carlos Cuarón shared an Academy
Award® nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The film also received
BAFTA nominations for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best
Original Screenplay. In 2004, the director helmed Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban, the third installment in the most successful motion
picture franchise of all time.
Cuarón’s next project, Children of Men, was one of the most talked-about
films of 2006. The dystopian drama, which he edited and co-wrote with
Timothy Sexton, earned Oscar® nominations for editing, screenplay, and
cinematography. Cuarón also produced Desierto, co-written and directed
by his son Jonás Cuarón and starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey
Dean Morgan. He executive produced the documentary This Changes
Everything, directed by Avi Lewis, which explores the impact of economic
models on climate change.
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EUGENIO
CABALLERO (PRODUCTION DESIGNER) was the Academy
Award®-winning designer of Guillermo del Toro’s modern classic Pan’s
Labyrinth. Caballero’s work on the film also earned him a host of awards
including those of the Art Directors Guild (the most prestigious honor
in his field), the Ariel, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Gold
Derby, in addition to BAFTA, Goya, and Satellite nominations. In total, he
has been nominated seven times for the Ariel, Mexico’s top film award,
also winning for Carlos Salcés’ Zurdo.
Caballero’s credits include nearly 30 films, with 20 as production designer.
He has worked with directors such as Jim Jarmusch (The Limits of
Control), Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet), Sebastián Cordero (Cronicas,
Rage and Europa Report), Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways), Claudia
Llosa (Aloft), Fernando Eimbcke (Club Sandwich), Carlos Cuarón (Rudo y
Cursi), and Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil: Extinction), among others.
Born in Mexico City, Caballero began his career in Mexico after studying
the history of art and cinema in Florence, Italy. After getting his start on
award-winning music videos and short films, he quickly transitioned to
feature films as an assistant designer and set decorator.
Caballero’s collaboration with J.A. Bayona on The Impossible starring
Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Holland earned him Goya and
Art Directors Guild nominations in 2013. In 2015 and 2016, he worked
with the director again on A Monster Calls, based on the award-winning
book by Patrick Ness, which earned Caballero a third Goya Award
nomination. The production designer’s work was also honored with
Gaudí, Fenix and Platino awards.
In 2014, Caballero designed the Paralympic Opening Ceremony of the
Sochi Winter Olympics for director Daniele Finzi. He collaborated with
Finzi again on the new Cirque du Soleil show “Luzia” in 2016.
Caballero has served as a jury member at numerous international
festivals. He is a member of AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences) as well as the Mexican and Spanish film academies.
GABRIELA RODRÍGUEZ (PRODUCER) has more than 14 years of
filmmaking experience, having worked on a diverse slate of projects
marked by a rich collaboration with acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón.
She is currently running Cuarón’s film production company, Esperanto
Filmoj, in London. In recent years, Rodríguez produced the short film
Aningaaq directed by Alfonso’s son Jonás Cuarón.
Hailing from Caracas, Venezuela, Rodríguez began her career as an
intern at Alfonso Cuarón’s office in New York City. She was later promoted
to assist Cuarón in 2006, playing a pivotal role in the production of the
Academy Award®-nominated sci-fi drama Children of Men. Rodríguez
subsequently served as associate producer on Cuarón’s Academy
Award®-winning box-office hit Gravity, starring George Clooney and
Sandra Bullock.
NICOLÁS CELIS (PRODUCER) is a Mexican producer and the founder
of Pimienta Films, whose work includes such highly original and impactful
projects as Ciro Guerra’s Birds of Passage, which was selected to open
the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes 2018, and Jonás Cuarón’s Desierto,
which won the FIPRESCI prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Pimienta Films was named one of the three best production houses in
Mexico by Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter named Celis a talent to
watch in 2017. He is currently developing Tatiana Huezo’s Night of Fire.
Previously, Celis produced the drama-horror feature film We Are What
We Are, which competed for the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
as well as Watching It Rain, a short film by Elisa Miller, which won the
Palme d’Or for best short film at Cannes. Celis’ other credits include Rafi
Pitts’ Soy Nero, Tatiana Huezo’s feature documentary Tempestad, and
Amat Escalante’s The Untamed, which won the prize for best direction at
the Venice Film Festival. Celis supports future generations of producers
by hosting workshops and master classes in academic and cultural
settings, both in Mexico and abroad. He has also participated in meetings
and workshops such as ACE Mundus, EAVE Puentes, Producers
Network, and TorinoFilmLab, among others.
DAVID
LINDE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) is chief executive officer of
Participant Media, the global media company founded in 2004 by
Jeff Skoll, which is dedicated to entertainment that inspires and compels
social change. Linde is responsible for leading the company’s overall
strategy, day-to-day operations, content creation, advocacy, strategic
investments, and acquisitions. As an industry content leader, Participant
annually produces up to six narrative feature films, five documentary films,
three episodic television series and more than 40 hours of digital short
form programming through its digital subsidiary SoulPancake.
Participant’s content and social impact mandate speaks directly to
the rise of today’s “conscious consumer,” representing over 2 billion
consumers who are compelled to make impactful content a priority focus.
Through its worldwide network of traditional and digital distribution
aligned with partnerships with key non-profit and NGO organizations,
Participant is positioned uniquely within the industry to engage a
rapidly growing audience while bringing global awareness and action
to today’s most vital issues. Noteworthy films from Participant include
Oscar® Best Picture winner Spotlight; Academy Award® winner for Best
Documentary Feature An Inconvenient Truth, A Fantastic Woman, which
was honored with the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language
Film, as well as Lincoln, The Help, Wonder, RBG, The Look of
Silence, CITIZENFOUR, and Food, Inc. In total, Participant has released
more than 80 films, which collectively have earned 56 Academy Award®
nominations and 12 wins.
Linde’s background spans production, global distribution, and building
multiple companies from the ground up. Linde most recently led Lava
Bear Films, a production and financing company he founded with
the support of Reliance Entertainment. While there, he produced the
Best Picture Academy Award® nominated Arrival from director Denis
Villeneuve. Prior to Lava Bear, Linde served as chairman of Universal
Pictures where he successfully championed a broad outlook regarding
international productions, animation and family entertainment, and
distribution. Linde also served on the NBC Universal board of directors
and as the chair of NBC Universal’s Diversity Council.
Prior to his Universal appointment, Linde ran acclaimed specialty film
studio Focus Features and its genre division, Rogue Pictures, both
of which were formed from Universal’s acquisition of the acclaimed
independent production company Good Machine, of which he was a
partner. During his tenure at Focus, Co-Presidents Linde and James
Schamus oversaw a diverse slate that was honored with an historic 53
Oscar® nominations and 11 Academy Awards®. Before Good Machine,
Linde served on the senior leadership team at Miramax Films and was the
founding executive of Miramax Films International.
Linde currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, sits on the Board of Directors of Film
Independent, and is on the Board of Trustees of New Roads School.
Linde has been recognized for numerous awards, including The Will
Rogers Motion Picture Pioneer of the Year, General Electric’s Chairman
Award for Performance Turnaround, the Anti-Defamation League’s
Distinguished Entertainment Industry Award, the New York Magazine:
Best of the Industry Award, the Gotham Award for Distinguished
Achievement, and the Locarno Film Festival’s Premio Raimondo
Rezzonico Award. Linde and Cuaron have worked together on 7 films,
including Roma, Children Of Men, and Y Tu Mamá También.
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JEFF SKOLL (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) is an entrepreneur devoted
to creating a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. Over the course
of nearly two decades, Skoll has created an innovative portfolio of
philanthropic and commercial enterprises, each a distinctive catalyst for
changing the issues that most affect the survival and thriving of humanity
– including climate change. This portfolio includes the Skoll Foundation,
Participant Media, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Capricorn Investment Group,
and new ventures – all coordinated under the Jeff Skoll Group umbrella.
Skoll’s entrepreneurial approach is unique: driving large-scale, permanent
social impact by investing in a range of efforts that integrate powerful
stories, data, capital markets, technology, partnerships, and organized
learning networks. Operating independently from one another yet deeply
connected through shared mission, Skoll’s organizations galvanize public
will, policy, and mobilize critical resources that accelerate the pace and
depth of change.
Inspired by the belief that a story well told can change the world,
Jeff founded Participant Media in 2004. Participant Media is the world’s
leading entertainment company focused on social impact. Participant has
produced more than 80 feature-length narrative and documentary films.
These films collectively have garnered 56 Academy Award® nominations
and 12 wins, including Best Picture for Spotlight.
Companion campaigns run by Participant have shaped consumer’s
beliefs and actions, and in some cases have been instrumental in
changing national and international policies working hand-in-hand with
non-profit partners.
As the first full time employee and President of eBay, Skoll experienced
firsthand the power of combining entrepreneurship, technology, and
trust in people. His work today embodies those critical lessons learned
from eBay. All of Skoll’s organizations rely on the premise that people are
basically good, and that if good people are given the opportunity to do
the right thing, they will.
JONATHAN
KING (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) is President of Narrative
Film & Television for Participant Media, where he oversees the
development and production of Participant’s narrative feature films and
television projects. The company’s upcoming slate of films includes On
the Basis of Sex, from director Mimi Leder and starring Felicity Jones and
Armie Hammer; Green Book, starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala
Ali and directed by Peter Farrelly; Rupert Wyatt’s Captive State; and The
Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, adapted by and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor
in his directorial debut. Participant’s first scripted limited series
“Central
Park Five,” created and directed by Ava DuVernay, will be produced in
partnership with Tribeca Films and premiere on Netflix in 2019.
Since joining Participant in 2007, King has overseen a robust slate of
almost 50 films, including the 2016 Academy Award® Best Picture winner
Spotlight, last year’s sleeper hit Wonder, Beasts of No Nation, The
Help, Contagion, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Deepwater Horizon,
and Shot Caller. In 2012, he launched Participant’s Spanish language production initiative with Pablo Larrain’s No, which premiered at Cannes
and was nominated for an Academy Award®. Since then, Participant’s Latin American slate has featured Larrain’s Neruda, Sebastian Lelio’s 2018
Academy Award® winner A Fantastic Woman, and Alfonso Cuarón’s eagerly
awaited return to Mexico with Roma.
Prior to joining Participant, King worked as both a producer and an
executive for companies including Focus Features, Laurence Mark
Productions, and Miramax Films. He started his film career in MGM’s
New York office, scouting books, theater, and independent films. King
currently serves on the board of advisors for the Outfest Legacy Project,
20
a partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive that restores and
preserves important works of queer cinema. He also serves on the Dean’s
Advisory Council of the Florida State University Film School, and on the
board of directors of the John Alexander Project, a nonprofit dedicated to
nurturing and supporting innovative investigative journalism.
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