EXCLUSIVE: Because it preps for the discharge of notable titles like Nickel Boys, manufacturing firm Louverture Films has added a handful of key execs and collaborators, together with two principal companions and a chief monetary officer.
As these new arrivals come aboard, co-founder Danny Glover has introduced he’s stepping down as CEO however will stay a accomplice. Melony Lewis and Adam Lewis have joined as principal companions and Longtime German movie finance skilled Frank Lehmann is now CFO. Colombian producer Diana Bustamante, a big determine in South American cinema and former head of the Cartagena Movie Pageant, is collaborating with Louverture on numerous tasks.
Together with the Lewises, the corporate’s companions embrace Glover, co-founder Joslyn Barnes, Susan Rockefeller, Sawsan Asfari, Tony Tabatznik and Jeffrey L. Clark.
Louverture is thought for numerous acclaimed worldwide co-productions, amongst them narrative titles Memoria, Zama, Capernaum and documentaries Gunda, Hale County This Morning This Night and The Black Energy Mixtape 1967-1975. Amazon MGM Studios will release Nickel Boys, primarily based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, in theaters October 25.
As to Glover’s determination to step away from his CEO function, Barnes stated it was an natural one. The actor, producer and activist, who will flip 78 subsequent month, “is at a special stage and is interested by maintaining his involvement with the corporate with out the day-to-day administration features. We are going to actually get pleasure from persevering with to work carefully collectively.”
In a press release supplied to Deadline, Glover stated, “Louverture Movies has been one of the important ventures and adventures of my life and profession, and I’m tremendously moved and pleased with the way in which the corporate has advanced since we first started with the imaginative and prescient of working with artists and producers primarily based primarily within the world South. After seeing over 60 tasks realized, and being concerned in numerous efforts to make the trade extra equitable and inclusive, I really feel power in entrusting this legacy with a exceptional crew led by my longtime producing accomplice Joslyn Barnes and our fellow principal companions.”
Named for Haitian Revolution chief Toussaint Louverture, the corporate was based in 2005. In an interview with Deadline, Barnes stated the modifications to the corporate’s construction replicate an effort to evolve after 20 years in a extremely dynamic sector. “We’ve at all times been a small, boutique firm that has achieved primarily smaller, unbiased arthouse fiction, particularly from international locations within the world South,” she stated. “Due to the ways in which the market has modified, we’ve got modified with that.”
Louverture is now branching out to develop episodic tasks throughout scripted, non-fiction and animation in addition to style tasks and new artwork editions and set up works. Extensively exhibited artist William Kentridge’s non-fiction collection, Self Portrait as a Espresso Pot, was proven in the course of the 2024 Venice Artwork Biennale. Barnes stated it signifies the path of the corporate. “We’ve began to think about outside-of-the-box distribution,” she stated. International streaming rights to the Kentridge collection had been bought to Mubi, however the present will proceed to journey. In Venice, 10,000 individuals got here by the site-specific exhibition and acquired the QR code for the version, Barnes estimated, providing a special method to get work into an more and more congested distribution system.
Together with Nickel Boys, which Barnes co-wrote and produced with Plan B, Nameless Content material and Amazon MGM Orion, Louverture has a number of different upcoming tasks of word. The checklist consists of Harvest, starring Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out, Dogman); Lucrecia Martel’s characteristic documentary Chocobar; and Oscar nominee Debra Granik’s non-fiction collection Conbody Vs Everyone, which screened at Sundance final January. The corporate additionally has new tasks within the pipeline with notable administrators together with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sky Hopinka, Mike Mills, Martine Syms and Ljubomir Stefanov.
Lehmann, a former banker who has suggested on tasks together with The Final Station and Ron Howard’s Rush in addition to the festival-launched episodic collection Carlos. He referred to as it “an ideal privilege for me to affix this visionary manufacturing firm and glorious crew at Louverture.” He added, “I don’t know of some other U.S. firm that has so constantly labored with such stellar artists and with such a depth of understanding of worldwide collaboration, significantly within the international locations of the South.”
As CFO, Lehmann will report back to Barnes and likewise work carefully with Bustamante and Vice President of Non-Fiction Maya E. Rudolph, who joined Louverture to guide and develop a slate of unbiased, worldwide documentary options and collection. Rudolph’s roster consists of tasks by Alison O’Daniel, Sky Hopinka and Mike Mills.
