New Europe Film Sales has teamed up with Spade, the production arm of the French genre label The Jokers, and leading German distribution company Plaion Pictures to create Cherry, a development fund for edgy films with crossover potential.
Cherry will focus on finding edgy, auteur -driven projects with breakout possibilites. The fund will originate its own projects and acquire rights to books as well as co-develop with other producers. It is run by Marcin Łuczaj, New Europe’s head of acquisitions.
Cherry is already investing in several projects with details to be announced at a later stage.
”When you have good people, who are professionals of this industry and who share the same taste for cinema, it’s always good to collaborate. We are very happy to have entered in this agreement with our friends at New Europe and Plaion”, says Manuel Chiche, The Jokers founder who now runs Spade, the Jokers’ production arm, with the collaboration of Xinyu Zhou.
Spade has already coproduced Jimmy Laporal-Trésor’s Rascals with Agat Films and Fabrice du Welz’s upcoming Maldoror with Frakas Production. Both companies are part of Logical Pictures.
Plaion Pictures has distributed films such as Parasite, Titane, The Handmaiden and Lady Macbeth, while New Europe’s catalogue includes Lamb, Godland, Housekeeping For Beginners, Sometimes I Think About Dying and The Peasants.
“We’re excited to be able to realise our development and production plans with the support and expertise of experienced European professionals. We’re hoping to blossom together,” said New Europe CEO Jan Naszewski.
Moritz Peters, director of acquisitions at Plaion Pictures, added: “We are very happy to bring our co-operation with the teams of Spade and New Europe to a new level. And to have Marcin Luczaj run the fund, who is a well-respected and well-connected professional with great taste.”