Courtesy
EXCLUSIVE: Plan B Entertainment has started a new micro budget film finance initiative to produce and finance lower cost films which will be led by newly hired Caddy Vanasirikul. The veteran film producer and acquisition and production executive will manage Plan B’s forthcoming slate in this sector.
The first film under this new initiative is Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke’s Olmo, which recently completed shooting in New Mexico under an interim agreement. Co-written with Vanesa Garnica and directed by Eimbcke, and produced with Erendira Nunez LariosEréndira Núñez Larios and Michel Franco’s Teorema, the bilingual story is about 14 year-old Olmo, who must take care of his bedridden father who has Multiple Sclerosis. But when Olmo’s goddess neighbor Nina Sandoval invites him to a party, his world is turned upside down.
Eimbcke’s feature directorial debut Temporada de patos (Duck Season) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Ariel Award for Best Film, and his follow-up film Lake Tahoe won multiple prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The new finance facility is set up through Plan B’s recent partnership with independent European premiere content studio Mediawan.
Said Plan B Entertainment’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, “By raising the facility, we can now offer a form of additional support to filmmakers throughout the process of seeing their vision make it to the screen. With the very talented Caddy leading our micro budget efforts, and with Fernando Eimbcke who we have wanted to work with since ‘Temporada de patos,’ we are off to a strong start.”
“Mediawan is delighted to accompany and support this new strategic development of Plan B. The heart of our strategy is to bring to life a multitude of stories told by talented artists and to support their vision by creating the best conditions to keep our Ips within the group. This micro-budget financing initiative, carried out with the expertise of the Plan B team and Caddy Vanasirikl, is an important concrete expression of this strategy,” explains Pierre-Antoine Capton, CEO and Co-Founder of Mediawan.
Most recently serving as Head of Acquisitions & Productions for the sales, finance, and production company The Exchange, Vanasirikul acquired such titles as Monica (Venice), Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (Sundance), The Biggest Little Farm (Telluride, Sundance), We the Animals (Sundance), and The Killing of Two Lovers (Sundance). At The Exchange, she led a partnership with the financing firm Orogen Entertainment for production financing and built a development fund NEXT Productions.
Vanasirikul produced Shane Atkinson’s directorial debut LaRoy starring John Magaro, Steve Zahn, and Dylan Baker, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and won the Grand Prize, the Audience Award and the Critics Award at Deauville Festival. Elliott Lester’s The Thicket starring Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis; Amy Rice’s narrative feature debut The Independent starring Jodie Turner-Smith, Brian Cox, Ann Dowd, and John Cena; and Jamie Babbit’s The Stand-In starring Drew Barrymore. She additionally executive produced Alex Lehman’s Meet Cute starring Pete Davidson and Kaley Cuoco, and Hannah Marks & Joey Power’s After Everything starring Jeremy Allen White and Maika Monroe.
She attended the MFA Producers Program at UCLA and began her career in physical production in Thailand.
Upcoming film projects from Plan B include RaMell Ross’s The Nickel Boys and Nia DaCosta’s Hedda Gabler for MGM’s Orion Pictures, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 and Tim Burton’s sequel to Beetlejuice for Warner Brothers Motion Pictures, David Michod’s Wizards for A24, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Bob Marley: One Love for Paramount, as well as writer/director Jon Watts’s forthcoming film starring George Clooney & Brad Pitt, and Joseph Kosinski’s Formula One racing film starring Pitt for Apple Studios.
