Ingenious to develop indie slate with Chinese
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London's Ingenious Media has inked a deal with Chinese investment fund Hejing Culture that will see the two partners produce and co-finance a slate of new indie films.
The venture comes on the back of a UK/Chinese co-production treaty, though it is said that under the new agreement not all films produced will have to be official co-productions, some can be purely international or purely Chinese.
Ingenious has produced and co-financed a long slate of feature such as Brooklyn, Carol, Miles Ahead and Life of Pi. The company, ran by CEO and founder Patrick McKenna, is also involved in various TV deals with Film4, the BBC, Lionsgate, ITV and Endemol Shine, to name just a few.
The deal with Hejing to form a joint venture company is said to be worth USD$200m, the Chinese media fund is backed by private and government investment and currently has more than $70bn assets under management.
“It’s time to go international and show the world the charm of Chinese content and Chinese story-telling,” said Hejing Culture CEO Zhang Aiyi. Calling Ingenious “a wonderful film company with an unbelievable track record”, he said the company believed the partners could co-develop some great Western and Eastern film and TV projects together.
Ingenious CEO Neil Forster said: “The global market for entertainment content is experiencing an exciting period of change – from the seismic shifts in individual consumption patterns to the unprecedented growth in China.
“Any long-term global growth strategy has to involve an alignment with the right kind of partners, and we couldn’t be more delighted to be working alongside Hejing.”
UK Minister of Culture Ed Vaizey commented: “The UK film industry is one of our greatest success stories, powered by the huge wealth of creative talent that exists in the UK, both on and off screen. It’s fantastic to see collaborations such as this come about as a result of the landmark UK-China co-production treaty.”
Photo Carol by Wilson Webb - © 2015 The Weinstein Company.
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