For only the second time, Screen International trains the Future Leaders spotlight on rising names in the talent agent and management sphere.

Future Leaders for online

Source: Screen International

Future Leaders is Screen International’s long-­running and popular showcase of rising stars in the international film industry. Each year, we spotlight a different industry sector, searching out the up-and-coming talents — those who, indeed, look primed to become leaders in their respective fields.

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During my time at Screen, we have trained the Future Leader lens on producers (2015, 2018), sales and acquisitions executives (2017, 2021) and festival programmers and curators (2019), with hiatuses in 2020 for the pandemic and last year when we celebrated Cannes’ 75th anniversary with the Euro 75 list of top European film production companies.

We are delighted to bring back Future Leaders in 2023 and put the focus this year on a field we have spotlighted once before, back in 2016: talent agents and managers. Representing talent — actors, writers, directors and, to a lesser extent, producers and craftspeople — is a crucial role in an industry that has become increasingly international, with the streamers’ push to become ambitious global producers of film and series content bringing a need for agent and managerial roles even in parts of the world without a strong tradition of talent agencies.

It’s not just about finding work and doing the deal for a client. It’s about career guidance and support in one hell of a tough business; about knowing which opportunities are the right ones at the right time; and, increasingly, about thinking not just locally but globally on behalf of clients so they, too, can participate in this golden age of content.

In shining the spotlight on agents and managers, we were also inspired by the fact that 2023 marks 20 years of our Stars of Tomorrow talent showcase, for which talent representatives have always been invaluable in terms of helping to find those rising UK and Irish talents (and more recently for the Spain and MENA offshoots of Stars of Tomorrow).

Fresh, electrifying talent is ultimately what drives the business, and the 32 agents and managers on our list are an ambitious, dynamic, diverse bunch who have been carefully selected by Screen International’s correspondents based on research, industry intel, and their own global-facing client lists and outlooks. Many, of course, are working at US and UK agencies, still the hotbeds for talent representation especially for inter­national projects, but the list contains exciting names from around the globe.

We are delighted to present them here. Get to know our 2023 Future Leaders, if you don’t already. They’re here to stay.

To find out more about our 2023 Future Leaders, click on the profiles below

Profiles by Jeremy Kay, Emilio Mayorga, Mona Tabbara, Jean Noh, Rebecca Leffler, Tim Dams, Gabriele Niola, Elisabet Cabeza, Elisabet Cabeza, Ellie Calnan, Geoffrey Macnab, Wendy Mitchell, Michael Rosser

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