How prolific French producer Charles Gillibert of CG Cinéma and Les Films du Losange became a go-to ally for international independent filmmakers

Making sure Jim Jarmusch could shoot on location in New York, Paris and Dublin, securing Angelina Jolie to star in Alice Winocour’s first English-­language feature, securing financing for Kirill Serebrennikov’s feature about reviled Nazi Josef Mengele, and supporting Bi Gan and his producer Shan Zuolong in making Chinese fantasy epic Resurrection, are just a few of the recently accomplished tasks that French producer Charles Gillibert has crossed off his to-do list.

The founder of production banner CG Cinéma and president of longrunning French production, distribution and international sales outfit Les Films du Losange, has become a magnet for high-profile filmmakers, and he hits the fall festival circuit with a string of prestigious projects.

They include Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother, which Gilibert produced with Atilla Salih Yücer, Carter Logan, Joshua Astrachan and Rich Bolger, that premiered in competition at Venice, followed by a screening at the New York Film Festival, and Winocour’s Couture with Jolie and Zhang Xin, showcased at TIFF as a Special Presentation. Several Gillibert-backed films that premiered at Cannes continue their festival journey, including Serebrennikov’s The Disappearance Of Josef Mengele (next stops: CineFest and Ayvalik film festivals) and Bi’s film (heading to New York and Busan) as well as Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology Of Water (Deauville and Poland’s New Horizons).

“I’ve always been a producer of auteur cinema and, accidentally, international cinema,” says Gillibert. His festival pedigree is extensive, with his films winning awards in Cannes for Resurrection (special jury prize, 2025), Personal Shopper (best director for Olivier Assayas, 2016) and Annette (best director for Leos Carax, 2021), a Berlin Silver Bear for Things To Come (best director for Mia Hansen-Love, 2016) and an Oscar nomination in 2016 for Deniz Gamze Erguven’s Mustang.

“It’s a little miracle when any film is made,” he continues. “My job as a producer is to talk about the films and filmmakers I work with, whether at the development, financing or distribution stage. I always ask, ‘How can I create the most possibility to help a film exist?’”

Kristen Stewart

For Gillibert, the process of bringing a film into existence begins “long before thinking about the financing. We think about the conception of the project, how we want to make it. If financing seems difficult, we shift strategy. Kristen [Stewart] took more than 10 years to make her film. I jumped in more recently but in the end she made the film she wanted to make. One of the questions as a producer is, ‘How do we make the film the filmmaker wants to make while dealing with its budget?’”

After starting his career with Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (2007) and shooting Walter Salles’ On The Road (2012) in the US, working with US filmmakers such as Jarmusch and Stewart more recently has been a natural gravitational pull due to the current financial and political climate in the US.

“Independent cinema in the US is under attack from all angles, so auteur filmmakers and the US industry are looking to Europe and the rest of the world to be able to continue to make films,” says the producer. “They are looking for freedom, financing, people in the industry who know how to give visibility to their work, and have close ties with festivals.”

Gillibert has been championing filmmakers since he was 18 (he is now nearly 48), when he launched a production company with current mk2 Films co-CEO Nathanael Karmitz, with the duo producing more than a hundred short films together.

Gillibert worked at mk2 briefly before founding CG Cinéma in 2013, subsequently acquiring Les Films du Losange in 2021 where he serves as president and oversees the company’s production, distribution and world sales arms. The purchase meant he also acquired a library of nearly 350 auteur-driven titles from the likes of Eric Rohmer, Barbet Schroeder, Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnieszka Holland, Marguerite Duras, Wim Wenders and Michael Haneke.

While Gillibert claims to have “no rules” in terms of an editorial strategy, CG Cinéma produces about four films per year. Most of its projects are co-produced and distributed in France by Les Films du Losange and sold by the company’s international sales team, including Resurrection and The Chronology Of Water, although CG Cinéma and Losange remain two separate entities.

“If we feel another distributor or sales agent is a better fit, we are happy to work with them and we never want to ruin long-term relationships filmmakers have with other companies,” he says. For example, Winocour’s Couture is being released in France by Pathé and sold internationally by HanWay Films, while The Match Factory is handling sales on Jarmusch’s latest. “We’re here to find solutions, not to hold anyone back.”

Gillibert runs both CG Cinéma and Les Films du Losange’s in-house production arm, and works side by side at Les Films du Losange with head of distribution Régine Vial and head of international sales Alice Lesort. Although the banner can act as a one-stop-shop for production, financing, distribution and sales, Gillibert says it is open to collaborating on all levels.

“We are always looking for co-­productions. The idea isn’t to be 100% involved in every project. We are thrilled to distribute a film we like or take on international sales for another.”

While CG Cinéma and Les Films du Losange continue to operate on a film-by-film basis, Gillibert reveals that he and his teams have discussed partnering with a fund for a more stable economic model. “We have always found partners for our projects, but we are anticipating the need down the line and it would enable us to be more reactive to projects,” he says.

There are no plans to expand beyond the presentlevels of activity, which on top of CG Cinéma’s productions includes around 10 films per year on the distribution slate and eight films on the sales roster.

Upcoming projects

CG Cinéma recently wrapped in Latvia on Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra’s Out Of This World, a co-production with Idéale Audience and Andergraun Films. The film stars Riley Keough and Les Films du Losange is shopping the project to buyers at the fall festivals. While further details are being kept under wraps, Gillibert says that even he does not know what the final film will look like, true to the Pacifiction director’s style of filmmaking.

Gillibert is also reteaming with mk2’s MK Productions and Leviathan director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s highly anticipated Minotaur, which goes into production this month. The executive describes it as “the emotional and moral collapse of a businessman under the strain of personal and political crises”.

On the home front, he produced Hugo, directed by Pascal Bonitzer who took over the project from his late wife Sophie Fillieres with whom CG Cinéma had originally greenlit the project before her death in 2023. The French-language film is about a man and his daughter who connect through the works of author Victor Hugo, and stars Fabrice Luchini and Chiara Mastroianni.

CG Cinéma is also launching the debut features of two female directors, both being released in France and sold worldwide by Les Films du Losange. Lila Pinell’s Shana, co‑­produced with Ecce Film, is about a woman navigating odd jobs, drug deals and a toxic love affair, while El Youfsi’s Les Filles d’Abraham follows two families— one Jewish, one Arab — as their respective daughters struggle to find their freedom as young women.

While the films he has produced this year alone are radically different in subject and form, Gillibert says: “I like the idea that auteurs can create a common space between people, a meeting place in the divided world we’re living in, where stories, poetry and imagination can allow us all to connect to each other.”

He adds: “If the industry doesn’t believe in a film — or in cinema in general — you can’t expect audiences to believe. It’s true that audiences are holding back more than before, money is not as easy to obtain, so we all have to work harder on every level to help new voices emerge and defend the singular voices already here. It’s more difficult, but it makes the job even more interesting.”

• Stephen Graham on working with director Jan Komasa and co-star Andrea Riseborough on TIFF title ‘Good Boy’