The team of two have been full-time producers since 2020 and have been scaling up their ambitions

Parkville Pictures

Source: Yemi Adegbulu

Cecilia Frugiuele and Olivier Kaempfer

Need to know: Olivier Kaempfer and Cecilia Frugiuele joined forces in 2007, with an eye to nurturing diverse voices and distinctive stories. Their first features were 2012’s Borrowed Time, made through Film London’s Microwave scheme; writer/director Desiree Akhavan’s 2014 Sundance breakout Appropriate Behaviour; and Alex Taylor’s SXSW 2016 debut Spaceship, produced through the iFeatures programme.

Since then, Parkville has produced Akhavan’s The Mis­education Of Cameron Post (with Big Beach Films), Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society (with Working Title) and Daisy-May Hudson’s Lollipop (with the BFI and BBC Film).

Recipients of a BFI Vision Award in 2016, Kaempfer and Frugiuele have been full-time producers since 2020, but don’t have an office, staff or first-look deal. “We’d like to think that is something that sets us apart,” says Kaempfer. “It’s been a conscious choice to not get finance. We’ve had conversations and approaches, but we are proud of the fact that we’ve managed to make it here being the two of us.”

Key personnel: Olivier Kaempfer, Cecilia Frugiuele, co-founders.

Incoming: Alicia MacDonald’s Finding Emily, Parkville’s second collaboration with Working Title and Focus Features, will be released internationally on May 22, 2026. In addition, Kaempfer and Frugiuele have two more projects in development with Working Title, one of which they hope to film next spring.

Currently shooting is Jonathan Schey’s comedy thriller Everybody Wants To F*ck Me, starring Taron Egerton and Jessica Henwick, in partnership with Studio­canal, Film4 and LuckyChap. After that comes Pretend I’m Not Here, developed with BBC Film, directed by Simon Bird and starring Matthew Broderick, Sally Hawkins and Martin Freeman. The feature, a co-production with Lemming Film and co-financed by Netherlands Film Fund, is scheduled to shoot in Q1 2026.

Further afield are several projects in development with BBC Film: The Warning, directed by Leanne Welham, in partnership with James Schamus’s Symbolic Exchange; The Ugly One, the third feature from Hong Khaou, which is set to star Ben Whishaw; and two films from Akhavan including Disco Tehran, a France-Greece co-production with June Films and Blonde.

Parkville is also developing the debut features of two award-winning short filmmakers. Snafu by Musa Alderson-Clarke, whose short Killing Boris Johnson played Cannes in 2023, is with Film4, while Baobao, a horror from writer-director Renee Zhan, whose short Shé was an award winner at TIFF in 2023, is with BBC Film.

Olivier Kaempfer says: “We’ve done micro-budget films, and we’re now doing bigger-budget films. We’re looking to expand our commercial ambition while retaining that filmmaker-­led approach.”

Cecilia Frugiuele says: “There’s something so exciting about being at the birth of the talent and being able to support them and bring about their vision in an audience-­friendly way.”

Contact: info@parkvillepictures.com 

Topics