Desmar, the Singapore, Los Angeles and London-based producer and financier, is quietly becoming a valuable funding source for international filmmakers, supporting a crop of anticipated projects at the EFM. They include Cornerstone’s untitled Mike Leigh project, Hanway’s Good Boy, Protagonist’s H Is For Hawk, Best Friend Forever’s Sundance prize winner The Things You Kill and Gaga Corporation’s A Pale View Of Hills.
Led by Los Angeles-based Naomi Despres and Canada-born, Singapore-based Michèle Marshall, Desmar backs projects with “a strong point of view, and an element of creative risk – the project must have an ambition to say something in an original or daring way”, explained Despres.
Desmar is now two years into a five-year pot of funding, backed by investments from high net-worth individuals, venture capital, and some personal funds. The team is completed by Yasmin Asif, a production and development executive based in London.
The company intends to invest in a further five to 10 films in the next three years, including projects they have originated and will produce. “We could do a substantial investment in a project that we believe wholeheartedly in,” said Marshall. “As we’re starting, we’re being quite careful and considered in the choices we make.”
The focus is split between in-house productions and financing, with a development slate that is decidedly global, spanning a noir action film based on a German book, a period romantic comedy being adapted for Asia from a western novel, and a project set in New York.
Flexibilty
Marshall and Despres became friends while studying in the US at Princeton University. Despres went on to build a career as producer, with credits on Kill The Messenger and Lizzie, while Marshall worked in advertising and marketing.
Their first project together under Desmar was producing Caroline Ingvarsson’s low-budget BFI London Film Festival 2023 premiere Unmoored. Out of Unmoored grew the idea for a production financing support fund, including a small development fund.
“We have a great deal of flexibility in our how we deploy our investments, and the capacity to raise additional funds if circumstances demand it,” said Despres.
To date Desmar-backed projects have been in the arthouse realm, coming their way through existing relationships: the cinematographer on Good Boy, for instance, Michal Dymek, worked on an earlier project called Unmoored. But the team is keen to support a wide range of projects, with romantic comedies and “smart” action films of great interest to them, as is Asia as a source of talent, projects and partners.
“We’ve been talking a lot to some of the local directors in Singapore. Southeast Asian cinema is developing and becoming more sophisticated. I’ve seen some great things that weren’t necessarily picked up by the European festivals,” said Marshall. “Singapore as a country has done very well economically – [the government] are actively turning their focus towards the arts, which is very timely for us.
”Watch this space. It’s going to be exciting times in Singapore and southeast Asia.”
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