Jim Jarmusch’s comedy drama Father Mother Sister Brother is headed to Venice competition, according to Mubi founder Efe Cakarel.
Cakarel revealed the film was to feature in competition during keynote speech today (June 6) at SXSW London, telling audiences it is “already confirmed”.
Jarmusch’s film, on which Mubi is a producer, is an anthology of three stories starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Vicky Krieps, which shot last year across the US, France and Ireland. It follows estranged siblings that reunite after years apart. The Match Factory represents sales.
Production companies are Saint Laurent Prods, Mubi and the Apartment together with Jarmusch’s Badjetlag and Gillibert’s CG Cinema. Ireland’s Hail Mary co-produced. The film was also backed by Screen Ireland and received equity financing from Cinema Inutile.
Cakarel also confirmed that Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, a film that Mubi has bought world rights to excluding Italy, is also “possibly” headed to Venice.
After walking away with a huge haul of acquisitions at Cannes, including various territories on Competition titles Die, My Love, It Was Just An Accident, The Secret Agent, Sirat and Sentimental Value (“My team is freaking out right now,” he noted), Cakarel was keen to also outline his commitment to production.
“We want to participate more in the making of films, going forward. Mastermind was our very first film. We have our second film in production right now, a new film by Jane Schoenbrun who did I Saw The TV Glow. [It’s called] Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma – with a title like that, you’ve got to do well. The script is so brilliant, you cannot make a bad film with that title.
“And the third film going into production this summer is Paweł Pawlikowski’s next film. It’s a really exciting moment.”
Mubi is also veering into TV production, with a Japanese series in development, and several acquisitions.
“I was establishing Mubi as the place to watch cinema, film. But overwhelmingly what happens is some of the best creatives in the world, filmmakers we want to work with, they have some stories they don’t necessarily want to ask in a two-hour feature-length format, but they want to tell a story in six hours, in an episodic format. When you’re seeing this incredible excitement from your filmmakers, that made us think a lot about our strategy, and we decided to get into series.”
As well as library series Twin Peaks, Mubi has acquired Wong Kar Wai’s series Blossoms Shanghai, plus Joe Wright’s Mussolini: Son Of The Century, outside of the UK, Germany and Italy, where Sky holds the rights, and will launch in the autumn.
“Every year we plan to show three, four series.”
Responding to a question on Cakarel’s experience of working with rights holders who also own their own streaming services, he said: “No one does quite we do at our scale. The studios license their content if the price is right. We just signed an incredible deal with MGM for their entire LatAm library, even though they have Amazon [Prime Video]. We have a deal with NBCUniversal, even though they have Peacock and have their output deals with Sky and others.
“We also license our content to others. You’d be so surprised what HBO paid to us for The Substance. Oh my god. The only people religiously against licensing their content is Netflix. But I think even they will at some point.”
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