New York-based financing and production company Merino Films, founded by former location manager Meredith Crowley and tech and media entrepreneur Jonathan Weiner, is making its mark at the autumn festivals.
Among the projects Merino has co-financed are Mike Leigh’s Telluride and Toronto title Tender Loving Care; Paul Thomas Anderson’s New York Film Festival premiere Cameron Winter At Carnegie Hall, recently acquired by Mubi; Venice documentary Boatbuilders; and Ira Sachs’ Cannes selection The Man I Love.
The company is also developing a slate of projects of its own. It doesn’t fully finance projects, typically operating as minority equity investors on films with budgets in the $1m-$15m range.
Weiner and Crowley met at high school in the small US town of Holliston, Massachusetts, in the 1980s, before setting up the company in 2023. Crowley has 25 years of industry experience, working in locations on TV series including Elementary and Mr Robot and Telluride 2023 premiere Janet Planet, while Weiner founded eight companies in the health, events, AI and financial services sectors and was part of the founding team of TxVia, a payment processor subsequently acquired by Google. They founded Merino in 2023, backed by Weiner.
“It’s not the type of return on investment on your money you get in other businesses,” says Weiner of film. “You must be doing it for other reasons. It’s tougher and tougher to make money in this industry, which means that if filmmakers can’t make money, there are going to be less people telling important stories. The driving force behind what we are doing is to help that cause and get involved in projects that we really like.”
Although they are a team of two, they work closely with a group of advisors, including Dan Janvey, head of film at UK documentary specialist Ventureland (Janvey brought Tender Loving Care to Merino Films, and worked on Janet Planet with Crowley) and Marcel The Shell With Shoes On producer Paul Mezey.
Crowley and Weiner are attending TIFF for the world premiere of Tender Loving Care as well as taking meetings for potential investment and co-production opportunities.
Merino Films is territory agnostic when it comes to the projects it boards. It is co-financing Greek filmmaker Konstantinos Antonopoulos’s feature debut, Glory B, produced by Greece’s Either Or Productions, Italy’s Vivo Films and the UK’s Erebus Pictures, and the duo were recently in Poland on the set of US filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar’s The Painted Bride, which stars Jeremy Allen White and Isabella Rossellini.
“We’re agnostic as far as geography. We don’t set out to do a percentage of docs versus narrative,” explains Crowley. “We’re drawn to filmmakers who have a strong vision and an elevated approach. Films that really have an emotional core to them. We also consider the team that the filmmaker has behind them, and we look for strong producers.”
Female-driven stories are also a priority. “I have a love for stories about ‘older women’, and I think there’s so many wonderful stories about women that aren’t told, and so that’s something that I’m always sort of looking out for,” adds Crowley. “Stories about women, and also [directed by ] female filmmakers. We’re so excited to be working with Kitty Green on her next film [The Spacesuit].”
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