Meet The Space Program, the Producing Collective Behind Buzzy Cannes Film ‘The Plague': ‘For Indie Movies, It's Not One Size Fits All'
'We have been able to become a safety net for each other and for the films and the filmmakers,' explained Gus Deardoff, who runs the company along with Lizzie Shapiro and Lexi Tannenholtz. 'It means there's always someone available, which helps because filmmakers really need instantaneous contact with their producers at all times, and sometimes you get spread very thin. This way, we have several lines of defense.'
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The company, which has worked on the feature debuts of Boots Riley ('Sorry to Bother You') and Emma Seligman ('Shiva Baby'), takes a particular interest in first-time filmmakers.
'We love working with people that we want to be able to grow with,' said Tannenholtz. 'We pick directors who we know are going to be making a lot of movies over the course of their careers.'
One such filmmaker is Charlie Polinger, whose first film, 'The Plague,' will premiere in Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year. It tells the story of a group of preadolescent boys who bully and torment each other at a water polo camp.
'It's a violent sport,' said Shapiro. 'The above-water game, you need to follow the rules, but the below- water game, you can scratch and kick and pull at each other. Charlie thought that was a perfect metaphor for the way boys can behave.'
The eerie film, which The Space Program team liken to the work of Todd Field, but required a global search to find the right setting and the necessary incentives.
'I budgeted that movie in New York, New Jersey, Vancouver, Toronto, Ireland, Budapest, Sophia, Bulgaria and Bucharest,' said Shapiro. 'We were on the hunt for a big pool.'
They ultimately landed in Romania. Early buzz on the film is strong and Polinger has already lined up a new project, A24's 'The Masque of the Red Death' with Sydney Sweeney tapped for the lead role. As for The Space Program, they have a busy dance card. Up next is 'Pure,' the latest film from writer and director Catherine Schetina ('The Bear'), which will star Zoey Deutch. It's about a young woman who begins to rot from the inside out as her life threatens to unravel at her sister's wedding. It's just the kind of quirky, unique, out-of-the-box story that The Space Program was formed to support.
'Maybe we are not the people who do your 'Star Wars' with you, but after you've made your 'Star Wars' and you'd like to make a more personal movie again, we are the people that you really want to collaborate with,' said Deardoff.
Part of that means that The Space Program will keep rolling the money it makes on different productions into the next one, hustling to keep projects moving forward in a business where films frequently fall apart at the last minute.
'Every movie is different, and every movie needs something different,' said Tannenholtz. 'And what success means for each movie is different across the board. So we have to approach everything with an individualized strategy. For indie movies, it's not one size fits all.'
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