Veronika Yasinska and Nadiia Zaionchkovska launched the all-rights distribution and co-production outfit Green Light Films last summer, betting on a future for the Ukraine theatrical business in the middle of the ongoing war.
Now at their first Cannes as buyers, they can point to a string of specialty successes, including Jade Halley Bartlett Miller’s Girl, which earned around $284,000 locally, the Ukrainian documentary Us, Our Pets and the War from Ukrainian YouTube Star Anton Ptushkin, which at $115,000 and counting is the second highest-grossing Ukrainian film of the year, and, perhaps surprisingly, Alex Garland’s Civil War, which has earned more than $266,000 in Ukraine to date.
“Of course, marketing Civil War for our audience was a challenge,” notes Green Light Films Cco Zaionchkovska. “For other countries, this was a dystopian sci-fi drama, for our audience, it’s a documentary.”
From a standing start, Green Light Films has carved out “17 percent of...
Now at their first Cannes as buyers, they can point to a string of specialty successes, including Jade Halley Bartlett Miller’s Girl, which earned around $284,000 locally, the Ukrainian documentary Us, Our Pets and the War from Ukrainian YouTube Star Anton Ptushkin, which at $115,000 and counting is the second highest-grossing Ukrainian film of the year, and, perhaps surprisingly, Alex Garland’s Civil War, which has earned more than $266,000 in Ukraine to date.
“Of course, marketing Civil War for our audience was a challenge,” notes Green Light Films Cco Zaionchkovska. “For other countries, this was a dystopian sci-fi drama, for our audience, it’s a documentary.”
From a standing start, Green Light Films has carved out “17 percent of...
- 5/15/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Few industry executives would have the moxie to launch a new film company in the middle of a full-scale war. But ahead of AFM, distribution veterans Veronika Yasinska and Nadiia Zaionchkovska unveiled the start of Green Light Films, an all-rights distribution and co-production outfit for Ukraine. Backed by the holding company that owns Ukraine’s Multiplex cinema chain — which operates 25 theaters with 148 screens across 12 cities and accounted for more than 40 percent of the local box office last year — Green Light is betting big on the theatrical business.
Despite the war, theatrical revenues in Ukraine have grown strongly in the past two years, bouncing back from the Covid hit, with a total take in 2023 expected to top the $60 million mark.
“The box office number gives us reason to believe that the market has fully recovered from Covid and would be booming if it weren’t for the Russian invasion,” says Yasinska,...
Despite the war, theatrical revenues in Ukraine have grown strongly in the past two years, bouncing back from the Covid hit, with a total take in 2023 expected to top the $60 million mark.
“The box office number gives us reason to believe that the market has fully recovered from Covid and would be booming if it weren’t for the Russian invasion,” says Yasinska,...
- 10/31/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Restarted negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that could mean an end to the actors strike have raised hopes for this year’s American Film Market, which runs Oct. 31-Nov, 5 in Santa Monica. What everyone is hoping for is, in the words of one leading indie producer, that “we can all get back to business.”
Even without a new SAG-AFTRA deal, there is a healthy batch of new titles on offer — a mix of international features and U.S. indie films that have secured interim agreements from the union to begin production. “In the last few days we’ve seen a waterfall of lineups,” says Nadiia Zaionchkovska, Cco of newly-founded Ukraine distributor Green Light Films, which will be making its market debut at this year’s AFM. “Lots of theatrical films, lots either in post or in pre-production, ready to shoot in the first...
Even without a new SAG-AFTRA deal, there is a healthy batch of new titles on offer — a mix of international features and U.S. indie films that have secured interim agreements from the union to begin production. “In the last few days we’ve seen a waterfall of lineups,” says Nadiia Zaionchkovska, Cco of newly-founded Ukraine distributor Green Light Films, which will be making its market debut at this year’s AFM. “Lots of theatrical films, lots either in post or in pre-production, ready to shoot in the first...
- 10/30/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Distributor is backed by firm behind he Ukraine-based Multiplex chain of theatres.
Kyiv-based outfit Green Light Films is launching as an all-rights distribution and co-production company for the Ukrainian market and will attend the AFM on the look out for acquisitions.
Green Light Films is led by CEO Veronika Yasinska and chief content officer Nadiia Zaionchkovska who have both worked in distribution and content licencing in Ukraine for many years.
It is backed by the holding company behind the Ukraine-based Multiplex chain of theatres which has 25 cinemas with 148 screens in 12 cities and towns across the country.
Zaionchkovska said Green Light...
Kyiv-based outfit Green Light Films is launching as an all-rights distribution and co-production company for the Ukrainian market and will attend the AFM on the look out for acquisitions.
Green Light Films is led by CEO Veronika Yasinska and chief content officer Nadiia Zaionchkovska who have both worked in distribution and content licencing in Ukraine for many years.
It is backed by the holding company behind the Ukraine-based Multiplex chain of theatres which has 25 cinemas with 148 screens in 12 cities and towns across the country.
Zaionchkovska said Green Light...
- 10/20/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov, directorial duo behind the Venice title “Captain Volkonogov Escaped” – vying for a Golden Lion – thought about Jean-Paul Belmondo when creating their main character, a Ussr law enforcer who suddenly goes on the run and finds himself pursued by his former colleagues. The legendary French actor, known for “Breathless” and “Pierrot le Fou,” died on Sept. 6.
“In one of the earlier versions of the script, we even had a similar ending to ‘Breathless’. Then we changed it, but its spirit remained,” Chupov tells Variety in Venice after the film’s world premiere. “We grew up on his movies.”
The Russian-Estonian-French co-production, though set in 1938, is not a faithful take on the politically charged period, with the directors opting for a “retro-utopia” instead and, as they say, reinventing the past.
“Making a typical historical drama just wasn’t interesting to us. I know people who like making them,...
“In one of the earlier versions of the script, we even had a similar ending to ‘Breathless’. Then we changed it, but its spirit remained,” Chupov tells Variety in Venice after the film’s world premiere. “We grew up on his movies.”
The Russian-Estonian-French co-production, though set in 1938, is not a faithful take on the politically charged period, with the directors opting for a “retro-utopia” instead and, as they say, reinventing the past.
“Making a typical historical drama just wasn’t interesting to us. I know people who like making them,...
- 9/10/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Rome-based sales company Tvco has boarded world rights on Masha, Anastasia Palchikova’s Russian drama which will screen at Tallinn Black Nights in Estonia and have its market premiere at AFM this month.
The film is a co-production between Moscow-based companies 1-2-3 Production, the creators of Netflix original series To The lake, and Mars Media, which has credits include T-34 and Arrythmia.
Masha premiered at Kinotavr, the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival, where it picked up the the Best Debut Film Award. The film stars Anna Chipovskaya (The Road To Calvary) as a girl who has grown up between the boxing ring and the streets of provincial Russian town in the turbulent 90s.
Her closest friends are young gangsters who kill, rob, steal and are loathed by the entire town. But in young girl’s eyes they are the salt of the earth, the family that loves and protects her.
The film is a co-production between Moscow-based companies 1-2-3 Production, the creators of Netflix original series To The lake, and Mars Media, which has credits include T-34 and Arrythmia.
Masha premiered at Kinotavr, the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival, where it picked up the the Best Debut Film Award. The film stars Anna Chipovskaya (The Road To Calvary) as a girl who has grown up between the boxing ring and the streets of provincial Russian town in the turbulent 90s.
Her closest friends are young gangsters who kill, rob, steal and are loathed by the entire town. But in young girl’s eyes they are the salt of the earth, the family that loves and protects her.
- 11/11/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
While cinemas worldwide have spent the better part of this year shuttered or operating at limited capacity, few film industries have felt the pain quite like Russia’s, which generates roughly 80% of its revenues from theatrical receipts, according to Evgenia Markova, head of the Russian film promotion body Roskino.
But while local profits have plummeted, Russian producers continue to find growing interest from foreign buyers, with Markova pointing to strong sales at Mipcom and at the Key Buyers Event, a virtual showcase for domestic productions that took place this summer.
“The Russian industry has learned to adapt to all the new circumstances,” she says. “It became more flexible, and more responsive to the needs of the global market.” A number of high-profile Russian projects will be introduced to foreign buyers during AFM, beginning with “Major Grom and the Plague Doctor,” a big-screen adaptation of the hit comic-book franchise from Bubble Comics.
But while local profits have plummeted, Russian producers continue to find growing interest from foreign buyers, with Markova pointing to strong sales at Mipcom and at the Key Buyers Event, a virtual showcase for domestic productions that took place this summer.
“The Russian industry has learned to adapt to all the new circumstances,” she says. “It became more flexible, and more responsive to the needs of the global market.” A number of high-profile Russian projects will be introduced to foreign buyers during AFM, beginning with “Major Grom and the Plague Doctor,” a big-screen adaptation of the hit comic-book franchise from Bubble Comics.
- 11/9/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
‘Numbers’ will be produced by Anna Palenchuk and directed by Tamara Trunova.
Plans for a film adaptation of jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov’s play Numbers are to be presented at Odesa International Film Festival’s Film Industry Office’s (Fio) pitching forum next week.
Kiev-based producer Anna Palenchuk of 435 Films said she has been in regular correspondence with the imprisoned director to ask for instructions and remarks about both a new stage production and a film version of Numbers.
Sentsov is presently on hunger strike in a remote Arctic prison camp for eight weeks in protest at his...
Plans for a film adaptation of jailed Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov’s play Numbers are to be presented at Odesa International Film Festival’s Film Industry Office’s (Fio) pitching forum next week.
Kiev-based producer Anna Palenchuk of 435 Films said she has been in regular correspondence with the imprisoned director to ask for instructions and remarks about both a new stage production and a film version of Numbers.
Sentsov is presently on hunger strike in a remote Arctic prison camp for eight weeks in protest at his...
- 7/10/2018
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
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