Slated backs The Seagull, Polanski doc follow-up

The Seagull marks the feature directorial debut of actor Christian Camargo and will star Allison Janney, William Hurt and Katie Holmes in the updated tale about a failing actress and her interaction with three other central characters. Jean Reno, Mark Rylance, Juliet Rylance and Russell Means are in talks to join the cast. Juliet Rylance is producing with New Globe Theater founder and CEO Barbara Romer. Production is scheduled to commence in upstate New York in the summer.

Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Marina Zenovich’s follow-up to her HBO documentary Wanted And Desired, looks at the recent legal wrangle surrounding efforts to extradite Polanski to the US.

Lila Yacoub is producing and the original film’s executive producers Steven Soderbergh and Randy Wooten return.

Slated’s co-founders claim to have generated a pool of more than $100m from angel investors in the entertainment and finance sectors and institutional funds.

“We are so excited that Slated has helped unlock film financing for these two films since they have all the values that we believe in and have made it our mission to support: talented creative teams that develop and package viable projects for today’s market,” CEO Duncan Cork, who co-founded Slated with chairman Stephan Paternot, William Mapother and Gavan Gravesen, said.

“These are indicative of kind of films investors are looking for: teams with a proven track record, demonstrated ability to execute, and a previous commercial success to their names,” Paternot added.

“Slated has opened doors to investors who we would ordinarily never have encountered,” Romer, said. “By creating an exclusive marketplace for independent films, artists have a chance for their work to be seen by a wide range of sophisticated financiers. Ultimately, Slated will result in more great films being made.”

Camargo’s Seagull project captured the attention of Mark Stewart, a film investor with offices in London and Los Angeles, who promptly entered into talks with the creative team and decided to back them. “Slated is a fantastic and much needed innovation in independent film finance,” Stewart said. “As a private investor it provides me the opportunity to be involved in high calibre films and such is the quality of the projects, I invested within a week of joining.”

In the case of Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Yacoub noted: “Slated investors were a great fit with the rest of our financing, and came together to support the project at a perfect time for us. The ease in which Slated is able to match investors with the appropriate project is a testament to how well the Slated team understands the process of financing a film.  Even though we only used Slated to raise part of our budget, I look forward to seeing entire films financed this way.”

For more information visit Slated’s official website here.