Former Sky Exec Kylie Munnich Named Goalpost Pictures CEO
The Invisible Man, Five Blind Dates and Black Snow producer Goalpost Pictures has named film and TV industry veteran Kylie Munnich as its CEO. The Sydney-based producer will welcome her on November 1. The former Sky Studios and Sonar Entertainment exec is leaving a role as head of Screen Queensland, a post she held for three years, overseeing the state’s biggest ever spike in production against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic. Previously, she was a Scripted Sales and Co-Production Executive for Seven Studios and Senior Vice President for Distribution, Asia Pacific for Sonar Entertainment. Before that, she’d worked in the UK as Director of Drama and Comedy for Sky Vision (now Sky Studios) and worked on in-house scripted commissions for Sky. She also held senior roles for Sony Pictures Television. Goalpost is currently in in post-production on Stan and Sundance Now’s series Black Snow, starring Travis Fimmel, and Amazon Original movie Five Blind Dates for Prime Video Australia, directed by Shawn Seet. Also in the works is feature film Carmen, a co-production with France’s Chapter 2, starring Melissa Barrera, Paul Mescal and Rossy de Palma and directed by Benjamin Millepied. It had its World Premiere at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
France TV Distribution Bags ‘Mother Valley’ Ahead Of MIA Market
France TV Distribution has acquired international rights to Mother Valley, a feature from Lebanese director Carlos Chahine (Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest) starring Nathalie Baye and Pierre Rochefort. The sales arm of France Televisions will be at the MIA Market in Rome next month selling the film, which is set to Lebanon in 1958 as civil war rages. It follows young mother and model wife Layla, who spends the summer in the remote Christian mountains. Her younger sisters have no desire to follow her footsteps and accept arranged marriages, while an encounter with a French man opens Layla’s eyes to her condition as a woman living in a patriarchal society. MIA will be held in Rome between 11-15 October.
Cineflix Readies CNN’s ‘History Of The Sitcom’ For Cannes
Cineflix Rights has acquired sales rights to CNN and Cream Productions’ series History of the Sitcom, which will be rolled out at Mipcom Cannes. The show reunites audiences with beloved sitcom characters and introduces them to comedies they’re yet to discover. It features original interviews with Norman Lear, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Lisa Kudrow, Kelsey Grammer, Tim Allen and Ted Danson among many others. Cineflix’s sales arm has previously sold CNN shows such as The Story of Late Night and The History of Comedy. “The shows featured in this series have travelled all over the world, giving History of the Sitcom enormous global appeal,” said Cineflix Rights VP of Acquisitions, North America Felicia Litovotz. Mipcom Cannes will be held in France from 17-20 October.
BBC Studios Unveils Writers’ Academy Line-up
BBC Studios has unveiled the latest cohort of aspiring TV scribes for its Writers’ Academy, a paid training program led by former veteran British drama exec John Yorke. They are writer-actor Lauren Redding; British-Bosnian playwright and screenwriter Igor Memic; British-Indian scribe Pavan Patel whose pilot The Empires Jewels was shortlisted for the Bisha K Ali Sky x Netflix Screenwriters’ Fellowship; Sky Arts producer-director Daniel Bougourd; Bea Roberts, whose debut play And Then Come the Nightjars is being adapted into a feature film via Finite Pictures; Chloe Myerson, who is developing projects with Roughcut TV, Caryn Mandabach Productions and Island Pictures, and has two scripts under option at Wall to Wall Television; British-Nogeria actress, writer and producer Joan Iyiola, whose Apatan Productions made BAFTA-nominated short Dọlápọ̀ is Fine, which Netflix and HBO acquired; and Gary Sewell, a Hollyoaks writer who has also been a series producer on the Channel 4 soap.