Recent content by George

I think the challenge today isn't a lack of content it's content overload. The most valuable platforms will be the ones that connect the right films with the right audiences.

One thing I've found surprisingly useful is showing a pitch deck to someone outside the film industry before sending it to investors. Not because they understand financing, but because they immediately reveal where the story becomes confusing. If they can't explain what the film is about, who...

Your advice is especially valuable in today's market. One thing I've noticed from many discussions, including on Reddit, is that a lot of young filmmakers feel it's becoming increasingly difficult to get their first real opportunity. Production has slowed in many regions, financing is harder to...

@MICA I think you've touched on something really important. One thing I'd add is that original films often live or die by what happens after people leave the theater. A franchise film can often sell the first ticket simply because audiences already know the title or the franchise. An original...

I completely agree. I also think the real value of a pitch deck is often underestimated. One pattern I've noticed is that many pitch decks spend most of their time explaining the story, but very little time explaining the business case. That's often where uncertainty begins. In many cases, the...

@Lucas I think that's already happening, and it's influencing projects much earlier than many producers realize. A few years ago, the main question was simply: (Will people watch this) Today it's increasingly becoming: (Will people subscribe because of this, or stay subscribed because of...

One thing I'm genuinely looking forward to is having everything much more centralized. After Cannes and Berlin, where it often feels like you're constantly rushing between hotels, offices and meeting locations, TIFF seems refreshingly compact. From what I've seen, most of the industry activity...

One lesson I keep seeing, both from filmmakers I know and from discussions online, is that a lot of people aim for Netflix before they've proven that anyone is actually willing to pay to watch their film. If 200 people who genuinely care about the subject won't spend $10 to rent it directly...

One thing I wonder about is whether AI will eventually make films look bigger, but also more similar. Today, smaller productions can create concept art, trailers, pitch decks, visual effects, and marketing materials that would have been far beyond their budgets just a few years ago. That's a...

The more details you share, the more this starts sounding less like a forgotten memoir and more like a genuine period piece with real adaptation potential. I could honestly see this working either as a documentary project or as a dramatic biographical adaptation, depending on how deeply the...

Hello Jan, This honestly sounds like a very interesting project, especially since it’s rare to see completely unreleased historical film or theatre material surface with this kind of background. I’m curious whether you’re mainly considering a documentary, scripted feature, or perhaps even a...

One producer told me in Cannes this year: If I can’t sell the project in my head to someone between two elevator rides, the deck probably won’t save it. Honestly, the more markets I attend, the more I feel how true that is. Buyers and financiers usually filter projects incredibly fast: What...

@MICA said: It’s about finding that one sentence or perspective through which the whole project “clicks”. If that’s missing, it really doesn’t matter how many slides you have or how good it looks. MICA is right, but producers usually look for this "click" in the wrong place. The most critical...

Michael hit the nail on the head: the "fully packaged" status has become a comforting illusion for producers in 2026, because just because the talent and the sales agent look great on a pitch deck, the underlying financial model can still be fundamentally broken. As a producer, I see the...

Most people only see the finished film on screen, but by the time a movie reaches theaters, there’s usually a huge amount of stress, uncertainty, compromise, and sometimes genuinely exhausting work behind it. But when a film truly connects with someone, people forget all of that very quickly...