Film tourism is exploding. Julie Sisk helps civilians access the global film circuit.
Want to have dinner with filmmakers and fund their next project? A new film tourism firm Take 2 Film is making the connections.
Cannes is finished for another year, but Venice and San Sebastian are next on the major film festival calendar.
American film executive Julie Sisk is capitalizing on her network of festival gatekeepers to launch a new venture offering small groups the chance to experience the film business like an insider. Sisk cuts through the red tape to get accreditation, tickets to hot premieres and private dinners and in the process perhaps an opportunity to even help finance a movie.
I caught up with Sisk and her partner Anne Maregiano at the end of Cannes for a chat over a glass of wine and charcuterie platter. This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Q: Tell me a bit about how you started out in the film business?
Julie Sisk: I actually started out fundraising for film festivals. I was development director for the Denver Film Festival, AFI, Mill Valley, San Francisco and the London Film Festival. The British Film Institute created a beachside pavilion at Cannes to encourage British audiences to get back to the cinema. It was hugely successful. I wondered why there wasn’t an American equivalent. So we decided to create one.
I raised the money and launched what became the American Pavilion. My partner and I sold it to Penske Media Corporation, (the owner of Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.) As part of the American Pavilion, we brought students to Cannes every year. Over time, more and more adults asked whether they could come too. At first I resisted because the logistics are complicated, but eventually I realized there was real demand.
Cannes is generally considered a festival for industry professionals. This is just something you would never have a chance to do in a million years. That’s what inspired Take 2 Films. We handle everything—from airport pickups and hotels to festival badges.
Q: Film and TV tourism is really taking off; people are fascinated by where White Lotus was shot. You are offering access at Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian and London but you have expansion plans?
Sisk: The Toronto International Film Festival, we’re working on a partnership with them at the moment. I’ve had a bunch of people ask me about Berlin. We have clients that want to go, and I’m going to look into how can I do a trip there. So I think we’re going to add TIFF and Berlin, so that would be six festivals.
I had a meeting with Film Independent about possibly offering a trip to the Spirit Awards - What it’s like that’s on the carpet, go to the party afterwards, stay in the hotel with the talent. And so you really are a film industry insider.
At each of the festivals, we’ve had a film critic that sits down with the group and talks about his or her take on the films, and so people get the critics’ viewpoint.
We have this new idea about creating a part of the trip that I’m calling, “in development,” where people that are at a certain stage, maybe they need a little bit more money to finish their film, maybe there’s a little bit of matchmaking that we can do. Somebody can visualize themselves as an executive producer, or they know someone [with finance.] I don’t feel like I would push it but people might be interested in that process; what it takes to make a film. So that wasn’t initially part of what we were doing but we’re thinking about it.
Q: And you have a partner, global tour guide, and filmmaker Anne Maregiano.
Sisk: Film tourism has become huge. So [Anne] took people to where they shot [Katharine Hepburn’s 1955 movie] “Summertime,” and “Casino Royale.” She’s a filmmaker and talks about what the director was thinking when they were shooting. She did a lot of research and was able to give clients a really thorough, behind-the-scenes about the making of those films.
Q: Where did you get the idea for this business?
Sisk: It was an idea that I had a long time ago that in my own retirement what I would like to do is belong to a club that just travels around because I don’t like to do any of the other retirement things, like golf or whatever, but I love going to film festivals. It’s fun to talk about film and so I thought, who wouldn’t want to do this?
I recently wrote a guest post for The Ankler about James Murdoch’s plans to expand his media empire. You can read it here.
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