Beata Rzeźniczek on the Screen Daily Shortlist

Beata Rzeźniczek from Madants has been included on the prestigious list of “Future Leaders for 2018” – producers who are seen as rising stars – published by Screen Daily magazine.

This is the seventh time that Screen Daily has produced its list of Future Leaders, focusing this year on producers. The list contains the names of young people who, according to the influential magazine, “are already changing the film industry”. It should be noted that previous Screen Daily lists have also featured Polish representatives from other film professions – e.g. in 2016, the list of the top 43 agents around the world included the name of Anna Różalska from Match & Spark.

Beata Rzeźniczek studied film production at the Faculty of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia and she has worked with, among others, Wojciech Smarzowski, Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze. In 2015, she co-founded Madants, together with fellow producer Klaudia Śmieja, with the intention of making independent international productions with festival and distribution potential.

The first project undertaken by Madants was the Greek film “Park”, directed by Sofia Exarchou, which was also developed under the Director’s Lab programme at Sundance. The company’s next production was “Porto”, directed by Gabe Klinger and with Jim Jarmush as executive producer. This was the first Madants production to be released around Polish cinemas by Madness Distribution, a Madants off-shoot involved in the distribution of festival films to arthouse cinemas.

Together with Amanda Livanou, the producer of “Park”, Madants then undertook production of a second Greek film – “Pity”. Directed by Babis Makridis, and based on a screenplay co-written by Efthimis Filippou, an Oscar nominee for his screenplay for “Lobster”, the film had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Festival. Madants was also a co-producer of the Icelandic tragicomedy “Under the Tree”, directed by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, which premiered in the Orizzonti competition of the 74th International Film Festival in Venice.

Other productions made by Madants include the science-fiction film “High Life”, directed by an undisputed icon of French cinema – Claire Denis – and with a star-studded cast including Juliette Binoche, Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth and Agata Buzek.

Screen Daily’s list of producers to watch doesn’t only focus on representatives working in the film industry superpowers, such as the United States or the UK, but it also features people working in many other countries around the world as well.

Translated by Paweł Włochacz