‘The Moneychanger’s’ Federico Veiroj Launches Content Firm Keen Tales (EXCLUSIVE)

John Hopewell
·2 min read

Uruguay-based director Federico Veiroj (pictured, left), a fixture at the Toronto and San Sebastian Film Festivals, has launched a new company, Keen Tales, which aims to create English-language stories and content for cinema and streaming platforms.

Keen Tales’ intended customers are U.S.-based production companies, and topics will be “thought strategically considering their distribution capacity in the global market,” Veiroj, whose five features have played both Toronto and San Sebastian, told Variety.

U.S. and Uruguay-based, Keen Tales has been co-founded with Martín Molinaro (pictured, right), founding partner of creative agency Kozó, with offices in Argentina, Uruguay and the U.S., and also a newspaper comic strip writer.

Keen Tales’ first slate is called ‘4 + 4,’ a group of eight projects, including four movies and four series, marked by a diversity of genres, formats and audiences, ranging from literary adaptations — strong stories with character-driven content, the partners said — to original, present-day dramatic comedies.

First up is “The Plot,” based on the graphic novel by U.S. cartoonist and writer Will Eisner (“The Spirit” “A Contract With God), which is set in the present but with characters traveling back to the 19th and 20th centuries. A screenwriter in Argentina and another in the U.S. are working on the project.

Also on the slate is “Maynard,” a limited series narrating the decisive moments in the little-known but adventure-packed private life of economist John Maynard Keynes. Keen Tales has optioned the official biography written by Robert Skidelsky, who is part of the project.

Each project on the slate has specific writing talent attached, and will be sold on an individual basis, Veiroj said. Though renowned as a writer-director — his “A Useful Life” won San Sebastian’s Films in Progress, while “The Apostate” won the Fipresci prize — Veiroj underscored that Keen Tales was not set up to develop projects that he would go on to direct.

“The key to Keen Tales, for Martín Molinaro and myself, is the team of screenwriters and researchers that we lead, its talent and the focus on building the strength of stories,” Veiroj said.

“We can count on private investment for the development of projects, which has allowed us to set up a team with broad-ranging expertise,” Molinaro added.

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