Sports Broadcaster ISB Launches ISB Films Unit Headed by U.S. Producer Paul Miller (EXCLUSIVE)

Nick Vivarelli
·2 min read

International Sports Broadcasting, which specializes in broadcasting and distribution of live sports events including the Olympics, is officially launching a standalone film shingle called ISB Films at the EFM.

The CEO of Madrid-based ISB Films is ISB managing director Ursula Romero. As the new company’s head of film, Romero has hired U.S. producer Paul Miller, a former Doha Film Institute head of finance whose production credits include David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels,” “Prozac Nation” and John Travolta-starrer “A Love Song for Bobby Long.”

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ISB Films — which has been active under the radar for a while — executive produced Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig’s “The Movie Teller,” which launched last year from Toronto, and Cold War thriller “Winter of the Crow,” toplining Lesley Manville (“The Crown”), for which Hanway is launching sales at the EFM.

Their upcoming titles include feature doc “The Invisible Contract,” directed by Luciana Kaplan (“Rush Hour”), which intimately portrays the lives and experiences of the women who clean the streets of Mexico City; and “Hijas del Agua,” a coming-of-age story directed by Jacques Toulemonde about a group of women who find a way out of the Colombian slums through synchronized swimming.

“Since the worlds of live, non-scripted, and scripted content are becoming more and more intertwined we finally decided to create a separate film and documentary division,” Romero said in a statement. “I feel that there are so many untold hero stories outside the sports’ world waiting to be discovered.”

Commented Miller: “It’s exciting to join forces with Ursula and her company who have such an international outlook on stories and filmmakers from around the world to create high-quality content that inspires audiences worldwide.”

As is clear from their current slate, ISB Films — which can fully finance development and co-finance productions as a Spanish co-producer through its own equity fund — is keen to support stories and filmmakers from diverse backgrounds on a wide range of themes. But of course, because of ISB TV’s strong ties to the sports world, ISB Films is open to sports-related stories that transcend the genre and focus on the human elements of sports. “This includes projects that merge narrative storytelling with live sporting events to create content that can reach and inspire a global audience,” the statement noted.

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