Zinc Media Group Acquires Edge Picture Company – Global Bulletin

Naman Ramachandran
·4 min read
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ACQUISITION

Factual content specialist Zinc Media Group has fundraised £5 million ($6.1 million) and is using £2.1 million of it towards acquiring award-winning production company The Edge Picture Company, which operates from its bases in London, Doha, Vancouver and Paris. The rest of the cash will be invested in talent, potential IP, and in future acquisitions and collaborations. The Edge’s clients include Amazon, BT Group and FIFA.

The Edge joins Zinc Media Group at the end of August, subject to approval by Zinc shareholders. The Edge will continue to operate in line with other companies wholly owned by Zinc Media Group and it will continue to be run by the same management team, but benefit from the opportunities presented by being part of an enlarged organisation.

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Zinc’s TV business includes the labels current affairs, contemporary history and investigations focused Brook Lapping, which was recently commissioned for “Tom Daley: Illegal To Be Me,” a 1×60’ film for BBC One and iPlayer, that follows the Olympic gold medallist and double world champion diver on his journey to some of the Commonwealth’s most homophobic countries; Rex, home of popular factual and documentaries; Red Sauce, home of factual entertainment and formats from London and U.K. regions; Tern Television, the U.K. nations Nations factual producer with production centres in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Belfast; Supercollider, home of genre-blending content for TV and brands; history, archaeology, natural history, arts and music focused Blakeway; and Films of Record, focused on access documentaries.

FESTIVAL

Docslisboa (Oct. 6-16) has unveiled five films each from its From the Earth to the Moon and Heart Beat strands. The life and work of Heavy Metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio is featured in “DIO: Dreamers Never Die,” by Don Argott and Demian Fenton. “In Dreaming Walls,” directors Amélie van Elmbt and Maya Duverdier explore the history of the Chelsea Hotel, home to artists, filmmakers and musicians in the 1960s, including Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen and Stanley Kubrick, and whose future seems compromised due to the gentrification that is sweeping the city of New York.

“Still Working 9 to 5,” by Camille Hardman and Gary Lane, examines the struggles of gender equality and labor discrimination in the context of the U.S, from the late 1970s to the #MeToo movement. Luísa Sequeira and Luísa Marinho’s “What Words Can Do” explores the impact of the censored book “New Portuguese Letters” on the feminist movement in the international context. In “Dancing Pina,” Florian Heinzen-Ziob follows the rehearsals of two dance companies that re-enact work by Pina Bausch.

“The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft,” by Werner Herzog, is an elegy on the French volcanologist couple. In “To the End,” Rachel Lears follows four environmental activists, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in the Green New Deal proposal to reduce carbon emissions and reshape the U.S. economy.

“Secret Friend,” by Maria Augusta Ramos, follows a major journalistic investigation case carried out by The Intercept Brazilian team, in a reflection on the political, legal and and the ethical role of the press. In “Goodbye, Captain,” filmmakers Vincent Carelli and Tatiana Almeida build a posthumous portrait of Krohokrenhum, leader and central figure of resistance of the Gavião indigenous people, in the interior of the state of Pará, in Brazil.

Rithy Panh will be in Lisbon with his Berlin-winning film “Everything Will Be OK,” which takes place in a dystopian future and analyzes the history of totalitarianism and democracy.

TRAILER

The trailer for British psychological thriller “Marooned Awakening,” starring Murray McArthur (“The Northman”), Tilly Keeper (“You”), Tim McInnerny (“Notting Hill”) and Cameron Ashplant “The Last Bus”), has been released. The film follows Alex (Ashplant), who is offered a job as a journalist by the National Press editor-in chief (McInnerny). Alex uses this opportunity to escape his island home, a decision contested by his father (McArthur), a grieving fisherman, and also by his longtime girlfriend, Emily (Keeper). Before setting off overseas, Alex embarks on one final investigation to report a local boat accident. But the story doesn’t appear to add up.

Shot in Guernsey, the film is produced by Across the Channel Productions and Ivy Gate Films. It is the narrative debut of documentary director, Musaab Mustafa.

Watch the trailer here:

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