On the heels of one of its directors, Daniel Bird, earning inclusion into SHOOT‘s 9th annual New Directors Showcase which premiered on May 10 at the DGA Theatre in New York, international production company Savage, headquartered in Prague, announced that it has opened a New York office.
Savage’s first stateside operation is being headed by the company’s founder, executive producer Pavla Burgetova Callegari. Prior to Savage, she was the director of international operations at Prague’s Stillking Films where she grew that company’s network across Europe, South America, South Africa and Asia. Her experience also spans running productions as exec producer at Bright Pictures in N.Y. and serving as a content consultant for The Mill.
Joining her at Savage N.Y. is executive producer Megan Kelly whose credentials include being head of production at Public Domain, CZAR.US and The Sweet Shop, and executive producer in the video content department of Publicis Modem.
Savage has an international roster of directors and has thus far this year turned out in excess of 20 productions for worldwide clients such as Pepsi, Kodak, Snickers and Mitsubishi. More directorial signings are planned for the second half of the year, including U.S. directors. Bird, incidentally, got into SHOOT‘s New Directors Showcase largely on the strength of his online spot “Facebook Unfriend Coal” for Greenpeace.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More