Oceana Studios, a global entertainment company specializing in films and content production, has officially opened movie and financing divisions. The first major project is the just announced feature Big Gold Brick starring Andy Garcia, Emory Cohen, Oscar Isaac, Lucy Hale and Megan Fox. Sawaf is working as a producer on the movie and Oceana Studios is a financier on the film, which will be directed by Brian Pestos.
“Oceana is about producing and financing films that move audiences around the world,” said producer/director/writer Danny Sawaf, founder of Oceana. According to Sawaf, in addition to Big Gold Brick, Oceana Studios has four more features in development. “The game plan for the studio is to produce five to six films per year,” related Sawaf. “The plan is to build Oceana Studios as a brand itself, where audiences flock to see our releases.” Films in development include Robbery 101, a stylized heist comedy film from writer Scott Reynolds, directors Cary Murnion and Jon Milott, and producer Nick Moceri; La Vida Coca, a gangster anthology consisting of five short films to be directed by five different directors on the Oceana Studios roster; and Open Waters, a thriller written and directed by Sikandar Sidhu about a celebrity actor getting abducted by a fanatical director. Also being produced is an animated feature directed by Lubomir Arsov.
Oceana wants to be a complete studio, said Sawaf. To this end his company recently acquired a percentage of Hanzo Films, an award-winning commercial production house in Dubai. Oceana is also close to partnering with select post houses in both Asia and Europe. “We’ve been strategically forming alliances with companies around the world and our ambitions are much greater than just production and post, we plan to vertically integrate over time,” noted Sawaf.
Oceana’s body of work spans film, TV, commercials and other content forms.
