EXCLUSIVE: Embankment Movies is making Garbo: Depart Me Alone, a function documentary concerning the enigmatic film star who died in 1990. The doc can have beforehand unseen archive materials together with private pictures of Garbo and letters written by the enduring actress, who’s thought to be one of many all-time greats.
Manufacturing is underway and the movie can have a theatrical launch on the finish of this 12 months earlier than bowing on Sky within the UK in 2025. It’s being made in partnership With Non Cease Leisure and co-produced with Mylla Movies, the Scandi label based by Patrik Andersson and Jakob Abrahamsson. Fremantle is on board for worldwide gross sales.
Lorna Tucker, whose earlier work contains Katharine Hepburn function doc Name Me Kate, will direct. “This can be a pure comply with on to Name Me Kate in a approach as a result of it’s an analogous period, however it’s a very completely different story as a result of right here is anyone who simply walked away from [stardom],” producer Nick Taussig advised Deadline.
Embankment is working with the Swedish Movie Institute and Scott Reisfeld who manages the Garbo property – and people relationships unlocked the trove of latest archive materials. Drama vignettes can be used within the movie to carry to key moments to life .
At age 35, with 4 Academy Award nominations, Garbo immediately retired, by no means to behave once more. Till the tip of her life, a half century later, she fiercely declined all alternatives to return to the display, shunning publicity.
The movie can be a recent retelling of Garbo’s story. “You mainly had a younger lady residing in relative poverty in Sweden who ended up a queen of Hollywood for a time frame, which is extraordinary,” Taussig defined. “There was no privilege, and I believe, for us, it’s very a lot about attempting to inform that, it’s about that story of her rise.”
Embankment has moved into creating its personal content material that performs on each the large and small display. It has partnered with veteran UK producer Kevin Loader and, individually, introduced in Taussig, Malcolm Neaum, Sophie Harmer and Henry Farrington to spice up its non-fiction division. The factual slate contains the just lately introduced Riccardo Servini movie Dwarf Story, picked up by ITV, and Daniel Gordon’s Strike: An Uncivil Battle, concerning the UK miners’ strike.
The financing plan for the function docs sees them have a cinema launch, which means they qualify for UK movie incentives. Taussig, who was the founding father of Salon Footage and produced vogue doc McQueen, stated Embankment will use its movie finance smarts to construct a slate of competition pleasant fare that additionally has mainstream enchantment.
“As an unbiased movie gross sales and financing firm Embankment is used to working with fairly complicated financing fashions,” he stated. “And what which means is that we are able to, for instance, go ‘okay, let’s make this theatrical, let’s make the most of the UK movie tax credit score,’ which many TV manufacturing corporations may not consider.”
By way of Embankment’s subsequent strikes in factual and unscripted, there are extra big-ticket biographical docs are within the works – and a transfer into sequence is afoot. “Singles are simply more durable and more durable to do” Taussig stated. “I believe a spotlight is on talent-led and in addition access-driven sequence, that are one thing Malcom has performed plenty of with Savile Row and others – he has that have of having access to actually attention-grabbing and stunning precincts.”