MK2’s Fionnuala Jamison Talks ‘The Worst Person In The World’ & How The Success Of ‘Moonlight’ Helped Tackle Prejudices In The International Market — London Film Festival

MK2 Managing Director Fionnuala Jamison was the focus of the London Film Festival’s second ‘spotlight’ industry talk Wednesday, during which she provided insights on navigating the international film market, including how regional prejudices can impact how films are sold.

Jamison opened the discussion by speaking about the case of MK2’s 2019 film Atlantics, the debut feature from Mati Diop. The film is set in Senegal and features an all-non-white cast. Jamison said MK2 knew the film could work in English-speaking territories and strong arthouse markets but would struggle with the rest of the world.

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“The very sad reality is that you still have a lot of countries in the world that are very racist, and as soon as a cast of a film is completely one color, it’s not for them. The further East you go, the more problematic,” Jamison said.

She added that attitudes in the market have improved, particularly following the success of Barry Jenkins’ 2016 best picture-winner Moonlight.

“After Moonlight, all of a sudden you have a film that’s gonna be all non-white, and a distributor is like, ‘oh cool,’ and that just didn’t happen before Moonlight,” Jamison said.

Jamison also highlighted that Asian films now fare much better on the international market, a shift she credited to the success of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite and Drive My Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

“You could always sell in the U.S.and UK, but there were a lot of countries like even Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia where it would be like, ‘ah, not even Kore-eda works,’” she said. “Before Like Father, Like Son, not even Kore-eda works was something you heard in a lot of places.”

Elsewhere during the keynote, Jamison spoke at length about some of MK2’s most recent success stories, including Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma and Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. Both films picked up major prizes at Cannes and Joachim Trier’s romantic comedy went on to receive an Oscar nomination.

In the case of The Worst Person in the World, however, Jamison said MK2 knew the film would be “something special,” but they were unsure whether it was the type of film U.S. distributors would be interested in at that time.

“When we first launched it, it was just after Black Lives Matter, and I was like this movie is super white,” she said. “It’s also younger-skewing and there isn’t necessarily a strong political message. I’ve always got a feeling, but I was nervous too, so I was never gonna be like this is a slam dunk even once we saw the film.”

At the tale end of the keynote, Jamison was prompted for her assessment of the industry’s future, and she concluded that she is “very optimistic,” but the level of competition and the falling rates of moviegoing attendance is creating an environment where the quality of films must be strong to attract an audience.

“You need really strong propositions to get people out there,” she said. “And films that are a little bit weak, that have some soft spots, are having a harder time than ever before. Be that for sales and also for theatrically.”

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