Rodolphe Buet On Newen Connect Cinema Push & His Enduring Passion For Film: “I Watch ‘Apocalypse Now’ At Least Twice A Year To Refresh My Mind”
17.02.2023 - 10:55
/ deadline.com
Newen Connect CEO Rodolphe Buet is happy to be back in person at the Berlinale’s European Film Market after the three-year Covid-19 hiatus.
“It’s fun to be in Berlin. When I started in the industry in 2005, my first market was Berlin with Studiocanal,” he says.
In the interim, Buet rose through the Studiocanal ranks to become president of distribution and marketing from 2015 to 2017, overseeing the rollout strategies for Paddington and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy among other major films.
He was appointed CEO of Paris-based Newen Connect in 2020, piloting its creation in the wake of TF1’s 100% acquisition of Newen Studios out of the merger of their distribution arms TF1 Studio, Newen Distribution and Reel One International.
He has spent the last three years steadily putting in place a structure in step with the convergence between the audiovisual and cinema worlds, appointing Leona Connell as Chief Commercial Officer last September in a role giving her oversight of international and French markets for both film and TV.
On the eve of the EFM, the company also announced the promotion of Alice Damiani to SVP International Film Sales, taking over from Sabine Chemaly, who had held the role since 2012.
TV dramas and shows make up the bulk of Newen Connect’s slate, but Buet is on a mission to grow the cinema side and the company arrives at the EFM with its strongest feature film slate of recent years.
Highlights include Italian director Piero Messina’s dystopian fantasy reflecting love and loss Another End, starring Gael García Bernal, Renate Reinsve and Bérénice Bejo; Guillaume Maidatchevsky’s live-action animal drama Kina & Yuk and Marco La Via and Hannah Ladoul’s comedy-drama Funny Birds, starring Andrea Riseborough,