The Innovators
This featured AFM Session puts the spotlight on visionaries of the independent industry as they discuss their companies and views on what is shaping the business of film today and what the future holds.
Session I
Stuart Ford, Chairman & CEO, AGC Studios
Moderator
Jeremy Kay, Screen International
Session II
Sébastien Raybaud, Founder & CEO, Anton
Moderator
Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter
Speakers
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Jeremy KayAmericas Editor, ScreendailyJeremy Kay is Americas editor of the international trade publication Screendaily. From his Los Angeles hub he regularly travels to the major markets and festivals on the calendar to report on market news and interview talent and executives.
Besides focusing on the independent business, festivals and markets, Kay reports on production and financing, streamer and studio activity, the Canadian and Latin American film industries, and awards season.
He has moderated panels at TIFF, Cannes, AFM, Ventana Sur and other top tier events on the circuit.
As a freelancer Kay has written on film for The Guardian and The Telegraph, and has written more broadly on news and sport for Time Out, The Independent On Sunday, The Express, and The Sunday Irish Tribune.
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Scott RoxboroughEuropean Bureau Chief, The Hollywood ReporterScott Roxborough is the European Bureau Chief for The Hollywood Reporter. He has been reporting on the international film and television industry for more than 20 years. He lives in Germany.
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Sébastien RaybaudProducer Sébastien Raybaud is the founder and CEO of Anton, the global production, finance and sales company, known for high-quality and commercially successful films and TV series. Sébastien launched Anton in 2011 with an $250 million slate funding deal with StudioCanal, marking the first institutional slate funding deal in the European film industry. The company is headquartered in London, with offices in L.A. and Berlin.
Under the Anton banner, Sébastien produced or executive produced the 2023 TIFF title The End We Start From starring Jodie Comer and Benedict Cumberbatch; Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s acclaimed 2023 Berlin title Femme, starring George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett; and Memoir of a Snail, the stop motion animated feature from Academy Award-winner Adam Elliott, which recently took home the top Cristal Award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
In addition to the aforementioned films, Sébastien’s additional producing credits include Greenland: Migration starring Gerard Butler, who reprises his role in the sequel to Anton’s blockbuster Greenland; David Mackenzie’s thriller Fuze starring Theo James and Aaron Taylor Johnson; Martin Campbell’s Cleaner starring Daisy Ridley and Clive Owen; Mothers’ Instinct starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway; the action thriller Canary Black, starring Kate Beckinsale and Rupert Friend; Jamie Child’s thriller Jackdaw, starring Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Jenna Coleman; and the indie horror film The Night House.
Current and past Anton projects also include the survival thriller A Prayer for the Dying starring Johnny Flynn and John C. Reilly; The Bookie & The Bruiser starring Vince Vaughn and Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody; Night of the Zoopocalypse, a CGI animated feature from the creators of Ice Age, The Incredibles and Despicable Me; beloved global family fare including Paddington and Shaun the Sheep; acclaimed series such as BBC/HBO’s fantasy drama His Dark Materials, Sally Wainwright’s historical drama Gentleman Jack, and the romantic drama The Pursuit of Love starring Lily James, Andrew Scott and Dominic West; and Claude Barras’ animated feature Savages which enjoyed its World Premiere this year in Official Selection at Cannes.
Sébastien began his career at European production company StudioCanal in mergers and acquisitions and went on to co-chair the media and structured finance teams in Europe for Société Générale. He received a Masters in Management from HEC and both an MA in Philosophy and an MA in Business Law from La Sorbonne.
Sébastien hails from Nice and currently resides in London.
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Stuart FordChairman and Chief Executive Officer, AGC StudiosLos Angeles based Stuart Ford is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AGC Studios and is one of the most experienced and prolific independent film and television producers, financiers and entrepreneurs working in the entertainment industry today. UK born and Oxford University educated, Ford is a former entertainment attorney and Miramax Films senior studio executive who in 2007 founded IM Global, which over the next ten years he built into one of the industry’s leading independent film and television production, financing and sales platforms with ancillary talent management and corporate publicity businesses across North America, South East Asia, India, Latin America and Europe.
In February 2018 Ford launched so-called “super-indie” AGC Studios, an international film and television production and licensing company that develops, produces, finances and globally licenses a diverse portfolio of feature films, scripted, unscripted and factual content with major corporate backing from Silicon Valley, Latin America and the Middle East. Since its inception AGC has been involved with more than 45 major film and television productions.
As a producer and financier Ford has worked with a huge array of leading directors such as Martin Scorsese, Gary Ross, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard, Doug Liman, Neil Burger, James Wan, Scott Derrickson, Roland Emmerich, Tom Ford and Richard Linklater. He has produced or executive produced more than seventy films and television shows and has assembled in excess of $2 billion in independent production financing from North America, India, China, Latin America and the Middle East during his career.
Ford has also established AGC Television as a leading independent studio with a variety of heavyweight scripted shows. Now streaming, “Those About To Die” had a $165m budget for its first season and is one of the biggest scale television shows ever financed by an independent studio.
Aside from being an acknowledged industry expert and innovator in assembling film and television financing and distribution strategies, Ford has been one of the industry’s leading champions of international cinema and in tandem with his prolific Hollywood output has launched successful sales and distribution businesses respectively specializing in Latin American, Chinese language and Bollywood content as well as a Beijing based corporate PR company Go Global and a Latinx talent management company Valor Entertainment. Ford also has extensive experience working alongside the Arabic language film and television community including acting as executive producer and worldwide distributor on $40m Arabic language thriller “Al Kameen” from Pierre Morel and $100m+ Arabian epic “Desert Warrior” from Rupert Wyatt.
In 2015 IM Global and Ford were the recipient of Variety’s Achievement in International Film Award and Ford has also been listed by the UK’s Guardian newspaper as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Global Cinema. In May of 2023, Ford was the recipient of Variety’s “Billion Dollar Producer” award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Ford is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy as well as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He has been profiled in 2021, 2022 and 2023 amongst the annual Variety 500 most influential figures in global entertainment.
