Mexico’s Piano Expands to Germany, Colombia, Moves Into TV (EXCLUSIVE)

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Mexico’s Piano, which is the producer of Abel Ferrara’s “Siberia” and upcoming films from Leos Carax, Mia Hansen-Love and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is expanding into Germany and Colombia, incorporating Diana Bustamante and Ingmar Trost as producer partners.

Julio Chavezmontes heads Piano. The expanded entity’s initial focus will be to establish itself as a creator of premium television content for international audiences, and as a provider of top-level production services in all three countries, said Chavezmontes. It was also continue to make high-profile, auteur-driven, festival-winning movies.

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Both Bustamante and Trost are well-known figures on the international production scene. Bustamante — whose credits include celebrated foundational titles in Colombia’s still young modern cinema such as “The Wind Journeys,” “Crab Trap” and Cannes Camera d’Or and Critics’ Week winner “Land and Shade” — will head up Piano Colombia.

Trost, producer of Ilian Metev’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner “3/4,” Benjamin Naishtat’s San Sebastian-prized “Rojo” and Kristi Jacobson’s News & Documentary Emmy-winning “Solitary,” will run Piano’s German office in Cologne, with an additional presence in Berlin.

Colombia and Germany operate some of the most attractive international shoot incentives in Latin America and Europe. Competitive drama series production requires access to financial facilities that few art film companies, however successful, possess on their own.

Operating in three of the top film and television industries in the world “gives us unprecedented resources to develop and produce cutting-edge content for a truly global audience, at a much larger scale than before,” Chavezmontes said.

Piano’s expansion is also a natural evolution, Chavezmontes added, stemming “from a belief that international partnerships strengthen and enrich independent cinema, not only as a means of production, but also as a way of telling stories. The results are highly original visions, like ‘Siberia,’ ‘Memoria,’ ‘Annette’ and ‘Bergman Island.’”

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