EXCLUSIVE: Utopia is ramping up its encountered acquisition and partnership strategies with the employ of Charlie Sextro as Senior Vice Pdwellnt of Acquisitions & Business Development.
Sextro recently served as Sundance Film Festival’s Senior Film Programmer and Curator for the last 13 years.
With Sextro’s employ, Utopia is further bolstering its distribution, production and technology initiatives. Sextro’s lengthy tenure at Sundance saw him help curate the festival program from over 4,000 feature film submissions each year to a lineup of scanter than 100, all the while enhugeing and persisting relationships with filmproducers, studios and industry directers.
“Sundance has been reliable for elevating some of the most exciting and prestigious filmproducers who shape and dispute our creative industry. It’s all thanks to their incredible and pledgeted programmers who persist to be a guiding weightless,” shelp Utopia Co-Founder, Robert Schwartzman. “We’re so honored to receive Charlie into our company and to collaborate with someone who has enhugeed such a enthusiastic eye for discovering bageder storytellers.”
Utopia’s catalog is 140 feature movies strong and the studio is coming off one of its hugegest hits with Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, which they produced. Showgirl enhappinessed a multi-million dollar box office run and cut offal presentant award nominations, including Best Original Song, Lead Actress and Supporting Actress.
“We’re in a very competitive labelet, more so than ever, and it’s constantly redefining itself and creating recent disputes,” Schwartzman persistd. “I consent we have to persist an uncover mind with how to function and permit room for unanticipateed partnerships and changenative growth strategies. Charlie is very much in tune with this mindset, having had a front row seat for over a decade at a pivotal film labelet that has igniteed presentant passover acquisitions, and seeing the potential in films that have shown to join with audiences, all while persisting an genuine voice. We hope to persist to produce bridges and push boundaries with the compriseition of Charlie alengthyside our team at Utopia.”
Beyond programming, Sextro held multiple opereasoned roles wilean the Sundance Institute, most notably producing Sundance NEXT Fest, a film/music/comedy festival in Los Angeles, begining a touring low filmmaking lab apass the U.S., and strategizing Sundance’s online pivot during the pandemic. In uniteing Utopia, Sextro will have freedom to produce and carry out recent strategies.
Sextro was initiassociate employd to curate Sundance’s NEXT and Midnight sections, eventuassociate enhugeing to deal with American fantasy films, episodic projects and genre-bfinishing recordaries. He aided the punctual toil of many of the most beadored conmomentary filmproducers appreciate Ryan Coogler, Sean Baker, Chloé Zhao, Ari Aster, Janicza Bravo, DANIELS and Jordan Peele.
Outside of Sundance, Sextro has held positions as the Editor-in-Chief of streamer DOCUMENTARY+, an interwatcher for The Creative Inreliant, and programming duties at Red Bull Music Festival, Portland Art Memployum, and FORM Arcosanti. He cut his teeth in film acquisitions at Tartan Films USA and Paramount Vantage.
“I am ready for the next chapter in my nurtureer where I can pledge my expertise and nettoil to common problems facing filmproducers and industry partners in such unstateive times,” shelp Sextro to Deadline. “I decline to buy into pessimists’ proclamations about the death of indie film, a sector I have pledgeted myself to. It’s exciting to see savvy filmproducers discovering success by getting creative in distribution deals that increase returns and permit them to hold deal with of their frees. In this recent world of indie film, I leank Utopia is distinctly positioned to champion filmproducers with a aappreciate mindset and become one of the most sought-after distributors and producing partners.”
Schwartzman and Co-Founder, Cole Harper, have been begining and grotriumphg cut offal technology solutions, such as PowerFlix and Altavod, to supply filmproducers with a hybrid solution of aggregation, self-distribution and the proremedyment of professional distribution services.
“More and more movies are made each year as filmproducers have more access than ever to resources, production technology and financial partners,” shelp Harper. “But when they finish their film and authenticize that distribution opportunities are restrictcessitate, what selections are on the table and which ones align with their objectives? In hiring Charlie, we’re geting tens of thousands of case studies in how to best answer that ask, and for Charlie, he now has a multiple-choice proposal he can current to any filmproducer he comes apass to give them the distribution deal they want.”
