EXCLUSIVE: Production veteran and President Obama photographer Anna Wilding has launched a production company, Broader Horizons Entertainment (BHE), and is working to raise $50M for a content fund.
The company has secured IP and will be driven-by feature film, with sports, music and adventure also part of the plan, founder Anna Wilding told Deadline. It’s backed by unnamed private investment sources.
BHE’s first project is music doc Woodstock: Age of Innocence, which is nearly through production but has stopped in solidarity with the strikes and to allow IATSE crews who don’t want to cross the picket line grace. BHE soft-launched as it went into production but is officially debuting now.
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The doc revisits the Woodstock music festival, with Wilding producing, directing and hosting. Also on board is American Idol casting producer Julie Donsky, editor Heidi Scharfe and composer Charles David Dealer. Private investors out of Wyoming and Atlanta are backing the film.
“While the strikes iron themelves out we can always create and distribute with or without the streamers or studios,” said Wilding. “The exhibitors’ doors are open. I have distributed direct successfully before. For the right movie it is a great way to go. Studio distribution is great but there are just many way to get a film out there if the story is urgent or important enough.”
Wilding previously ran the London-based Moving Horse Pictures and has worked at LA-based production companies. Besides her exec work, she is known for the Celebrate Hope photography Collection. Wilding was embedded in the White House between 2015-2017 as part of the inner press corps and was given access to President Barack Obama. She has, for the past four years, been consulting for VC businesses, investment firms and produces in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.
Alongside building her new production business, Wilding said she has teamed with a pair of financial experts from the banking and accountancy sectors to secure $50M for her female-focused Broader Horizon Opportunity Fund. Deadline understands both are senior figures in the UK and U.S. banking sectors.
“There is a lack of accountability at the studios — in fact, at the industry full stop,” said Wilding. “We want to change that and be globally investor friendly. We are set up to do that. Primarily my mission is compelled, though, by the lack of capital afforded to women. It is 2023 and we live in an era where it is imperative women hold the reins to their own funding and IP.”
According to PitchBook data, only all-female start ups took only 1.9% of allocated venture capital in the U.S. last year. “Our industry is miles behind other industries in awarding funds to women,” said Wilding.
“We aim to do things a little differently in structure, operations and distribution borne of years of expertise and wisdom and insights gleaned,” said Wilding of the production company and fund. “Our mission is one of global storytelling and creating opportunity for existing established female and diverse heads of departments, C-suite executives and talent.”
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