“Can we embrace globality without losing locality?”
This simple but fraught question, which is key to the future of filmmaking, was raised by Glenn Gainor during his masterclass, moderated by Ankler executive editor Alison Brower, on June 27 at the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta. Gainor is the head of physical production for original movies at Amazon MGM Studios, and his topic was “The Future Producer,” a natural theme for the three-decade Hollywood veteran who launched and led Sony Innovation Studios during his tenure at Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems division.
Gainor’s query to the crowd also spoke to the heart of the festival, which was launched three years ago to help celebrate and promote Malta’s film industry. Malta is the EU’s smallest country, but it continues to compete for the world’s biggest productions — well beyond the sword-and-sandal genre you might expect — by building new facilities and upskilling its entertainment workforce, with film commissioner Johann Grech leading the charge. The country offers a cash rebate of up to 40 percent for qualifying productions, and in the last five years, its film industry has pumped €1 billion (or close to $1.2 billion) into the country’s economy. “For every euro we invest,” Grech said, “the industry generates at minimum three euros back.”
Among the island nation’s unique opportunities are its historic forts and medieval streets, featured in both Gladiator films, Napoleon, Game of Thrones and Jurassic World Rebirth, which just opened to $318 million at the worldwide box office. In Steven Spielberg’s 2005 historical drama Munich, Malta stood in for seven different countries, Israel to Italy. There are also exquisite sea and underwater locations (Conan the Barbarian, By the Sea, The Count of Monte Cristo), particularly around the country’s second-largest island, Gozo. Journalists and VIPs at the festival toured many of these locations with DiveMed’s Abigail Bord, who has worked as dive supervisor on multiple Malta productions.
Also a unique draw for filmmakers are two massive water tanks with a natural sea horizon (there are only a handful of such horizon tanks worldwide), used in films from U-571 to Last Breath. Malta Film Studios’ operations manager Alan Cassar manages the tanks and has SFX credits on more than a dozen films along with his own portfolio as a director. Grech is currently raising money and support for a master plan that would add a state-of-the-art interior soundstage as well as production offices and other facilities — he estimates the cost at €60-€80 million (or $71-$94 million).
“Luckily, we have a government that understands the film business,” Grech said, noting that in 2023 (thanks in large part to the production of Gladiator II), the film industry was responsible for 18 percent of Malta’s economic growth. The festival, he added, “is a strategic tool to get more projects to Malta, but at the end of the day, this platform that we created is not just about Malta, but it’s about sharing other stories from different nations and different cultures.”
Mediterrane’s third edition was a level-up for the fest and drew a slew of Hollywood players for its closing weekend — actors Josh Gad, Anna Camp, Chris Perfetti, Karen Pittman and Jared Harris, directors Jake Schreier and Jon Watts, Meridian Pictures CEO Eric Paquette, screenwriter Jessica Postigo, AMC Studios exec Jason Gold and more. Many were Malta first-timers and wowed by range of filming opportunities there and the local passion for cinema.
Asked to name a dream project that he’d like to attract to Malta, Grech said he hoped the country would be “a strong candidate for the next James Bond movie.” The future of 007 also came up during Gainor’s masterclass, which took place less than 48 hours after Amazon MGM Studios had announced Denis Villeneuve as the director of the next James Bond film, whose lead producers are Amy Pascal and David Heyman. “Amy is a wonderful producer. I can speak to that personally,” said Gainor, whose Sony tenure crossed over with Pascal’s time as film chair. “She and David Heyman are going to do an amazing job.”
While he took a traditional path as a producer — notching an early success with Sundance standout Happy, Texas and going on to make films including Friends With Benefits, Think Like a Man, Red One and more than 40 others — Gainor has always looked ahead at where the industry is going, not just where it’s been. With all the disruptions he’s seen — the emergence of streaming, new production tech and the proliferation of distribution platforms and mechanisms — one thing about producing hasn’t changed: “It’s really important that whatever you make needs a sense of urgency,” Gainor said. “You really need to break through the noise… If you’re going to spend all that effort to make something, you’ve got to really believe in it, and you have to really believe that people need to see it, not want to see it.”
Gainor gave his masterclass at Fort Ricasoli in the Maltese port village of Kalkara, a 17th-century bastion that served as a hub for workshops and conversations — directors Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) and Schreier (Thunderbolts*) also gave masterclasses. Fort Ricasoli was also the dramatic backdrop for many of the fest’s evening screenings, including a June 23 showing of Murder on the Orient Express that was followed by Brower’s Q&A with star Gad.
Gad shared his experiences from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic and spoke about future projects — the Chris Farley biopic he’s set to direct and the upcoming sequel to Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs. “I’ve been a diehard Mel Brooks fan from my earliest memories,” said Gad, who’ll be a star, writer and producer on the project. “For me, the legacy of Mel and these movies that had such a monumental influence — on not only me but so many people — is something I take very seriously.”
When he pitched Brooks on the idea about three years ago, Gad recalled the comedy icon responded, “‘Yes, I’ve been waiting 35 years for this call.’ And it’s just been an incredible collaborative experience.”
Under the leadership of festival director Ray Calleja and curator Mark Adams, this year’s Mediterrane Film Festival was anchored by a main competition section featuring 10 films from countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, including Hot Milk (a U.K. feature filmed in Spain) and a Malta original and world premiere, Joshua Cassar Gaspar’s The Theft of the Caravaggio. The competition jury was led by Hardwicke and Oscar-winning Avatar and Lincoln production designer Rick Carter. They were joined by American costume designer Charlese Antoinette, two Brits — Oscar-nominated set decorator Elli Griff (Napoleon) and production designer James Price (an Oscar winner for Poor Things) — and two Maltese veterans, actor-director-producer Joseph Vassallo, who starred in Netflix’s From Scratch and Paramount+’s The Offer, and director Mario Phillip Azzopardi.
The fest’s out-of-competition section highlighted top titles previously screened at the Berlinale, Sundance and beyond, while the Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) section offered a lineup of features and documentaries with environmental themes. Also showing throughout the fest and open to the public were major Malta-filmed Hollywood titles from Popeye to Cutthroat Island.
The 1953 drama Malta Story, starring Alec Guinness and featuring hundreds of Maltese extras, captured a key era for the country ahead of its independence: As a British colony during WWII, Malta was a crucial base for both the U.K. and the U.S. and was among the most heavily bombed places in the conflict. This nation of under 600,000 people — whose main island is about the size of Martha’s Vineyard — is steeped in 7,000 years of history, with a haze of mysticism surrounding the legacy of the Knights of Malta, a military and religious order dating back to the Crusades. Malta’s specific culture that welcomes productions from all over the world exemplifies the opportunity and tension that Gainor spoke about: sustaining the local while embracing the global.
The festival wrapped with sparkling style on June 29 with the exuberant Golden Bee Awards ceremony, whose musical numbers, multiple fireworks displays and eye-popping lighting and production design brought Oscars-level spectacle with Euro flair to a crowd of some 2,000. Where the Wind Comes From, a Tunisian film, won the fest’s best feature honor, while Spanish drama 8 was honored for screenplay. Euphoria star Barbie Ferrera received a rising star award, The Last Emperor producer Jeremy Thomas was honored for lifetime achievement and in a surprise appearance, Gladiator star Russell Crowe took the stage to accept the night’s film legend honor from Grech.
“Twenty-six years ago, you could say, in a funny way, I became a man in Malta,” Crowe said. “Whatever films I’d done before then, nothing had the majesty, ambition, budget and ultimately reach of Gladiator. I say ‘became a man’ because it wasn’t an easy production. I had to fight every day for the integrity of the character I was playing, just like the journey of the character himself in a movie. Sometimes you get lucky enough to make something that resonates with people.”
