‘Athena’ Producer Iconoclast Powers Next Projects by Leo Berne, Elias Belkeddar, Said Belktibia (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Iconoclast, the international production group behind Romain Gavras’ Venice competition film “Athena,” is setting a wide-ranging slate of projects with emerging filmmakers from different audiovisual fields, including Leo Berne from the artists collective Megaforce, and Elias Belkeddar and Said Belktibia from the collective Kourtrajmé.

The company is also producing the next projects of Harmony Korine and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, among others. In a rare interview, Nicolas Lhermitte, who co-founded Iconoclast with Mourad Belkeddar, says the company has emerged from the pandemic with a record number of developed projects. “We took the opportunity during the pandemic to develop a lot of projects, and today we have around 30 projects in the pipeline, spanning films and series that are set up at our studios in France, the U.S.

and Germany,” says Lhermitte, who adds that Iconoclast aspired to “accompany multi-disciplinary artists to venture from one field to another, films, TV series, branded content, and music videos.” The company is getting ready to shoot “Rokya,” the feature debut of Belktibia, a story of witches set in a Parisian suburb, starring Golshifteh Farahani (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”) and co-written with Elias Belkeddar and Louis Penicaut (“The Bureau”).

Belktibia previously directed the short “Ghettotube,” which played at Tribeca. The Jokers will distribute “Rokya” in France.