Producer Ted Hope Discusses Decades-Long Career, Equal Representation and Impending ‘Blooming of Expression’
variety.comRafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor As part of this year’s industry program at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), producer Ted Hope sat down with the festival’s artistic director Orwa Nyrabia for an in-depth conversation about his career in U.S.
independent film, the future of the industry, and the ways in which filmmakers and audiences are “trained by major players to adapt and conform to a creative process that colors only between the lines.” Hope, who is at IDFA to support Vanessa Hope’s “Invisible Nation,” has navigated the independent filmmaking scene since the late 80s.
The executive has produced over 70 films including Todd Solondz’s “Happiness” and, most recently, Roger Ross William’s fiction debut, “Cassandro.” From 2014 to 2020, Hope headed Amazon’s Original Movies. “I spent most of my life looking for a mentor or father figure and found virtually none, and as a result wanted to give people what I longed for,” said Hope of his initial motivations for entering the industry.
The producer, who lost his father at a young age, credits his mother’s love of cinema as a massive influence in his own cinephilia, lovingly reminiscing about watching films by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as a child.
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