Tarak Ben Ammar Expands Italy Operations by Buying Unscripted Outfit Blu Yazmine, Enters Talks to Build Rome Studios (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent Franco-Tunisian film and TV entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar is expanding the scope of his Italian operations by buying local unscripted production outfit Blu Yazmine, while also entering talks to build a large studio complex in Rome.
Though Ben Ammar’s ambition to build sprawling new filming facilities in the Italian capital are in advanced talks but not fully concrete, the purchase of a majority stake in Blu Yazmine via his Rome-based Eagle Pictures has been closed.
Eagle Pictures, which is headed by former Mediaset exec Andrea Goretti, is Italy’s top indie film distributor thanks to its deals with Paramount and Sony Pictures, whose titles they release exclusively in Italian cinemas.
The Rome-based company is also becoming increasingly active in the TV sphere. The deal that Eagle has with Sony also involves a partnership to co-produce six pictures, one of which is the upcoming Denzel Washington-starrer “The Equalizer 3,” which was shot entirely in Italy.
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