Topic Studios promotes Ryan Heller to EVP, film and documentary

EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Heller has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Film & Documentary at Topic Studios, First Look Media’s award-winning studio.

In his new role, he will continue to lead the film group while adding feature-length documentaries to his practice, formalizing an area in which he was already active. He will co-lead the documentation department with Vice President of Nonfiction Christine Connor and will continue to report to CEO Michael Bloom.

Heller was a key figure in the launch and critical success of Topic Studios, which has been building and managing its feature films through development, financing, production and distribution since 2018. Most recently, Heller served as Senior Vice President of Film and Acquisitions.

He has long been a proponent of new directorial voices and in recent years has helmed groundbreaking projects such as psychological horror. take care and the award-winning buddy comedy, The climb. Rising star director Nikyatu Jusu’s former title was sold by Blumhouse and Amazon last March after becoming the first horror film to win the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. The latter, directed by Michael Angelo Covino, turned out to be one of the most popular indies of recent times and was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics after winning the Un Certain Regard Award at its Cannes premiere.

Heller directed all three Topic Studios films slated to premiere at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. Brandon Cronenberg’s first film is the sci-fi horror infinity pool, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth, was produced in association with Neon and will bow in the midnight section. The other two are the titles of the Dramatic Competition defects and theater campeach marking the directorial debut of Randall Park and the duo of Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman.

Other notable projects Heller has held for Topic Studios include the Oscar-nominated drama Princess Diana, directed by Pablo Larraín spencerdistributed with Neon, Kevin Macdonald’s Golden Globe-winning legal thriller The Mauritanian for STXfilms and the PGA award-winning and Emmy-winning HBO documentaries Wave of 100 feet, which will soon return for a second season. Notable documentary projects for which he served as executive producer include that of Ry Russo-Young nuclear family for HBO; Lucy Walker’s exposure of the California wildfires Bring your own brigade for Paramount+; and Lizzie Gottlieb’s film Turn every page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb about literary titans of the same name.

“Ryan has been an integral part of Topic Studios’ rapid growth over the past several years,” said First Look Media’s Bloom. “He is the rare film executive whose creative vision is matched by his sharp business acumen, and he will play a key role as we accelerate our film and documentary business and continue to champion the creative voices and unique, critically acclaimed projects that serve .” to be known.”

Produced by Topic Studios take carestarring Anna Diop, opened in select theaters on November 23 and on Prime Video on December 16. Next up for the company is the Tribeca premiere comedy God’s time from new filmmaker Daniel Antebi, to be released on February 24 by IFC Films.

Other notable narrative titles are those of Adam Leon Italian Studies, starring Oscar nominee Vanessa Kirby, for Magnolia Pictures; the uplifting Euros Lyn directed horse racing film dream house with Toni Collette and Damian Lewis, released with Bleecker Street; and the IFC Films meta-genre bender The Nowhere InnWritten by and featuring Carrie Brownstein and St.

Other documentaries from the company include Oscar-nominated Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry Attica for Showtime; Leonard Bernstein’s portrait of Douglas Tirola Amber’s wall; the winner of the GLAAD Media Prize Mucho Mucho Amor for Netflix; the ACLU-focused The fight, released in association with Magnolia Pictures; and the Independent Spirit Award nominated documentaries love cheating for show time.