Martin Moszkowicz stepped into Deadline’s Zurich Studio where the veteran producer and new Zurich Film Festival President talked about his role, the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, AI and also plans for a new Zurich-based private equity fund.
Moszkowicz, who has been coming to ZFF for a number of years, was named President of the Swiss festival earlier this summer and he said Zurich is “a beautiful festival, a beautiful city and it sits exactly at the right spot in the year.”
The former Constantin Film chief, who has been involved in more than 300 film and TV productions including the Resident Evil and Fack Ju Göhte franchises, is helping the festival with contacts and strategy. He stressed the significance of ZFF’s flagship financing confab Zurich Summit and teased a new fund that he’s helping set up with Zurich-based banks.
“The Summit is a very, very special event,” he told Deadline. “It’s really unique in our industry because it’s not a market. It’s not where people are selling movies. This is really to bring people from various parts of our business together: creative people, directors, distributors, platforms, the money world and that is something we have to get more of in the festival in the next couple of years. That’s one of the strategic things that I think is really important.
“Private equity, I think, is going to be the driving force of our business and the independent world for the next years to come because subsidies are going to dry up, or at least be reduced and the classical, traditional presale model is difficult and under pressure so there has to be other ways to do it.”
He continued: “But I see it very optimistically. There’s a huge space for movies – independent movies – that are going to be created here. And people are doing deals here as we speak. I just came out of a meeting about a huge fund that we’re going to set up with the help of some of the big family offices and banks that are all based on here in Zurich. And when it’s done it’s going to be one of the things that [people] will rely on to make movies in the future.”
Moszkowicz, who stepped down from Constantin in 2024 to focus on his own productions, also gave his thoughts on the upcoming Paramount-Warner Bros merger.
“I really hope that they are going to make a lot of movies and they are going to be strong and forward-facing,” he said. “I don’t think somebody would invest $100 billion in this business if they didn’t think there wasn’t a future in it.”
He added: “There are going to be opportunities to come out of this. I agree that for the independents it could be something that helps. Yes, they will make big movies and yes, they will hopefully make as much as the two studios have done before, maybe a little bit less, but there’s going to be a spot where independent movies can come out.”
Moszkowicz highlighted what he called the two “moonshots” of the summer box office – Kane Parsons’ Backrooms and Curry Barker’s Obsession –, which took a near combined $1BN at the global box office.
“They came out of YouTube and that is what gives me a lot of hope,” he said, adding that “it shows you how attractive our business is to young people who are fascinated with storytelling.”
Moszkowicz also weighed in on his thoughts on the impact of AI in the industry and while he agreed that “of course it has to be regulated”, he views AI as “more of an opportunity.”
“The outlying idea that is the basis for a moonshot doesn’t come from AI,” he said. “From AI you get a probability calculation of everything that is there but what we’re looking for is the stuff that’s not there.”
He continued: “We have to use it, obviously, with a lot of responsibility and it’s going to be, in part, painful because people are going to lose jobs, but people have been losing jobs, unfortunately, throughout the ages when these things happen. But there are going to be new jobs created. It’s a transformation. I’ll use it as much as I can, but I’ll use it responsibly.”
Take a look at the full discussion above.
