https://variety.com/2024/film/news/grain-media-documentary-buy-now-restructure-1236233350/
Grain Media, the two-time Oscar-winning British documentary company behind acclaimed titles such “The White Helmets,“ “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)” and “Virunga,” has restructured its operations in order to weather the ongoing challenges facing the doc world and, it claims, continue to make the sort of socially conscious films it’s renowned for.
Grace Labs — the development hub that sits within Grain and is funded by philanthropist Jorge Villon — is set to expand with several key hires. Grace, which until now has primarily focussed on projects connected to environmental and biodiversity, will now become the home for all of Grain’s socially-conscious filmmaking, which will also adopt Grace’s strategy of positioning each concept in a more commercially-focussed manner to appeal to commissioners.
“We make films about issues that we believe are important,” says Grain co-founder Orlando von Einsiedel. “But they’ve become very hard to get commissioned, so what we’re doing is taking that model with Grace Labs and expanding it significantly. I think we’ve now got a better idea of how to make those same films about those same issues, but in a much more globally appealing way.”
For von Einsiedel, it’s no longer about pitching a “really important film about the climate crisis,” but to pitch films that are “thrillers, conspiracy stories, action movies and survival stories.”
The expansion and greater role of Grace Labs within Grain should allow it to “scale up” its output, says Chloe Leland, creative director at both Grace and Grain. “With the scaling up of the development hub that should lead to an increased number of commissions,” she says. “It also allows us to increase the volume of commissions because we’ll be able to give more time and dedicated thought to the ideas to create really compelling, creative propositions.”
The announcement of the restructuring and expansion arrives following one of the most difficult years in Grain’s 20-year history, according to von Einsiedel. It’s one that echoes a crisis felt across the documentary industry, with doc-friendly networks shuttering or pulling back on their spending or focus, and previous sources of financing, such as Participant Media, closing their doors. Redundancies had to be made at the company for the first time.
“There have been multiple challenges in the industry over that time, but this is the worst we’ve ever felt it,” he says.
But 2024 has ended on a high for the company, with two recent Grain films becoming hits on Netflix.
“Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy” — which Leland developed within Grace — “unpacks the tricks brands use to keep their customers consuming,” according to the description. Released in a timely fashion before Black Friday, the film about overconsumption and spend pulled in 7.1 million in 5 days, the highest launch for a non-true crime documentary this year, and become an unexpected viral topic on TikTok.
Meanwhile, “The Lost Children,” detailing how four indigenous children fought to survive in the Colombian Amazon following a plane crash, amassed 7.6 million views.
The success of these two titles has, says von Einsiedel, provided proof that there’s a still a “real appetite” for stories with depth and layers about the sort of issues that are important to Grain.
“But they just have to be positioned right for the execs at networks to be able to say ‘Yes’ to, and that’s been all about how we’ve packaged and positioned them. And Grace Labs is basically our vehicle going forward to do that.”