Cannes: Burman Launches Burman Office, Preps ‘Mendl’s Mission’ (EXCLUSIVE)

CANNES – Berlin double Silver Bear winner Daniel Burman (“The Lost Embrace”), one of the best-known directors in Latin America, has launched development-screenwriting company Burman Office, a major Latin American hub for fully developed narrative content for film and TV.

Ex Sony and Universal music exec Pepo Ferradas and Martin Migoya, prexy of Wall Street-listed Globant, serve as board members of Burman Office, which is currently in talks to develop contents for a top European broadcast group, a Euro-Latin American conglom, Brazil’s principle media group and a major pan-Latin American film-TV regional player, Burman said.

With “The King of Once” in post, Burman is writing “Mendl’s Mission,” a spy adventure thriller about a Mossad operative who comes out of retirement for an impossible mission. Oscar winning “Ida” producer Ewa Puszczynska co-produces. Santiago Santiago Amigorena (“A Few Days in September”) and Argentine writer Martin Caparros are co-writing.

A father-son dramedy and “original return to my roots,” said Burman, “The King of Once” is set in the same Buenos Aires’ Jewish district as “Lost Embrace.” It turns on a father who runs the community’s charity foundation, but seems unable to aid his own estranged son.

International Emmy-nominated Argentine TV script-writer Mario Segade (“El Puntero”) heads up Burman Office’s writing room. Team is based out of Spain, France, Argentina, France and Brazil.

Burman Office has 10 projects in development, from movies to TV series and a theater play, including a big series about Hitler’s supposed escape to Argentina and a sitcom, “The Perfect Mother-in-Law,” said Burman. Uniting modern technology and traditional concepts such as the high value placed on screenwriting, Burman Office will also produce if it really adds value, Burman said.

“For me, in the new paradigm, the core business is project development, a readjustment of costs towards development, which is a stage which is often skimped,” he added.

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