Anna Różalska, co-founder of talent agency Match&Spark, is also an established producer in the US and CEE. Now she’s focusing on bridging the transatlantic divide as well as the one between commercial and arthouse content.

For Anna Różalska, finding a name for her two-and-half-year-old production company is proving trickier than it is to create content making an impact internationally.

Anna Różalska

With award-winning feature film Norwegian Dream and Ukrainian director Stanislav Kapralov’s powerful documentary, Searching for Nika, both completed, and last year’s Series Mania winner, Unspoken, well in the works, Różalska is fulfilling her company’s mission of “making projects that are not only entertaining, but that have a social impact that touches current issues.”

Aside from being busy on productions, settling on a company name has proven complicated for Różalska and her business partner and fellow Polish citizen, Tarik Hachoud, because for the past nine years the pair have been running their busy talent agency, Match&Spark, which represents Central and Eastern European (CEE) filmmakers.

“The challenge is, should [the production company] be called Match&Spark Productions or should we have a completely separate name [to the agency],” ponders Różalska, who has based herself in the US after taking the decision to step away from representation and focus on the production side of the business. “To move to the US was always my dream,” says the exec, who spent “many years” comuting back and forth to America to work on productions before co-founding Match&Spark in 2015.

Indeed, the opportunity to travel and get to know the US production industry began during her time heading the production and development department at Poland’s Alvernia Studios. It was during this time Różalska coproduced US films such as Arbitrage (2012), directed by Nick Jarecki and starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, and Vamps (2012), directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sigourney Weaver.

“I was mostly involved in projects that were coproductions with the US and I was very lucky to meet very powerful agents in the US, so I learnt how it works,” reveals Różalska.

Searching for Nika had its North American premiere at the end of last year

Though it was never Różalska’s intention to become a talent agent, it was this knowledge and opportunities to represent Polish cinematographers, Łukasz Żal, Oscar-nominated for the 2013 film Ida, and Monika Lenczewska, “who at that time lived in the US,” according to Różalska, that instigated the formation of Match&Spark.

Today, the talent agency represents around 70 filmmakers, including writers, directors, cinematographers, production designers, make-up artists, costume designers and photographers. Including Różalska, the company employs 10 staff. Key members are co-founder and CEO Hachoud, head of film and TV, Aleksandra Aleksander, and head of commercials, Igor Pajak. Also partnering in the business is lawyer Tomasz Rytlewski.

The decision by Różalska to move away from representation and focus on production was a strategic one to expand the company, but it was also personal, she explains: “I was literally sleeping with my phone on my chest, because you know you have to be responsive and available and it’s very, very tough,” she says.

While still representing talent at Match&Spark, Różalska coproduced the 2019 documentary, Who Will Write Our History, directed by Roberta Grossman, about the secret diaries of the Warsaw Ghetto. Then “halfway through the pandemic,” she was offered a job as head of original productions and coproductions at Canal+ Poland, where she spent a year.

It was after this period that her permanent move to the US – and full-time switch to production – was enabled, thanks to a project she has been working on with a US filmmaker for the past two years, which is now in post-production. Although unable to disclose details about it yet, Różalska does reveal that it was shot in Lithuania, a country she has nothing but praise for as a location and filmmaking destination:

“We had fantastic partners in Lithuania,” she notes, singling out Jonas Špokas, the award-winning location manager (Chernobyl, Stranger Things). “He’s just fantastic, the way he can understand directors’ needs and find locations, and of course get all the permissions,” enthuses Różalska.

2019 documentary Who Will Write Our History was directed by Roberta Grossman

Commenting more generally on the opportunities in the CEE for US filmmakers, Różalska says: “Right now there is a hard financial situation [in the US]. All productions are looking at how to cut costs, so they are moving to our region,” adding: “We have a fantastic history of filmmaking. We have great filmmakers and tax incentives and rebates, depending on the country, and that of course attracts filmmakers and producers from all the over the world. So yes, our region is very competitive on many levels.”

As for herself, Różalska sees her role now as “being between two cultures… and the person who explains how it works so that we can create something better and more powerful, and more interesting and diverse.”

Judging by her current slate of film and TV projects, this new role is proving fruitful. Aside from feature film Norwegian Dream, which she and Hachoud both exec produced, Różalska coproduced Searching for Nika, which had its North American premiere in New York at the end of last year, during DOC NYU.

The 77-minute documentary is the personal journey of filmmaker Stanislav Kapralov, who goes in search of his dog, Nika, after it runs away when Russian forces invade Ukraine. His search takes him back to Kyiv where he joins volunteers as they attempt to rescue pets in the midst of the war.

“It’s a documentary showing people who are taking care of animals that were left, while people fled Ukraine. It’s very touching,” comments Różalska, who is keen that the Ukrainians’ plight remains at the forefront of people’s consciousness. “It’s very sad when you see what’s happening in other parts of the world and that sadly, Ukraine is not anymore the number one subject in the newspapers,” she says, noting: “This war is more important to Polish people, because we are very close to Ukraine.”

To this end, Różalska’s company has been involved in SPLOT, a creatives’ residency programme in Poland to help Ukrainians reimagine a post-war Ukraine.

Anna Różalska coproduced Norwegian Dream with Tarik Hachoud

Meanwhile, Różalska is at the packaging and financing stage on Unspoken, the TV series that won the Best Project Award at Series Mania in 2023, earning the project €50,000 further towards its development. Inspired by a true story, the 6×30’ thriller set in Ukraine during the first few days of the war, is coproduced with Ukraine’s Toy Cinema and 2Brave Productions, and created by Filip Syczyński who is co-writing with Zhanna Ozirna.

“We are talking with other European and American production companies,” comments Różalska about where the project is at the moment.

Also in development is feature film, Certainly the End of Something, a black comedy about the gentrification of Warsaw, written and directed by Michal Marczak, the Sundance award-winning director (All These Sleepless Nights).

According to Różalska, the drama has been created with the help of “one of the most renowned and controversial Polish playwrights,” Pawel Demirski, whose credits include The Stroke and Artists. It tells the story of “a tough young woman from Warsaw’s most notorious neighbourhood, who kidnaps a kingpin of the ‘gentrification mafia’ that’s destroying her beloved district and childhood home. Working without a plan, but with the help of a ragtag group of local friends, she tries to re-educate her adversaries, by making them experience what it’s like to live in poverty with the hope of increasing their empathy level, but then everything goes awry.”

Commenting on the types of projects Różalska is interested in, she says: “We are always looking for projects that are entertaining but are saying something important in the message, and use talent from the CEE and Europe,” adding: “We are trying to bridge the process between the US and Europe.” But she admits there’s a challenge in financing these types of projects because “private equity debt is looking for projects that are purely commercial and public funds look for projects that are rather more arthouse.” Nevertheless, she says, “it’s very important for us to have this mandate”.

However long it might take, though, Różalska is not someone to be put off by a challenge – even finding a name for her company.