High Castle prodco fills French role

Frank Spotnitz’s Big Light Productions, one of the companies behind Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, has hired an executive to oversee its French projects.

Lorraine Sullivan

Lorraine Sullivan is joining the prodco to develop television, film and documentary projects from a newly opened office in Paris.

Sullivan started her career in the marketing department of Lionsgate in LA in the 1990s and has previously been a commissioner for French pay TV platforms TPS and then Canal+ from 2000 to 2010. There she oversaw an acquisitions budget of millions and the production of more than 20 French films each year.

She first met Spotnitz in 2007 after founding the non-profit AIM to bring Hollywood screenwriters, producers and showrunners to teach annual seminars to graduate students and professionals.

In 2013, Sullivan created the groundbreaking education programme Serial Eyes at Berlin Film School, the first European programme for professional TV series writers and producers.

Spotnitz, who joined the original X-Files as a writer and producer in its second season and founded Big Light in 2013, said: “Lorraine is a gifted creative executive with strong relationships throughout France and Europe.

“She brings tremendous global knowledge and skills to the Big Light family. There are so many compelling stories from France, and indeed the rest of Europe, that we are eager to share with the world.”

Big Light is coproducing the Amazon series woth Headline and Scott Free. The company is also currently in production on location in Italy with Medici: Masters of Florence, starring Richard Madden, Dustin Hoffman, Stuart Martin, Annabel Scholey and Brian Cox. Big Light’s partners are Lux Vide, broadcaster Rai and film distributor Wild Bunch.