Olsberg|SPI
Jonathan Olsberg
Jonathan Olsberg is chairman of Olsberg|SPI, London, the
international screen sector strategy adviser.
Olsberg has worked in the screen industries for 28 years. He
was first an international sales agent (My Beautiful
Launderette, The Last Emperor) and a specialised film
distributor (films by Godard, Verhoeven, Greenaway and
Paul Cox) in London and New York.
He then founded SPI in 1992, supplying specialist advice on
policy and business issues in film, television and digital
media. It serves public and private sector clients from the European Commission
to the UK Film Council; from Chile’s Ministry of Economics to Italy’s Cinecitta
Holdings, and from broadcasters like the BBC to independent screen businesses
from Manchester to Melbourne.
SPI has worked in just about every country, and many regions, throughout
Europe for both government bodies and private businesses. A specialisation has
become the understanding and design of fiscal production incentives for film.
Olsberg was also a producer with the UK company Dakota Films, whose last
production was Fade to Black, written and directed by Oliver Parker and starring
Danny Huston. Among other production credits are Fateless (2006) by Hungarian
director Lajos Koltai; Kenny Glenaan’s Yasmin (2005); John Duigan’s Head in the
Clouds (2004), starring Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz; Sandra Goldbacher’s
Me Without You (2002) starring Anna Friel and Michelle Williams, and (in 1999)
Othello, directed by Oliver Parker and starring Kenneth Branagh, Laurence
Fishburne and Irene Jacob.
He is a member of the European Film Academy, BAFTA and the British Screen
Advisory Council. He was for many years non-executive chairman of Moonstone
Screen Labs, an associated programme in the UK of Robert Redford’s Sundance
Institute.
Olsberg’s first career was in international finance, including 9 years in merchant
banking in London and New York. This followed an MBA from Columbia University
in New York.
Olsberg can be contacted on jonathan@o-spi.com and SPI’s website is www.ospi.com.
08/03/2016