EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), Maria Schrader (She Said), and Ramin Bahrani (White Tiger) are among the filmmakers set to attend this year’s Floodlight Summit in Cartagena, Colombia.
This year’s event — the second annual Floodlight Summit gathering — will run December 6-8 in Cartagena. The summit gathers investigative journalists from across the globe who present their work to filmmakers and producers for potential screen adaptations.
Other headline guests set to attend include William Horberg (The Queen’s Gambit), Ziad Doueiri (West Beirut), Sarah Timberman (Justified), Alexander Rodnyansky (Leviathan), and Rodrigo García (News of a Kidnapping). Ryan Murphy Productions Senior Executive and Attorney Craig Emanuel will also be in attendance to offer legal guidance.
The 2024 cohort of Floodlight journalists includes reporters from more than 25 countries across five continents, including a Pulitzer Prize winner, independent journalists, and war reporters. Speakers from the profession set for Colombia include Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (The New York Times, She Said) and Patrick Radden Keefe (The New Yorker) who will be in conversation with producer Brad Simpson (Crazy Rich Asians). The pair will discuss collaborating to turn Keefe’s book Say Nothing into a Hulu television series of the same name.
Floodlight launched with the first summit in December 2023. Attended by film and television series creators Graham Yost (Band of Brothers), Charles Randolph (The Big Short), Janine Jakowski (Toni Erdmann), and Nico Celis (Roma), several development deals are said to now be in progress following last year’s edition.
Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), who attended the Floodlight Summit last year and will be returning again this year, described the event as “a rare and invaluable opportunity to hear from a global group of investigative journalists who are doing some of the most important, consequential, and dangerous reporting in the world right now.”
“The Floodlight initiative is a huge gift to both the journalists and the filmmakers – and to the audiences who will benefit from these adaptations in the future,” Grant said.
In a joint statement, Floodlight’s Chief of Creative Alesia Weston and Executive Producer Philippa Kowarsky added: “We were overwhelmed by the response and commitment from the industry for both editions of Floodlight. The alchemy that we witnessed at play in Cartagena is already seeding impactful new stories. We can’t wait to see what will come of this year.”