Black Bear, the studio behind “I Care A Lot” and “The Imitation Game,” is expanding its ranks. Arabella Flores and Dominique Grund have joined the company’s newly created management arm.
Flores will expand Black Bear’s foothold in representing international writers, directors and showrunners. Grund will work across all clients at Black Bear on the management team led by partners Keith Redmon and Joanne Roberts Wiles.
Flores comes to Black Bear from Artists First, where she spent over five years focusing on representing international creators and filmmakers, with particular emphasis on Mexican and Latin American clientele. Clients include Jesus Colmenar (“Money Heist”), Javier Gómez Santander (“Money Heist”), Assi Azar (“Baker & the Beauty”), Marcos Bucay (“How to Survive Being Single”), Sarah Farkas (“Vortex”), Eric Yoon (“Time to Hunt”), and Olive Nwosu (“Masquerade”).
Grund spent three years at ICM Partners where she worked closely with Roberts Wiles and focused in both the literary and talent departments. She is a graduate of Chapman University where she studied Theatre and Broadcast Journalism.
“Black Bear is thrilled to welcome Arabella and Dominique, smart executives who bring with them not only their incredible clients, but also exceptional taste, ethics and judgment,” said Teddy Schwarzman, Black Bear President and CEO. “Both managers reinforce Black Bear’s vision that representation must be global in nature, and we are excited to have Arabella, Dom and their clients join our growing family.”
Black Bear represents a range of artists including Johan Renck, Karyn Kusama, Morten Tyldum, Jamie Dack, John Hillcoat, Cooper Raiff, Michaël Roskam, Charlie McDowell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Raine Allen Miller, and Alex Pettyfer. In addition, Black Bear’s ranks were recently bolstered by the addition of Philip Westgren, who joined Black Bear from B Reel Films and will add to the company’s presence in Europe. Black Bear recently opened offices in London, where Black Bear’s international sales business – Black Bear International – and UK theatrical distribution operation are both overseen by John Friedberg. Black Bear also owns a majority interest in Canada’s Elevation Pictures, which is run by industry veterans Laurie May and Noah Segal
Black Bear is currently in production on the feature film, “Immaculate,” starring Sydney Sweeney, and in post-production on “Nyad” for Netflix starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money for Sony starring Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Shailene Woodley, Pete Davidson, Sebastian Stan and more, and Neil Burger’s “The Marsh King’s Daughter” for STX starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn. In television, Black Bear recently wrapped production on “Monsieur Spade” written by Scott Frank and Tom Fontana. It stars Clive Owen, with all episodes directed by Frank. AMC will air the series stateside.
