The executive will supervise Literary Acquisitions for the company’s Global Drama division, as well as for The Apartment (part of Fremantle) and Passenger Pictures, with whom Fremantle has a multi-year deal.
Raffaella de Angelis will join global producer and distributor Fremantle as director of Literary Acquisitions for their Global Drama division, as well as Lorenzo Mieli’s The Apartment (part of Fremantle) and Richard Brown’s Passenger Pictures, with whom Fremantle have an exclusive multi-year deal.
Based in London, de Angelis reports into Christian Vesper, Fremantle’s EVP Creative Director, Global Drama.
Raffaella de Angelis was most recently International Literary Agent and Partner at WME. In her role, de Angelis championed and represented the best of literary writing, journalism and non-fiction, working with authors including Alice Munro, Mohsin Hamid, Lauren Groff, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Lethem, Petina Gappah, Chiara Barzini, Suketu Mehta, Timothy Snyder and Eric Schlosser, and international best-sellers such as The Boys In The Boat and When Breath Becomes Air.
A native of Rome, de Angelis began her career in New York at ICM. She then joined Maria B. Campbell Associates as a book and film scout, working for multiple international publishers and Warner Bros., before joining The William Morris Agency as a Literary Agent in 2004. Here she worked with heavyweight clients of veteran agents Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Suzanne Gluck, Bill Clegg, Dorian Karchmar, Eric Simonoff and Tina Bennett.
Raffaella de Angelis said: “I’m incredibly thankful to Andrea Scrosati, Christian Vesper and Fremantle for allowing me to connect my two passions; the screen and exceptional storytelling. I can’t wait to find literary material for Richard Brown at Passenger and Lorenzo Mieli at The Apartment, two of the most visionary producers in the current high-end drama space, as well as for Fremantle Global Drama’s group of dynamic and multilingual producers.”
Christian Vesper, EVP, Global Drama, Fremantle, said: “Raffaella’s literary experience and eye for a fantastic story is unrivalled. She will be an incredible addition to Fremantle’s Global Drama family, working closely with our incredible partners Passenger and The Apartment, to find literary gems that will eventually become outstanding drama series. We look forward to welcoming Raffaella on board.”
This is the latest appointment for Fremantle and its growing drama business. Previous investments include acquiring Italian based Wildside and The Apartment (My Brilliant Friend, The New Pope) and Scandi label Miso Film (The Rain), majority stakes in French label Kwai (The Last Wave, Baron Noir), Israeli creative powerhouse Abot Hameiri and Australian Easy Tiger (Rake, Jack Irish), as well as a minority stakes in Latinx production company The Immigrant and UK indies Dancing Ledge and Gurinder Chadha fronted Bend It TV.
Raffaella de Angelis will start her role at Fremantle this week.
