Marianna Rosset remembers the time, around 10 years ago, when she opened a restaurant in southern Russia. Friends urged her not to sink all her money into the project, advising her to buy a flat in Moscow as a fallback investment, but she wouldn’t be swayed. “I want,” she told them, “to create something interesting.”
The restaurant turned out to be a wise investment, if only because a customer walked in one day who turned out to be Vitaly Rosset, her future husband (they now have three children, the youngest just six months old). That urge to ‘create something interesting’ also persisted, prompting the Rossets to found Altadium Group – a Limassol-based film production company – in 2017, soon after they relocated to Cyprus four years ago.
“I came to my husband,” recalls Marianna, “and I said, ‘We live here. We are Cypriots, new Cypriots. Let’s do something great for this country’.” Neither of them had any previous experience making movies. Marianna is a writer of fantasy/esoterica novels (her new one, Fanyasha, comes out next month), Vitaly a successful businessman. The chances of the new venture working out – in one of the world’s most high-risk, least predictable industries – seemed pretty slim.
Fast-forward to a sunny day in late October, and the couple – plus executive producer Loris Curci – are sitting at the Hilton Nicosia just a few hours before the premiere of S.O.S. Survive or Sacrifice, the second feature film made by Altadium. The first was Portrait of God in 2019, which, like S.O.S., starred Marianna – but the new one is a much bigger project, more expensive and ambitious, not to mention that her co-stars include Hollywood name William Baldwin.
The film is an adventure thriller, directed by Roman Doronin and shot entirely in Cyprus. The cast includes four Americans (including Baldwin), a Russian, a Brit and a number of local actors (including Marianna). Also featured is a hot-air balloon, which kick-starts the plot – a smart idea, making the film distinctive and easy to describe, though also challenging, raising the degree of difficulty. Wasn’t it a hassle shooting scenes that take place hundreds of feet off the ground? Wasn’t it risky?
“Not really, no,” shrugs Loris Curci, albeit adding that “we like to think that people watching will say ‘How did they do that?’”. (Lots of green screen, for one thing.) Curci is an Italian who lives in Greece and grew up in South Africa; he’s unflappable, businesslike, and keeps his shades on throughout the interview for a touch of showbiz cool. He’s also a veteran producer – “This was my 27th movie” – who brought experience to the table, not to mention contacts. “I’d worked with William before,” he explains when the talk turns to Baldwin. “Two years ago we did a film in Mexico together. So, when the director asked if we could find a ‘name’ for the male protagonist, I thought William would be a great fit.”
There’s a strategy here, and it’s worth taking a step back to note how Altadium operates. Portrait of God was a small film, but it worked as a calling card. The Rossets took it to Cannes – not in competition, of course, but in the market – where they walked the red carpet (Marianna wearing a dress emblazoned with the map of Cyprus, for added visibility), and to the Berlinale, where they met Curci for the first time. The idea was to use the first film as a springboard, finding experienced people to collaborate on the second one – and of course the second one is also a springboard, for the third one that’s due to start shooting in February, and even beyond.
“We decided to get experience, to move forward slowly with these two projects,” explains Vitaly. “And then, when we will be very famous – I believe in two years maximum – we will invite real Hollywood companies here”, making big-budget movies to be filmed at least partly in Cyprus. “We are not Spielberg,” he admits with a smile, adding “…yet!”.
S.O.S. is a pretty good start, and indeed – buoyed by Baldwin’s name and Curci’s savvy – international rights have been sold to a US company that’s just signed a deal to make the film available on 16 platforms on video-on-demand (US only). It was also a wonderful shoot, says Marianna, maybe because Altadium is a small company so they were all “like a family”. Every night, the whole production went for dinner together. Many locals went beyond the call of duty in helping out, including the owner of Polyxeni Hotel Apartments in Limassol where cast and crew were housed – and of course the head of Petrolina, who came to the rescue on a Sunday when the gas for the hot-air balloon unexpectedly ran out. Baldwin, far from acting the Hollywood diva, was lovely, racked with back pain but managing to be the consummate pro when the camera was rolling. One presumes he also enjoyed playing a character whose opening line is: “Why don’t you take those perfect little buns of yours and grab me another cold one?”.
And what happens now? Well, S.O.S. just opened at the local multiplex and more deals are hopefully gearing up abroad. Having a name actor always helps – “and in fact,” says Curci, “for the new movie we’re preparing, we intend to go up even higher”. (His lips are sealed, of course.) None of this really explains why the Rossets embarked on this venture three years ago – but Marianna does say she’d like to see films being made of her books someday, and Vitaly has money to invest, and the Invest Cyprus scheme offers significant rebates, and besides why wouldn’t you want to make movies? “Making movies is fun,” agrees Curci. “It’s gratifying from an artistic point of view, it’s not just generating money.”
“You feel yourself like you’re a kid,” adds Marianna.
She did many of her own stunts in S.O.S. She went up in a hot-air balloon. She received tips on how to cry on cue from William Baldwin (who is, to quote Cher in Clueless, such a Baldwin). She also ran around like a mad thing, being both star and co-producer – but the passion to ‘create something interesting’ saw her through the bad days.
“It’s like when you have a dream, and you do a lot to make this dream come true. And then you understand” – ‘then’ being the S.O.S. shoot – “that this is the moment,” she explains. “So you cherish all the moments.” Bring on the next Altadium epic.