Vesna Cudic joins Sky Studios to lead creative partnerships with global filmmakers

Award-winning filmmaker and executive producer, Vesna Cudic has been appointed Head of Documentary Partnerships at Sky Studios, Sky’s original programming arm across Europe.

In this newly created role, Cudic will be responsible for Sky Studios’ partnerships with leading filmmakers and creatives from across the globe to develop and produce unscripted projects targeted at Sky’s platforms and channels across Europe. She also brings with her a wealth of co-finance and packaging experience to support Sky Studios’ ambitions in high-end feature documentaries and documentary series.

Before joining Sky Studios, Cudic was Head of Metfilm Sales, a London-based agency, specialising in documentary features and series, and was responsible for creating a strong slate of features, including the multi-award-winning The Reason I Jump and Misha and the Wolves, both premiering at Sundance.

Cudic’s credits also include Tribeca-bound Fashion Reimagined, double Bafta-winning, Lee Miller- A Life on the Frontline, multi-award-winning Leftover Women, as well as Last Breath (BBC, Netflix, Arte). Most recently, she produced The Return: Life After Isis, which featured Shamima Begum, the British-born woman who left the UK to join ISIS in 2015, which won the Gaudi and was nominated for Goya, RTS, and Rose d’Or awards. Prior to MetFilm, Vesna was involved in the acquisitions and sales of Blackfish, Life Animated, and Cartel Land.

New phase of growth and creative ambition

Cudic’s appointment represents a new phase of growth for Sky Studios Factual team as it targets creative partnerships with the world’s most respected documentary filmmakers, building on the Studios’ recent creative partnerships with Noah Media and Dorothy Street Pictures. Recent Sky Originals co-produced with Sky Studios including BAFTA-winning Liverpool Narcos (Blast! Films / Sky Studios) and RTS-nominated Murder at the Cottage (Hell’s Kitchen / Dare Films / Sky Studios).

Cudic will join Sky Studios later this month and report to Barnaby Shingleton, Director of Factual, Sky Studios.

Vesna Cudic, Head of Creative Partnerships, Sky Studios said: “The creative freedom, as well as the huge ambition of Sky Studios, makes this an especially appealing time to join the studio. The opportunity to work with the industry’s boldest filmmakers to unearth unmissable stories that audiences can’t not see was too good an opportunity to pass up. I can’t wait to get started.”

Barnaby Shingleton, Director of Factual, Sky Studios, said: “At Sky Studios, we want to provide a home for the best creative talent to partner with us and develop world-class content for our 23m customers and beyond. Vesna’s track-record in creating premium, award-winning content and deep experience of the global factual landscape will turbocharge this ambition.”

Notes to Editors

• As today, indie commissioning for Sky’s factual channels – Sky Documentaries, Sky Crime and Sky Nature - will remain within Sky’s territories across Europe.

• In the UK, this is lead by Poppy Dixon, Sky UK’s Director of Documentaries and Factual, in Italy by Roberto Pisoni, Senior Director, Sky Entertainment Channels at Sky Italia, and in Germany by Christian Asanger, Vice President, Entertainment at Sky Deutschland.

Media contact

Sky Studios: Harrison.Kelly@sky.uk / +44(0)7817476365

About Sky Studios

Sky Studios brings to screen unique stories from the very best talent in Europe.

We develop, produce and fund original drama, comedy and documentary for Sky’s 24m customers and beyond. Building on the success of critically acclaimed Sky Originals including Emmy-winning Chernobyl, Bafta-winning Patrick Melrose and international hits Das Boot, Riviera and Britannia, Sky Studios is the new creative home of Sky Originals, such as The Third Day with Jude Law, I Hate Suzie, co-created by Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper and BAFTA-nominated hit comedy, Brassic.

We’re an agile Studio, seeking out the best untold stories from new voices while working in creative partnership with today’s best writers, producers and on-screen talent to bring viewers stories they wouldn’t find anywhere else.

With commissioning talent and production capability across the UK, Germany and Italy, we understand local tastes across Europe better than anyone else and have plans to more than double our investment in original content by 2024, fully supported and backed by Comcast NBCUniversal.

We’re also developing a new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which is expected to lead to the creation of over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK creative sector in the first five years alone.

Sky Studios invests in the cultural economy and global production sector with equity stakes in several production companies in the UK and the US, including Great British Bake-Off creator Love Productions, and the premier reality crime producer in the US, Jupiter Entertainment, creator of long-running hit Snapped. Sky Studios has invested in high quality factual specialists Blast! Films, True North Productions, and Transistor Films; natural history producer True to Nature; drama producers The Lighthouse and Longboat Pictures; and growth businesses Sugar Films, Chrysalis Vision, and Talos Films (US).

About Sky

Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of Comcast Corporation, a global media and technology company that connects people to moments that matter. Across six countries, Sky connects 23 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news, arts and to our own award-winning original content.  

Following the launch of Sky Glass, we now offer customers our strongest ever line-up of products and services. As well as the new streaming TV with Sky inside and everything integrated, customers can enjoy the award-winning Sky Q with all your favourite channels and apps in one place, and with Sky Go you can now access an even better experience on your devices. Sky TV has new channels, new shows and new deals with Peacock, Paramount+ and more. Sky Mobile was voted Best Pay Monthly and Best Value Pay Monthly network by Uswitch, and with Sky Broadband we’re offering our fastest speeds yet. 

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years alone. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Sky Cinema is the home of Sky Original films with brand new films launching every month alongside an unrivalled range of the latest cinema releases and on demand library. 

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We’re committed to being Europe’s first net zero carbon entertainment company by 2030 and we’re proud to be a Principal Partner and Media Partner of COP26 – the UN Climate Change Conference. We take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion: we’ve been recognised by The Times and Stonewall for our commitment to diversity, and we’ve set ambitious 2025 targets to continue to increase diversity and representation.  We’re also committed to investing £30million across our markets over the next three years to improve our approach to diversity and inclusion, and to tackle racial injustice.