Swiss filmmaker Barthélémy Grossmann has signed with Artist International Group for management, according to a Deadline exclusive published on 29 July 2026. The deal lands just as his latest feature, Father Joe, prepares for its world premiere at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Deadline

Father Joe is an action thriller written and produced by Luc Besson, the French film-maker behind Léon: The Professional and Lucy. The cast pairs Kiefer Sutherland and Al Pacino with Ever Anderson, and the story follows a man of faith who wages a violent war against New York City's criminal underworld. The 116-minute film is set in Manhattan's Little Italy, where, per the festival's own synopsis, mob bosses rule and faith is fading. Deadline; La Biennale di Venezia

Venice has slotted Father Joe into its Open — Out of Competition section, the festival's showcase for higher-profile genre and popular cinema. The 83rd edition of the festival runs as part of Biennale Cinema 2026, with the film listed as a French production. La Biennale di Venezia

For Grossmann, the Venice slot is the highest-profile platform of a career that began in front of the camera. He started as an actor before moving into writing and directing, with his debut feature 13 m² arriving in 2007. His more recent credits include Jimmy and Jimmy Was Here, and he develops and produces independent films through his own company, Barth & Co Films. Another English-language thriller, Disorder, also produced by Besson, is in the pipeline. Deadline

Grossmann is not only a film-maker. He is an internationally exhibited visual artist whose work, as described by Deadline, explores identity, emotion, and human complexity — a dual creative life that the new management deal will help bridge across both gallery and screen.

Artist International Group's roster is nothing if not global. The talent management and production company represents actors including Monica Bellucci, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gong Li, Anil Kapoor, Tom Welling, Fan Bingbing, and Rossy de Palma, alongside film-makers Roger Avary (co-writer of Pulp Fiction), Ludovic Bernard, and Tony Kaye (American History X). Grossmann joins that list as a writer-director building a bridge between European independent cinema and English-language genre films.

The Besson connection is worth noting. Besson, who has written or produced dozens of action films through his EuropaCorp shingle, has here handed Grossmann both a screenplay and a producing hand on Father Joe. That the film has landed an out-of-competition slot at Venice rather than a market premiere suggests the festival sees it as a crowd-pleaser with marquee names — exactly the kind of positioning that a new management client needs heading into the autumn sales season, when distributors look for titles that can fill screens through the holiday corridor.

For audiences, the headline is straightforward: Al Pacino and Kiefer Sutherland in a Manhattan mob thriller, backed by Besson, premiering on the Lido. The management deal is the industry machinery behind it — the kind of decision that determines whether a film reaches cinemas in a dozen territories or a handful.