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Imagine’s Samie Kim Falvey Named President at Picturestart

Matt Donnelly
·2-min read

Veteran entertainment executive Samie Kim Falvey has been named president of Picturestart.

Falvey joins the upstart production company where she will oversee all scripted and unscripted efforts in content across all film, television, audio and print media. She will report directly to Erik Feig, the former co-president of the Lionsgate motion picture group and founder and CEO of Picturestart.

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Falvey joins the shop from Imagine Entertainment, where she has served as chairman of television since 2017.

“Samie is an incredible storyteller and human being who excels at finding equally incredible story tellers and human beings and bringing out the best of them. We are so excited to see not only what she can bring to the robust slate we have already been putting together and making, but all the new creatives she can bring to the Picturestart family, using the full array of financing and distribution opportunities we can offer,” said Feig.

Falvey joins at an aggressive growth period for the company, with six feature films and three series launched in the past year and additional volume across digital and audio. She will manage teams that include Emily Wissink and Luke Esselen, both vice presidents of production in series; Jessica Switch, Lucy Kitada, Royce Reeves-Darby and Julia Hammer in features; and in audio, vice president Emmanuelle Stahler.

“I’m thrilled to join Erik and the amazing Picturestart team in these early days of building a premiere studio/production company. Erik’s exceptional track record in championing filmmakers and producing wildly successful franchises has jumpstarted Picturestart in this turbulent time. I’m eager to dive in and I wholeheartedly believe in the company’s mission,” she said.

At Imagine, her credits included development and production of eight series and over 20 sold projects including Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol,” “Swagger” “Wu-Tang: An American Saga,” “Why Women Kill,” and “Ms. Pat.”

Falvey previously served as chief content officer at M4, the mobile content venture from Verizon and AwesomenessTV. Before that, she served as EVP of comedy development and international scripted at ABC, pumping out brand-defining projects like “Modern Family,” “Black-ish,” “Fresh Off the Boat,” “The Goldbergs,” “The Middle,” “American Housewife,” and “Happy Endings.”

she began her career at Fox Broadcasting Company and Fox TV Studios where she spent eight years as an executive. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Kenyon College, where she is a member of the Board of Trustees, serving on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Student Affairs Committees. Falvey is also a board member at Getty House Foundation and has been a senior media advisor for Power to Decide for over fifteen years.

Upcoming projects at Picturestart include the big video game adaptation “Borderlands” at Lionsgate, “Luckiest Girl Alive” at Netflix, and “Sharper” for Apple TV Plus.

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