Steven Fingleton to Direct "The Waif": A Milestone for Kinolime

In this milestone episode, Kinolime's Danny Murray interviews CEO and founder Oleg Saitskiy to announce that BAFTA-nominated director Steven Fingleton (The Survivalist, Nightride) will direct "The Waif," the winning screenplay from their first competition. Oleg explains the company's audience-first approach, inspired by his encounters with talented but struggling creatives in LA, and reveals that production will begin in Fall 2025. This announcement shows that Kinolime's model of letting audiences choose what films get made can attract established industry talent.

Full Transcript: KL Podcast #4 - Steven Fingleton Announcement

Participants:

• Danny Murray - Creative Executive, Kinolime

• Oleg Saitskiy - CEO and Founder, Kinolime

[00:00] Danny Murray: Hey everybody. Danny Murray here from Kinolime. I'm here with Kinolime's founder and CEO Oleg Saitskiy to announce the most monumental news we've had up to this point as a company, which is Steven Fingleton, survivalist director will be directing our first screenplay competition winner, "The Waif."

So this is massive news. And I just kind of want to bring it to Oleg, how we got here, where we're going and how do we go from here.

Oleg Saitskiy: Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you Danny. Thank you for being a part of this. This is an extremely exciting day for all of us here. We started the company with the hopes of creating films for people by people. The whole idea is we want the audience full participation. Writers are lovely, but we want audience to participate and decide what's the next best feature is gonna be.

[01:15] And the first step was getting the audience to participate in the picking of the proper script. And "The Waif" is the one that won. And we were very excited about the script. We were very excited about the number of audience that participated in the voting, reading, listening to the script and basically committing to the world towards it. And now in the next big step for us as a company, we have this amazing director who's taking on to produce this film.

So can't speak anymore beyond that. Outside of this is extremely exciting for all of us. This is our first huge step, and the goal is to continue to do more of this. And as our second competition is in the process now and it's coming closer to the last stage. This shows our belief in what we're trying to do, and this shows our commitment in what we're trying to accomplish.

Danny Murray: It's amazing. And I do wonder, where did you, at what point were you inspired to kind of create this model, this audience model that is so different than pretty much every other studio model that exists?

[02:30] Oleg Saitskiy: So, unlike most of people that work in our company, my background is in finance. And because I had to travel to LA very often, whenever you would fly to LA you would land in the airport. The car that would pick you up would be some form of a director. And you would go to a restaurant to have a meal, and that would be an actor who would be bringing you the food to the table.

And if you want to have a quiet beverage at the bar, there would be a script writer who would be telling you about his script. And you would keep on coming back, you know, month after month after month. And if you're seeing people and they keep on telling you, oh, you know, I have the next best script.

[04:45] And I was always awestruck by how good these people are and how come they are not moving forward. And the sort of the incremental value of giving them an ability to have their voices heard. That was very important to me. And that was the goal behind the company saying, how about this? We take away all the walls that are standing in their way to having their voices being heard, and we will enable audience to choose what the next feature film is gonna be.

So we're not about, you know, top heavy, where, you know, the big production company decides what movies are gonna be made. No, we're about people, the little people. Because at the end of the day, they are the ones who are gonna be watching the movies and they're the ones who are gonna love what they have produced. And every single person who is involved in the process, they're ultimately the producer of this film.

So, you know, that was the genesis of the idea.

Danny Murray: And now that, you know, we're taking that leap from development, we have Steven attached, and now it's essentially all gears ahead to get this thing made. What for you is like the next big goal you're looking to kind of accomplish, a hurdle with the film and the company?

[06:20] Oleg Saitskiy: So, well the goal obviously is to produce it. From where we're sitting now is, we're looking at probably producing, beginning of production in the fall. And then as we sort of start doing that, we also were gonna announce that we ended up optioning a few scripts from our first competition.

[07:15] And we're gonna be in the process of getting the directors for those scripts as well. And those announcements are coming up shortly. Plus the current competition is, you know, almost done too. So now it's about, you know, getting the script that's gonna win in the current competition and pushing that along to get that produced as well.

Danny Murray: It's so crazy because, you know, the first competition, we had amazing stories. This one, I think, is far and away, you know, that average screenplay is so much stronger. Without spoiling anything, you know, Adam's work on "The Waif" was so phenomenal and we probably screened 30 directors for this project. And Steven's take was just so out of this world. I cannot wait to see what he actually does with it.

Oleg Saitskiy: Absolutely. I mean, just speaking to him, seeing his vision, seeing his ideas, just seeing how involved he is with it. And his connection to sort of the core of the company because it's unique voice. And he's bringing unique voice to the feature as well. So I'm ecstatic just to see this come together.

[08:30] I'm looking at this as a partnership. And hope there's gonna be a lot more of this. And you know, a joyous moment would be once everybody sort of sits down and actually sees that vision on the big screen and that's what the big goal is.

Danny Murray: Yeah. I mean, you're doing an incredible audacious thing here and I'm happy that I could help make it happen. Let's make a movie together.

Are there any last kind of thoughts you have kind of for this whole process before we sign off?

[09:45] Oleg Saitskiy: Well, one is I want to thank the entire audience, everybody who participated in the voting. We couldn't get to this moment without all of you. It takes every single voice, it takes every single vision, and each one of you is a producer in this film. So, on behalf of myself, of our company, I would like to thank every single one of you who participated in this, who made this happen. And as we continue to grow, as we continue to grow our vision and as this pipeline increases, I hope you guys feel the same way that I do by seeing how exciting it is to see what we are building together.

Danny Murray: A hundred percent couldn't have said it better.