By Dawn Chmielewski
NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Shari Redstone’s exit from the media world was decidedly brief.
Within a month of the sale of the family’s stake in Paramount Global, Redstone in September was named chair of the Israeli entertainment company Sipur, whose projects match the media mogul’s passion for telling stories that authentically portray Israel.
“There is a side of Israel people don’t know,” Redstone said at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Wednesday. “My dad always said, ‘Content is king.’ I always say content creates conversation that leads to change.”
Redstone’s father, billionaire media mogul Sumner Redstone, died at age 97 in 2020.
Shari Redstone said the studio initially approached her as its “last stop” in an effort to fund the documentary “We Will Dance Again,” about the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel.
Thousands of young people were partying in the dawn hours of October 7 when armed Hamas fighters swept in, and nearly 400 people were shot, bludgeoned or burned to death, and some were sexually assaulted, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded with a bombardment of Gaza aimed at wiping out Hamas.
Through her involvement with the film project, Redstone came to recognize the studio’s storytelling as aligned with the philanthropic efforts of the Redstone Family Foundation, which works to combat racism and antisemitism through education.
Sipur is able to tap in to Israel’s fertile creative community, developing a rich slate of film and television offerings, including the Netflix series “Bad Boy,” and an Israeli romantic comedy, “Noa,” featuring pop stars Noa Kirel and Agustin Bernasconi.
The company, whose name means “story” in Hebrew, has developed a business model of producing modestly budgeted shows, financed in partnership with international backers.
“In spite of the fact that people kind of want to boycott (Israeli) content, I actually believe that having this content out there can lead to conversations,” said Redstone. “It can bring people together.”
View the live broadcast of the World Stage here and read full coverage here.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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