“Wonderfully creative, interactive, and stimulating” is how General David Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret., former Director of the CIA, former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, U.S. Central Command, and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan) described the efforts of the edutainment brand SPYSCAPE who are bringing thrilling spy capers and enticing stories about special intelligence and secrets to viewers everywhere through their virtual festival channel, SPYFLIX.
I recently spoke to Francis Jago, Head of Marketing at SPYSCAPE about his endeavour to bring the top secret world to the fore.
What is SPYSCAPE?
FJ: SPYSCAPE is an innovative and narrative-led edutainment brand that creates and curates intriguing and entertaining stories and experiences, based upon secrets, to inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things. It was launched in 2018 by a team of designers, psychologists, technologists, spies, and storytellers who believe in the power of narratives and experiences to inspire people, and has a broad international network of experts on stories and secrets, with an especially deep understanding of secret intelligence and psychology.
SPYSCAPE’s 60,000 square foot physical headquarters, designed by Sir David Adjaye, is now the #1 rated museum and experience in New York City (on both Google and TripAdvisor). SPYSCAPE uses stories about secrets to illuminate how the world works, and to explain the valuable ‘secret intelligence’ skills we all possess, including analysis, empathy, and perception.
It launched its first hit weekly podcast series “True Spies” (hosted by Hollywood superstars Hayley Atwell and Vanessa Kirby) in 2020, and will launch six new shows in 2021. This can be accessed here: http://www.spyscape.com/podcasts (for more information on the same, see: www.spyscape.com).
What led to the creation of the SPYFLIX Festival Channel by SPYSCAPE?
FJ: Content is core to the DNA of SPYSCAPE, [and] a festival has always been a part of the overall SPYSCAPE plan, to create and curate a broad range of premium stories and experiences.
What are your overall goals and objectives for the SPYFLIX Festival Channel?
FJ: Our goals are as follows: to showcase great features, series and shorts, to stimulate critical discourse around secrets as a narrative device, to promote new and underrepresented creative voices to inspire people to do extraordinary things, and finally, to become an Academy Award/BAFTA Award qualifying festival.
What are the top three things happening at this festival? Any interesting elements/panels/things of note? Especially pertaining to any Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), awareness/equality campaigns, etc.?
FJ: The primary happening will be defining the genre and showcasing fabulous content within it. SPYFLIX will have streams dedicated to trending themes: e.g. female led stories, Middle Eastern stories, cyber stories, etc. Future iterations of SPYFLIX will also feature physical immersive experiences, exploiting our headquarters in New York and other venues, and to create new kinds of interactions and storytelling moments for filmmakers and fans alike.
Could you elaborate on why the theme of this festival channel is ‘secrets’ in particular, and why you’ve chosen to mainly showcase content about spies, espionage, thrillers, etc.?
FJ: Secrets are ancient and perfectly formed narrative devices (each contains a who, a what, a how, and a why) that play a powerful role in our psychology and culture.
They are central to some of the most successful franchises, from James Bond to Batman and from Harry Potter to Sherlock Holmes. They’re also at the core of the most enthralling factual stories across news and current affairs, history, and politics. Spies trade secrets, detectives uncover secrets, the rest of us, from children to criminals, from laborers to lovers, keep secrets. The universal intrigue of secrets lies deep in the human psyche—secrets are complex sociological phenomena, which is part of why they tend to make for such great stories. Until now, secrets haven’t been celebrated as the powerful narrative device they truly are!
SPYSCAPE knows that the world of secrets has become a huge and vital genre, delivering billions of dollars of annual revenues globally…”john hunt, ceo spyflix/spycape
Secrets play a vital role in evolutionary psychology—forming the core of critical social interactions (e.g. gossip) and stimulating us to learn to identify the good guys from the bad guys! Note: secrets are not the same as mysteries. The Bermuda triangle and the building of the Pyramids are mysteries. The recipe for Coca-Cola and the identity of the person(s) who created ‘Bitcoin’ are secrets.
Why do you think the secrets genre warrants having its own festival?
FJ: SPYSCAPE knows that the world of secrets has become a huge and vital genre, delivering billions of dollars of annual revenues globally—especially across stories of detectives, espionage, hacking, investigative journalism, true crime, etc. Up until now it just hadn’t been labeled as such!
Many of the top movies, series, and documentaries of the last decade are about secrets: from Bond to Bourne, from Hanna to Hunters, from “Mission: Impossible” to “The Matrix,” The Blacklist,” “Killing Eve,” and so many more. The scale of the genre and the specifics that make it compelling are sufficiently well-established and different from other genres that it’s surprising no one has defined the genre and given it its own festival before.
SPYSCAPE recognises a massive global appetite for the genre, and knows there are countless great stories out there that are either relatively unknown, or known only in one part of the world. It seems totally natural and timely to bring the genre into focus with its own festival.
Who are the SPYFLIX Advisory Board and Jury members?
FJ: The SPYFLIX Advisory Board and Jury comprises respected experts in both storytelling and secrets, including actors, directors, producers and writers, plus senior professionals from top intelligence agencies. Please see the SPYFLIX website for further details at https://www.spyflix.com.
I also read on the website that apart from people in the film industry itself, your panelists also comprise of specialists in the field of special intelligence, the CIA, etc. How did you rope in actual spies to be a part of this festival, and was it a cake walk getting in touch with them, convincing them, etc.?
FJ: SPYSCAPE has a broad network of senior professionals from many of the world’s top domestic and international intelligence agencies, including CIA and FBI, MI5, and SIS (MI6), Mossad and Shin Bet, KGB, and FSB. These individuals embrace the SPYSCAPE mission to use great stories and experiences, based around secrets, to inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
We hope SPYFLIX will quickly establish itself, like SPYSCAPE, as an innovative leader in its field.”francis jago, head of marketing, spyscape
Has the pandemic presented any difficulties in the running of the festival?
FJ: Although the pandemic has inevitably caused complications, SPYFLIX was conceived as an international and primarily digital platform from day one—it’s not tied to any physical space.
Lastly, I’d like to ask what more is in store from SPYFLIX and your hopes for the festival in the future?
FJ: We hope to showcase great features, series, and shorts to stimulate critical discourse around secrets as a narrative device, to promote new and underrepresented creative voices, and to inspire people to do extraordinary things. We hope SPYFLIX will quickly establish itself, like SPYSCAPE, as an innovative leader in its field.
So do head on over to the SPYFLIX Festival Channel for your dose of secrets, spy capers, and intriguing tales from the field of special intelligence. Submissions can be made here: https://filmfreeway.com/SPYFLIXFILMFESTIVAL.
