Actors, directors, producers and writers… We’ve been connecting international film festivals with world-class talent for over 35 years.
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Three ways we work
Talent Booking
Festival Advisory
We help launch, curate, advise, and bring content to film festivals worldwide. Whether you’re starting a new one, or refreshing an established one, and bring over 35 years of expertise in this sector.
Film Festival Agency was founded by Thomas de la Cal in the late 1980s with a single, clear ambition: to bring Hollywood stars to international film festivals. At a time when the global circuit for film events was still finding its shape, Thomas saw the value of connecting the world’s finest screen talent with audiences and programmers far beyond the Hollywood system.
Over three-and-a-half decades, the agency has grown from that original focus on Hollywood names into a truly international operation. Today, the roster spans actors, directors, writers and producers from across the globe — from Italian cinema icons to cutting-edge auteurs, from Golden Age legends to contemporary award-winners. The geography has expanded too: the agency has placed talent at festivals across Europe, Latin America, Scandinavia, Asia and beyond.
The work is straightforward in principle and complex in practice. When a film festival wants a world-class name for its programme — to receive a lifetime achievement award, to present a retrospective, to take part in a masterclass, or simply to bring prestige to a red carpet — Film Festival Agency makes it happen. That means negotiation, logistics, relationships built over decades, and an understanding of what festivals need and what talent is willing to do.
Beyond festivals, the agency also provides talent for film and television productions, music videos, promotional campaigns, symposiums and workshops. The breadth of the roster — and the trust built with the people on it — means the agency can respond to requests that few others could fulfil.
History & founding
Festivals
Thomas de la Cal has spent his career at the intersection of cinema and the people who make it. He founded the Film Festival Agency in the late 1980s, and has since built it into one of the most distinctive operations in international film representation — one defined not by scale, but by access.
His connection to the film industry goes back further still. In 1992, he worked on the production of Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, the $45-million historical epic produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind — the producers behind the Superman franchise — and starring Marlon Brando and Tom Selleck. That early experience working at the highest levels of international film production informed the approach he would bring to the agency: directness, a clear sense of what the industry actually needs, and relationships built on trust rather than transaction.
Through the agency, Thomas has facilitated appearances and engagements for some of the most significant figures in world cinema. Recent years have seen him work with Martin Scorsese, Viggo Mortensen and Isabella Rossellini at the Stockholm International Film Festival; with director Ken Loach at the Atlàntida Film Festival in Mallorca — attended by Queen Letizia of Spain; with director Terry Gilliam at the Los Cabos International Film Festival; with Canadian director Mary Harron at Stockholm; and with Sophia Loren as she received her star on the Walk of Fame in Almería, Spain.
He is based in [CONFIRMAR LOCALIZAÇÃO COM CLIENTE] and continues to run the agency as a hands-on, personal operation — which is, in large part, why it works.
