Culture. Empathy. Capital.
PSYK makes distinctive films with the ambition to become lasting cultural artifacts, and runs them with the production discipline and financing rigor that lets the work repeat.
For years I watched incredible projects from talented producers, writers and directors take years to get financed, or never get made at all. Not because the work wasn’t good enough, but because the money wasn’t built for them.
The appetite for original, filmmaker-led stories is growing across the industry. Getting them financed is still the hardest part.
I saw the need for a long-term, sustainable financing solution that gives creatives a sanctuary — the freedom to tell the story only they can tell, without pressure to compromise.
PSYK combines creative judgment, production management and financial expertise in one company. An audience that stays with a film carries it beyond its first release, and it’s what makes the film earn.
We believe a single film can be a cultural artifact, an act of collective empathy and a return, because all three come from the same source: holding an audience.
Distinctive, authored films identified early, before the wider conversation catches up — with the potential to remain meaningful across audiences and generations.
The work gives people a reason to watch, remember and return.
Meaningful stories can nurture empathy within and between communities, and the practice that makes that possible sits in the budget rather than in the intention.
Human understanding has intrinsic value, and its effects can compound into wider society.
A budget the audience proposition can support, a financeable plan, and a contractual share of the cash and rights the film creates.
Commercial discipline sustains future work and investor participation.
Heidi Psyk has spent two decades on the three sides this business usually keeps apart: getting a script to the point a studio will finance it, getting expensive pictures made, and making audiences and institutions care.
Development and packaging
Script development and talent packaging at Mutual Film Company, under a first-look deal with Paramount, and at The Firm’s production arm.
Knows how a script becomes a package a studio will finance, and where a marketable idea actually dies in development.
Studio production
Post-production coordination on Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure and Bad Boys II, seeing studio-scale pictures through to delivery.
Knows what a delivery calendar costs when it slips, and where studio money is wasted on films that look safe.
Brand and narrative
Close to a decade building story-driven work that grew the brand’s community and global reach, through to the sale to Bain Capital.
A decade of arguing the commercial case for work that does not look commercial on paper, and winning it.
Access and slate
Relationships across financing, talent representation and independent distribution mean projects arrive before they are shopped widely. Our first films are in development now.
Sourcing does not start cold, and distribution thinking starts at treatment stage.
A coherent mandate and an audience proposition with substance.
Control of the cost and timing of making a saleable film.
Production commitments matched to credible revenue.
Capital exposure and the route to repayment made visible.
Our ambition is a catalog of distinctive films audiences keep watching, discussing and sharing, and a company capable of creating the next generation of that work. Production rigor, commercial judgment and financial infrastructure are what make that repeatable.
PSYK welcomes conversations with filmmakers, producers, distributors, and prospective capital partners who share this ambition.
heidi@psyk.studio
Chief financial officer
Twenty years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance and operating CFO roles, advising founders and boards through cross-border transactions. At PSYK he is responsible for the company’s structure, its financial control and the capital work behind each project. MBA, University of Oxford, where he is a recurring guest lecturer. Based in Amsterdam.
Previous professional experience is distinct from a PSYK production or investment track record. The studio is being built, and specialist capacity, external appointments and the operating track record develop alongside the slate.
“PSYK backs globally resonant, genre-agnostic stories built around human connection: films and series that make audiences feel something real, see through someone else’s eyes, and leave more compassionate than they arrived.”
Heidi Psyk, founder
An original voice and a specific human story give the film an identity in a crowded market. Development tests the audience proposition with independent market input.
Who will choose this film, and why?
Theatrical, platform and broadcast routes are tested against the film rather than assumed. Release investment, deductions and approvals are negotiated and costed up front.
Which partners reach that audience at a viable cost?
Retained or licensed rights support later sales and repeat viewing. Expiring licenses, unsold territories and delivery materials are actively maintained.
What future cash can PSYK actually capture?
These criteria are how PSYK chooses projects, not an established PSYK revenue record. No distributor, platform or partner is committed yet.
Our first films tell specific, human stories, drawn from or inspired by real events. Behind each one is a disciplined bet. We weigh every title against our three pillars and against the rest of the slate: genre, budget, home territory, market timing and primary buyer. No single film exceeds a set maximum exposure.
Inspired by a true story. A conservationist takes in a herd of elephants no one else would take. When he dies, the herd comes to his house to mourn him.
Inspired by a real, ongoing crisis. A young woman with albinism, hunted for what others believe her body holds, discovers she is heir to a warrior bloodline 18,000 years old.
Three teenage boys, strangers in every way, find each other inside Europe’s most notorious refugee camp, and carry each other into new lives.
More titles are in development.
No title is financed, greenlit or contracted yet, and rights and attachments are confirmed title by title.
This section sets out the rules PSYK uses to commit capital. It is available to prospective investors and partners on request.
To request it, write to heidi@psyk.studio