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Mother expands into entertainment with the launch of Mother Pictures, headed up by Mark Waites

Only a week after the launch of its new creative offering, Other, Mother London is introducing another venture, Mother Pictures, a vehicle for creating unbranded entertainment.

Mark Waites, one of the founders of Mother, will lead the operation, which is kicking off with “The Leak,” a five-part series about a broken relationship. Set during lockdown and filmed in a Zoom-style format, it will be aired on IGTV via @motherlondon.

Andrew Gow, who has been head of TV at Mother since January 2019, has joined Waites’ team. He was previously head of development at Raindog Films, the production company founded by actor Colin Firth, and also worked on development for movies including “Paddington” and “Gravity” while at Heyday Films.

Waites said: “We’ve seen many fantastic storytelling talents emerge from the ad world over the years, some of them having started at our company, so for a long time we have felt this itch to participate more meaningfully in the storytelling space.

“Covid or not, this is a very exciting time for British TV and film; the rise of streaming services and a desire for greater diversity and inclusion mean stories are being told now that would never have made it over the line in years past. So the time has come for us to build our own slate of projects, gathering distinctive, authored IP, and courting this generation’s most promising talent, across TV and film.”

It’s not clear whether Mother Pictures will contribute much to Mother’s bottom line, or if it’s more of a pet project to keep Waites interested after nearly 25 years with the agency. Mother does, however, have a history of partnering with top talent, including working with director Shane Meadows on Somers Town, a film funded by Eurostar, back in 2008. And the agency did pretty well teaming up with good people when it invested in Naked and Poke.

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