LONDON · FILM & TELEVISION PRODUCTION
We produce film and television about remarkable people.
A London production company making film, drama and documentary, from BAFTA-nominated drama for the BBC to co-producing US feature film, Anemone, for Focus Features.
Anemone (Focus Features, 2025). Absinthe Film Entertainment: Co-Producer.
BAFTA NOMINATED
Nureyev
Rudolf Nureyev: Dance to Freedom, BBC
MOVIE CO-PRODUCER
Anemone
Focus Features, 2025
BROADCAST CREDITS
BBC · Sky Arts
Investigation Discovery and AHC
Productions
Our work
Feature film · Co-producer
Ronan Day-Lewis's debut feature for Focus Features, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean and Samantha Morton.
Comedy drama · Sky Arts
Robbie Coltrane as Orson Welles, broke and on the run in 1970s Norfolk, in an episode of Sky Arts' International Emmy-nominated series.
Single drama · BBC
The BAFTA-nominated story of the dancer's 1961 defection, with Bolshoi star Artem Ovcharenko as Nureyev. With IWC Media.
Also produced
Joe Orton Laid Bare
Son of Sam: The Hunt for a Killer
Justice for MLK: The Hunt for James Earl Ray
Ballet Unplugged: Lionheart
BBC Two
Investigation Discovery
AHC
Dance film
Documentary drama · with IWC Media
Two-hour special · with Cream Productions
Two-hour special · with Cream Productions
St Petersburg · with Xander Parish
IN DEVELOPMENT
Coming next
Original film and series in development with our writers, directors and partners.
Feature film · Erotic neo-noir
SUBDUCTION
When desires turn dangerous, how far are you prepared to go? A young Oakland drifter dominates her lover into committing robberies for sexual kicks, every job riskier than the last.
Written by Richard Curson Smith & Leslie Asako Gladsjo
Limited drama series · 6 × 60′
The Churchill Club
Britain's foremost family, up close and on show as the Second World War rages around them, and the defining story of the Anglo-American special relationship.
Drama series · Thriller
Future Days
A television thriller from an original story by J.G. Ballard, in which Europe's overheating resort islands become leisure internment camps.
Created & written by Richard Curson Smith
Documentary feature
Josephine Baker & The Rainbow Tribe
With exclusive access to the Baker family, Josephine Baker's twelve adopted children tell the story of her extraordinary family experiment for the first time.
Directed by Leslie Asako Gladsjo
COMPANY
We make film and television about remarkable people. The real ones, and the ones we invent.
Founded in 2015, Absinthe makes long-form, close-focus stories about turning points in culture and recent history, scripted and non-scripted, for broadcasters, streamers and cinema.
We produce on both sides of the Atlantic, with partners ranging from Plan B Entertainment and Focus Features, with whom we co-produced Anemone, to UK broadcasters including the BBC and Sky. Represented by United Agents.
Richard Curson Smith
FOUNDING PARTNER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Richard is an experienced British writer-director and producer who has written and made a range of single television features and series, both scripted and documentary which have been widely distributed. He has multiple BAFTA, EMMY, Grierson, Real Screen and Prix Italia awards and nominations. His feature documentaries include films about the defection of Rudolf Nureyev, the life and work of painter Francis Bacon, the poet Ted Hughes and Oscar Wilde.
Credits include Rudolf Nureyev: Dance to Freedom, Urban Myths: F for Fakenham, The Importance of Being Oscar and Ted Hughes: Stronger Than Death
Jeremy Campbell
PARTNER & PRODUCER
Jeremy is an accomplished producer with 20 years' experience in British film, television and commercials. Alongside his work for Absinthe, including Anemone for Focus Features and Urban Myths: F for Fakenham for Sky Arts, he has co-produced award-winning features for Film4, the BFI, Netflix, Searchlight, Focus Features and Universal. His films have brought powerful visions from some of the UK's most exciting and diverse talent to the screen, in front of and behind the camera, and have been nominated for numerous BIFAs and BAFTAs.
Personal feature credits: All of Us Strangers (co-producer), Been So Long (line producer), The Last Tree (line producer)