FEATURE
Moonrise Kingdom
carpet shuffle for the world premiere of the festi- val’s opening film Moonrise Kingdom and a handful of other titles on which it holds distribu- tion rights, they can be forgiven for feeling a little pressure. First there is the prospect of scouring the busi-
est market on the calendar for potentially lucra- tive acquisitions; then there is the matter of the Alliance sale. Alliance Films’ Montreal-based chairman Victor Loewy has indicated the time- line for the transaction is tighter than many observers at first believed and is likely to be revealed during Cannes. This is the kind of scenario that can turn pre-
market nerves into heightened anxiety. Yet two weeks before Cannes kicks off, Loewy and Lon- don-based president of worldwide distribution Xavier Marchand talk amiably as they reflect on recent accomplishments. Alliance has just acquired UK, Canadian and
Spanish rights from IM Global to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev’s all-star thriller Dead Man Down in a pure distri- bution deal. Alliance has also taken Canadian dis- tribution rights to Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama Bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty from Panorama Media, the new venture backed by Megan Ellison. The mercurial Loewy even offers a nugget or
two when asked about the imminent sale. “Every- thing is possible,” he says. He indicates co-owners Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Investisse-
n 36 Screen International at Cannes May 16, 2012 On The Road
Alliance’s Kingdom T
he countdown to Cannes is a hectic time. As the top brass at the ambitious Canadian player Alliance Films prepare to do the red-
‘The Canadian market has become much less
competitive’ Victor Loewy, Alliance Films
Alliance Films’ Victor Loewy and Xavier Marchand reveal how they plan to acquire product for their international distribution pipeline on the Croisette. Jeremy Kay reports
ment Quebec, could divest themselves of Alliance Films within two to four weeks and the company could even be taken out of its Montreal headquar- ters and indeed the province. Loewy declines to speculate on the identity of
the bidders, though Entertainment One is widely assumed to be in the hunt. “The two owners of the company are putting the company up for sale because that was the intention from day one because both of these companies are financial players,” says Loewy. Alliance is an attractive proposition. Loewy,
Marchand, company president Charles Layton and CFO Alison Cornwell have been busy build- ing the brand. Success has come through a high- pedigree distribution pipeline spanning Canada (through Alliance Vivafilm), the UK (Momentum Pictures) and Spain (Aurum). More recently, there has been a production push that has allowed the company to control underlying rights to its greater advantage. “[Around 2008], production financing was get-
ting scarcer because of the financial crisis,” Marchand says. “Charles, Victor and I looked at our business model. At the time it was entirely about licensing films from third parties and we decided to move more into alliances with produc- ers to help them put the financing together and change our model more to one of co-financing in certain cases and making films happen.” Alliance Films and Stuart Ford’s IM Global set
up the production and co-f inancing entity Automatik, which among other films has yielded Safe and the upcoming release Welcome To The Punch. A pact with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Pro- ductions has yielded titles including The Lords Of Salem and The Babymakers. Alliance has also struck a co-production and acquisitions deal with Italy’s Medusa Film and a first-look deal with Iain Canning and Emile Sherman’s See-Saw Films. “We did The King’s Speech and Shame [with See-
Saw] and are also involved in putting together an Australian film called Tracks,” Marchand says.
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