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Joel Roodman and Patrick McDarrah have exited Miramax Films to form Gotham Entertainment Group, a New York-based production and representation company encompassing independent film and tv projects for international all-media distribution, with plans to be active in the Canadian market.

What this means to Canadian producers is that an ex-pat Canadian armed with a New York base and connections is looking to find the next Reservoir Dogs in need of a Pulp Fiction treatment The new company focus is on development and production with an eye to helping creative types bring their project to fruition. And it is looking to Canada as a source of hits waiting to be discovered.

‘Canada has a girth of that kind of material and talent,’ says Roodman, ‘and it’s time that it got a fair shake down here.’

Of the 20-odd projects which will be announced shortly, a few of the initial Gotham titles are Canadian-based; Roodman expects to do two to four of the projects in Canada in Gotham’s first year of operation. The projects’ budgets cover everything from the increasingly favored little picture (us$150,000 to us$200,000) to pics in the us$6 million range.

Roodman, an Ottawa native, was vice-president market development at Miramax, which he joined in 1991. Formerly, Roodman was vice-president at Comweb and prior to that spent four years at Astral in the home video/film end.

In addition to the company’s soon-to-be-revealed slate, Roodman plans to combine his connections in the domestic market and McDarrah’s expertise on the international side to act as producers’ reps, hooking up producers – who have either a finished feature film or are looking for finishing funds – with the right distributors.

‘Getting distribution is half the battle,’ says Roodman, ‘making sure it’s distributed right is the other half.

‘We have a whole laundry list of contacts that would help someone who really is a creative talent and doesn’t want to deal with the business side.’

Gotham will also help writers with a good script put a package together and draw on American contacts to help get it kick-started with some development funds.

‘Because we’re based in New York, we have a lot of access to funding opportunities,’ says Roodman. ‘There’s a lot of venture capital down here and a lot of people who want to become involved in the production end, and I don’t see why good Canadian stuff couldn’t take advantage of it.’

Roodman believes this rep side of Gotham’s operation will help Canadian talent mount a perennial obstacle – breaking down the border.

‘There’s so much opportunity for exposure here, and we don’t think people get enough of it. What it boils down to is taking some good ideas and talent and helping them get distribution in the u.s., which is really, in a lot of cases, what triggers these projects being made, either on the feature film or television side.’

In a feature landscape, where the distributor ranks are swelling at the same time the exhibitors are building new screens at breakneck speed, Gotham will be concentrating on the smaller film niche, which is considered to be an increasingly lucrative bet. ‘We’re going to be concentrating on the smaller independent projects because those are the ones that tend to slip through the cracks.’

The first project to be announced is Rockville Pictures’ Burnzy’s Last Call, Michael de Avila’s us$400,000 feature debut based on a Manhattan gin mill, which has already garnered significant distributor interest, but is being saved for Cannes.