Fran Kuzui says it’s best to describe her multifaceted company as a ‘mini-studio.’ Kuzui Enterprises – owned by senior vp Kuzui and her husband – has in its 15 years been a producer and distributor of films, with Kuzui acting on more than one occasion as a writer and director.

In these various roles, Kuzui has attended all but one of the past 15 Toronto International Film Festivals in order to buy new product for her markets in Japan and maintain relationships

‘Going to Toronto is like going to your family’s house for the holidays,’ she explains from her Los Angeles office. ‘You can’t not go. It’s a great opportunity to spend social time with business associates.’

As a distributor at tiff, Kuzui has in past years secured the box office, television and video rights for Japan to titles such as Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter (Alliance Communications). And while coproduction deals with films such as Sliding Doors are becoming more important for Kuzui, this year she is looking for finished films. For Japanese rights, she pays in the range of $150,000 to $2 million.

Japanese audiences, she says, are into action films, but there is a strong market for the romance-type properties that Kuzui favors. The best performing property for which Kuzui owns rights is Scott Hick’s feature Shine. Also, pediatric aids drama The Cure – a film that did poorly in the rest of the world – did well at Japanese theaters, she says.

Other titles that Kuzui represents are Welcome to the Dollhouse and Microcosmos.

As a producer, Kuzui recently backed the comedy Orgazmo, about a naive Mormon who gets caught up in l.a.’s pornography scene, which screened at last year’s tiff as well as the past Sundance Festival. As a director, she handled the feature Buffy the Vampire Slayer and has repackaged the concept for the current television series of the same name.