Montreal: Four full years into the business, Remstar Corporation principals Maxime and Julian Remillard say their company has successfully navigated through the difficult, cash-intensive start-up period and has entered into a second phase of business development.

With the capital to take on more commercial projects, output agreements with both new and established producers, and a ‘more comfortable’ rotation on the distribution learning curve, Remstar is opening the vault on its $30-million investment fund, expanding business to include coproduction, the acquisition of international rights and production cofinancing. Remstar’s managers have shied away from prestigious if questionable sub-distribution deals, but say they’re looking closely at an investment in an established international sales company.

‘We’ve just begun to spend this money and we are open for business and the funding is there for the right projects,’ says copresident Julian Remillard. The company primarily uses its own funds, and copresident Maxime Remillard says, ‘A decision can be made in half an hour around this [boardroom] table.’

Remstar’s total commitment this year in terms of acquisitions, distribution, production, financing and international, as well as the associated promotional costs, is approximately $10 million, about 20% to 25% in Canadian rights.

‘We want to do more Canadian films and programming, and [the new Transfilm miniseries coproduction] Napoleon is at the level we want to be involved in,’ says Maxime Remillard.

In Canada, the distrib has ongoing relations with producers such as Prophecy Entertainment and Transfilm, which coproduced Jacques Dorfmann’s $23-million historical action/drama Druides, slated for an August theatrical release, and the eight-hour, $57-million Yves Simoneau historical miniseries Napoleon.

Remstar has Canadian rights on Napoleon, with some hope the series could score a premium pay-TV window. (For the record, Remstar reports it ultimately secured a ‘healthy profit’ in home video and TV on the Lord Richard Attenborough movie Grey Owl. Speculation in the industry had it the company had taken a major bath on the ‘calling card’ project, coproduced with Transfilm and producer Claude Leger, having paid $900,000 in licensing and as much in P&A costs.)

‘Prophecy Entertainment is a young [Vancouver] company we believe in and we have an exclusive [output] arrangement with them,’ says Maxime Remillard.

Integrated activity

Acquiring marketable product has been one of the most challenging issues facing the company, although Remstar has done good repeat business with European shops like MK2, UGC and TF1 International.

In its repositioning exercise, Remstar has hired Tony Porrello, general manager of Remstar Financing and a former manager with Royal Bank’s media and entertainment unit.

The company has invested its own money and organized additional international cofinancing for the $24-million feature film No Good Deed, a Seven Arts Picture production from director Bob Rafelson, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Maxime Remillard is one of the film’s producers. Shooting on location in Montreal goes from late July to mid-September.

‘We started in distribution [in April 1997], but we quickly discovered Canadian distribution is very difficult and very competitive, and what’s more, Canadian distributors really don’t have access to viably commercial films because we’re part of the American ‘domestic’ market,’ says Maxime Remillard. ‘So we said, ‘Distribution can be the platform to build [our role in] all the connecting activities.’ We’ve done our apprenticeship. We’ve been in business four years now. And now we want to expand, because it really doesn’t make much sense just being in distribution. We want quality, commercial products, and the only way to get to those bigger films is to get in at the source of [product]. And this is where production and financing come in.’

The company’s Canada Feature Film Fund distribution envelope is $500,000. Remstar says the new CFFF performance guidelines are fair, except they weren’t in the business five years ago, and the smaller (former Prima Film) envelope doesn’t allow them to compete equally with other Canadian distribs. The policy of phasing out the minimum guarantee should help create a more level playing field, says Maxime Remillard. ‘Let’s start equally. No assistance on acquisitions.’ The company recently closed its Toronto office, due to lack of product, and employs 15.

Foreign rights

Porrello is developing Remstar’s range of gap-financing style activities, which resorts to reserved revenue corridors in major international territories in exchange for production cofinancing. The service also provides advice on financial tools such as production tax-credit claims and shelters on service deals. Remstar is in negotiations with a German tax-based media fund, and is also a shareholder (and board member) in gap financier FIDEC.

‘People come to see us about distribution and then realize many times there are other problems that have to be dealt with,’ says Julian Remillard. ‘Sometimes Canadian distribution is only a small piece of the puzzle. If there’s potential we’ll buy the Canadian rights, and we can be quite aggressive in terms of rights in specific territories in exchange for $500,000 or $1 million.’

The ability to buy major foreign rights, specifically foreign rights to Canadian films, is a fundamental industry issue, with only two or three players sufficiently capitalized to take on this high-potential and expensive activity.

Release slate

Theatrical release highlights for Remstar Distribution in 2001 include the French thriller Une Affaire de gout; Colleen Murphy’s suspense drama Desire (produced by Subjective Eye); Claude Chabrol’s Merci pour le chocolate; the controversial Baise-Moi (Rape Me), which has $325,000 at the Canadian box office; and Gerard Corbiau’s Le Roi danse, with $250,000 at the box office. Other highlights include Raoul Peck’s Lumumba; John Eyres’ teen horror film Ripper (Prophecy), which preemed at the Montreal Fantasia Festival and opens nationally Sept. 21; and Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste, a 2001 Cannes Film Festival winner, which Remstar hopes to showcase at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Remstar is also hoping for Toronto or Vancouver festival dates for Anne Wheeler’s Suddenly Naked (formerly Show and Tell), a Rampage Entertainment (White Rock) drama of love and betrayal, starring Wendy Crewson, Peter Coyote and Joe Cobden.

Other Canadian pickups include Allan Goldstein’s Dorian, Hidden Agenda (EGM Productions), starring Dolph Lundgren; The Circle; Jet Boy; The Barber (from Prophecy); Black Point (from B.C. producer Richard Massey); and Federal Protection (Chariot Communications).

Remstar is also distributing Andrea and Antonio Frazzi’s Almost America, a Canada/Italy coproduction from Illusion Entertainment.

Higher-profile and more recent acquisitions include the romance Forever Lulu, the action film In God We Trust, both from Nu Image in the U.S., and Gerard Pires’ $19-million extreme-action story Heist (Transfilm), which shot over 12 weeks in Montreal this summer. *

-www.remstarcorp.com