Montreal: Canada’s newest distributor, Incendo Media, expects to be a major player in all media platforms and is opening with a Canadian joint-venture agreement with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution and an output deal for DreamWorks SKG movies in the Quebec theatrical market. Heading the new company are president and CEO Stephen Greenberg and executive VP Jean Bureau. Both men are also partners in production company JB Media.

Fox/Incendo Television Distribution’s program line-up boasts a slew of primetime hits, including Malcolm in the Middle and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The new company is headed by senior VP and managing director Michael Murphy, based in Toronto.

DreamWorks projects between eight and 10 releases in the next year, including Road to Perdition and Time Machine.

Anna Sue Greenberg-Wiltzer is managing Incendo’s marketing and promotions.

Greenberg says an output deal to rep the Hearst Entertainment catalogue in Canada is effectively signed. ‘And we are in the process of finalizing [an agreement] with HBO.’ Hearst represents many of the output movies licensed by A&E and Lifetime Network [both owned by Hearst Corp.] in the U.S.

Both Greenberg and Bureau held senior management positions with TVA International, now controlled by Quebecor Media.

Greenberg left TVA more than three months ago when his management-led offer to buy TVA’s distribution division and library assets was refused. Bureau had left earlier when TVA announced it would no longer finance and distribute international drama. Several of TVA’s key distribution relationships, including those with Fox, DreamWorks and Hearst, effectively terminated with Greenberg’s departure as the foreign partners had the right to discontinue the relationship with TVA.

The Greenberg family relationship with Fox in Canada originated at least 20 years ago with Stephen’s late father, Astral Media founder Harold Greenberg. ‘You have to realize we have been dealing with Hearst, from the distribution perspective, and in the financing of productions [more than $100 million] for probably more than 10 years,’ says Greenberg.

Bureau’s dad is Astral chairman and former CRTC chair Andre Bureau.

As for Canadian and European film, Greenberg says issues related to the Telefilm Canada distribution envelope will be taken up promptly in the new year. ‘As a Canadian distribution and production company, it is crucial for us to get involved as soon as possible,’ says Bureau.

‘We fully intend to join CAFDE and the other relevant Canadian organizations,’ adds Greenberg. ‘We want to have access to funds and we believe we’ll attract the right kind of filmmaking talent.’

TVA’s relationships with European companies like TF1 and Vivendi Universal studio Canal+, which includes 2001 theatrical hits like Amelie and Pact des Loups, are also terminated, and Bureau says Incendo intends to look into Euro movie fare acquisitions early in 2002.

Bureau and Greenberg are shareholders in the recently launched production house JB Media, a separate legal entity from Incendo that expects to produce up to 10 films a year in the $4.5-million range.

Financing and presales partners include Astral Television Networks and TVA International in Canada, Hearst and Court TV in the U.S., and DeAngelis Group and Victory Media Group in Europe. The company hopes to enter theatrical production as early as next summer, says Bureau.

In other distrib news, a trade story out of Toronto reports Andy Myers has left ThinkFilm and will join up with former Blackwatch Releasing president Yves Dion to launch a new distribco in the new year.

Most of the senior names in the tiny Canadian distribution sector have worked together in one way or another. ‘We have a very specific vision and point of view but we do not rule out associations with other people or companies in the future,’ says Greenberg.