The Los Cabos International Film Festival paid off handsomely for Canadian indies Media Darling and Amazing Factory, which saw a meeting on their next film with Toronto’s Film Farm turn into a deal.

The project on the table is the next film from indie director Andrew Huculiak, I’m a Bad Person, produced by the prodco he runs with his brother Josh and cousins Joseph and Amanda Schweers. The foursome produced Huculiak’s last film, 2014’s Violent, which enjoyed a successful film festival run and won several awards, including a Leo for best picture.

The strength of Violent, which screened at Los Cabos last year, earned the filmmakers an encore invitation from the fest for its Discovery program, meant to showcase projects in development to potential buyers and partners. Which apparently worked, because Media Darling’s Amy Darling and Welker House’s Nicole Irene Dyck successfully negotiated an agreement to see Film Farm producers Jennifer Weiss and Simone Urdl board the project as executive producers.

In an email interview with Playback, Weiss and Urdl said they were impressed by the talent already demonstrated by the Amazing Factory team.

“Andrew and the team behind Violent are some of the most exciting new talents to come out of Canada in the past few years. Violent‘s visual aesthetic was arresting, and we decided after seeing it that we’d like to support them in any way that we can,” said Weiss.

“Josh, Amy, and Nicole are obviously dedicated to supporting new and talented filmmakers, and we love what they’re doing as producers,” added Urdl.

The new partnership is no small coup for Amazing and Media Darling. Weiss and Urdl are highly experienced and well-known Canadian producers, having been producers most recently on bigger-budget Canadian films such as The Captive, Foxfire and Daydream Nation. Last week, Playback reported that Film Farm joined Brian De Palma’s upcoming project Lights Out, a China/U.S./Canada copro to be shot in Toronto in 2016.

Speaking with Playback this week, Darling called the partnership “one of the most exciting moments of my career,” and said that Weiss and Urdl will help guide the project through a more traditional financing process, as Violent was completed on more of a shoestring budget. She said the budget will likely come down to casting and said the team has already had “unbelievable interest.”

I’m a Bad Person will be built as a Canadian film and shot in Canada, at a location to be determined.

Photo credit: Amy Darling / Pictured:  Nicole Irene Dyck, Jennifer Weiss, Simone Urdl, Amy Darling