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Raven Banner Releasing has acquired the Canadian distribution rights to Peter Ricq’s debut feature Dead Shack. Produced by Amber Ripley of Goodbye Productions and Shayne Putzlocher of Trilight Entertainment, filming on the horror recently wrapped in Vancouver. The project was penned by Ricq, Philippe Ivanusic-Vallee and Davila LeBlanc, who are also the writing team behind the animated series The League of Super Evil. The film is a dark horror comedy centred on three children who must save their hard-partying parents from their predatory cabin neighbor while a weekend getaway. Dead Shack was developed through Telefilm Canada, Super Channel and Creative BC and was partly financed by Telefilm Canada and RG Properties.

Closet Monster picked up by Netflix U.S.
Stephen Dunn’s coming-of-age drama Closet Monster (pictured) has landed on Netflix. The feature film, which made its world premiere at TIFF ’15, was previously picked up by Strand Releasing in the U.S. in a deal inked in December 2015. The California-based distributor has an output deal with Netflix for all its theatrical releases. Dunn wrote and directed the project, his feature-length debut, while Kevin Krikst and Fraser Ash of Rhombus Media and Edward J. Martin of Best Boy Entertainment produced the film. Outside of North America, the film is repped by Fortissimo Films, while Elevation Pictures holds the Canadian distribution rights.

The Stairs
On the heels of winning the $100,000 Toronto Film Critics Association Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, Hugh Gibson-directed documentary The Stairs has been acquired by New York-based Grasshopper Film for U.S. non-theatrical distribution. The feature-length doc, which made its world premiere at TIFF ’16, examines the lives of habitual drug users in Toronto’s Regent Park. After winning the TFCA prize, Gibson announced that he would split the cash with the other two nominees, Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche and Kazik Radwanski’s How Heavy This Hammer.

CraveTV
CraveTV has picked up What Would Sal Do? from New Metric Media, the producers behind CraveTV’s first original, Letterkenny. Read more here.