Behaviour Communications has launched an international ‘classics’ division as a complement to its l.a.-based theatrical division Behaviour Worldwide.

While the Worldwide division will continue to rep reasonably high-budget, well-financed and internationally presold projects, the new classics division will internationally distribute the rest of Behaviour’s titles including most of its Canadian films.

Director Bruce McDonald’s (Hard Core Logo, Highway 61) next picture, Claire’s Hat, which is slated to shoot next summer in Montreal as a coproduction between Behaviour subsidiary Lux Films and France’s Sirius Films (37.2 le matin, Arizona Dream), will be distributed internationally by the new classics division and domestically by Behaviour. Claire’s Hat will see Charlotte Laurier playing a unilingual Quebecoise woman living in Toronto.

Behaviour is also slated to distribute the Cinemaginaire/France coproduction feature La Veuve de St-Pierre, expected to start shooting in Atlantic Canada in early March, says Pierre Brousseau, vp Behaviour distribution in Montreal.

Behaviour Classics will acquire and distribute up to six auteur titles per year and will be administered by senior Canadian vps Brousseau (Montreal) and Andy Myers (Toronto), and Clark Peterson, newly named vp creative and acquisitions with Behaviour Worldwide. Nathalie Osborne is program coordinator.

The new division introduced two Canadian films at the London Screenings and mifed – Bruce Sweeney’s Dirty and Curtis Wehrfritz’s Four Days, an Ontario/Quebec coproduction.

At mifed, Behaviour picked up all Canadian rights to director Rose Troche’s Bedrooms and Hallways, described as a ‘gay Big Chill’ by Myers, who made the deal. Bedrooms and Hallways screened at both Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival and is slated for release next spring.

Also at mifed, Behaviour picked up French-Canadian rights to the Anjelica Huston, Ray Liotta starrer Phoenix. The film will go straight to video and Behaviour has already shipped 5,000 English-language copies to Canadian video stores.

Two current Behaviour releases are showing strong box-office numbers. At press time, Dirty had taken in $40,000 from three markets – Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – in four weeks, while Happiness had grossed $95,000 in two and a half weeks in the same three markets.