Seville Pictures will beef up its library with a number of high-profile Canuck and copro titles, after its offer to purchase 27 films from the catalog of troubled distributor Christal Films was approved by the Quebec Superior Court on Friday. The deal will close mid-August, once producers of the films involved agree to the transfer of their agreements.

Christal, best-known for releasing Quebec box office hits including Les 3 p’tits cochons and A vos marques, party!, put out a call for offers through trustee Raymond Chabot Inc. in May, shortly after it filed for bankruptcy protection.

Seville co-president David Reckziegel says the company moved ‘aggressively’ to pick up the titles, which include Cadavres, the latest from Bon Cop, Bad Cop director Érik Canuel and headlined by Bon Cop‘s Patrick Huard, and Kim Nguyen’s upcoming Truffe, featuring Roy Dupuis.

‘It was important to us…Part of our strategy is to be the clear number two distributor in Canada [behind Alliance Films] by market share,’ Reckziegel tells Playback Daily. ‘These films have a lot of market potential, and will immediately increase our share of the market in Quebec.’

Reckziegel would not disclose what the deal is worth, but says there were other bidders involved. Seville is owned by Entertainment One, which recently made waves with its acquisition of TV companies Blueprint Entertainment, Barna-Alper Productions and Oasis International, as well as film distributor Maximum Films. The blockbuster deal requires shareholder approval.

Other films obtained in the deal include Philippe Falardeau’s comedy C’est pas moi, je le jure!, recently added as a special presentation at TIFF, and copros Mr. Nobody, starring Sarah Polley, and drama Afterwards, featuring John Malkovich and Evangeline Lilly.

Reckziegel says bidders had to take the entire slate of 21 Canadian films offered, while companies could pick and choose among the foreign titles, of which there were more than 30.

‘[Seville] picked six foreign films with the most potential and that best fill the holes in our release schedule,’ he adds. As part of the agreement, Seville will honor distribution agreements and the balance of payments that are to be made on the films it acquired.

Christal’s financial woes began in 2007 after it was unable to continue its partnership with Maple Films and Lionsgate.

Of the recent transaction with Seville, Christal president Christian Larouche said he was pleased, noting in a release that one of his objectives with the restructuring of Christal was to ‘minimize the impact on the unfinished films we had committed to.’