The future of ThinkFilm’s Toronto office is in question with news that company founder and CEO Jeff Sackman is stepping aside.

Sackman, who never hid his intention to control a U.S.-focused distributor from Toronto, is to leave the company he and former Lionsgate executives formed in 2001.

The move follows the 2006 acquisition of ThinkFilm by Los Angeles-based film financier David Bergstein, who moved the company’s main base of operations to Los Angeles and New York, where Mark Urman is in charge as head of U.S. distribution.

A subsequent move by Sackman in late August to sell the Canadian rights to ThinkFilm’s 235-strong library to Entetainment One — and to release ThinkFilm titles through the upstart Canadian distributor — will effectively take the company Sackman founded out of Canadian distribution.

Once the Canadian deal with Entertainment One is completed, ThinkFilm will likely wind down its Toronto office, as the indie distributor continues its migration to the U.S. market.

The ThinkFilm library that Entertainment One acquired contains many of the edgy documentaries and indie movies that Sackman and his outfit became known for acquiring and releasing. These include Ed Harris’ Pollock, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother, Shortbus and The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

The initial sale to Bergstein was prompted in part by a falling-out between Sackman and Robert Lantos, then ThinkFilm’s co-owner.

Lantos subsequently formed his own Canadian distribution house, Maximum Films, which recently agreed to pool its backroom operations with Seville Entertainment in Toronto.

Sackman, who was unavailable for comment, told the U.S. press that his parting with Bergstein was amicable, and not, as rumors indicate, the result of a rift between the two.