New York-based production and sales outfit Visit Films arrived in Rotterdam this week with three IFFR titles already under its belt. Geoffrey Macnab reports
The three are Oliver Hermanus’ Shirley Adams, Sophie Deraspe’s Vital Signs and Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers. Visit is also eyeing up other projects in the programme and CineMart. Speaking in Rotterdam this week, Visit partner Ryan Kampe was striking a bullish note about the independent marketplace. These are tough times for arthouse distributors. Nonetheless, Kampe – who already reports buyer interest in Trash Humpers – argues that adventurous arthouse fare still has its place in cinemas.
The New York-based outfit, which handles between ten and twelve films a year, was founded three years ago by Kampe and Sylvain Tron. “We’re a small company with a low overhead. That allows us to take risks that other companies might not take.”
Groundbreaking
The Visit Films co-founder argues that Rotterdam remains an important destination for buyers and sales agents, describing it as a bridge between Sundance and Berlin. Last year during Rotterdam, Visit closed a deal for the US with Strand Releasing for Noah Buschel's The Missing Person. “At Sundance and Berlin, it is so hectic and people have such a small amount of time. Rotterdam is a really good place to sit down with people.” Kampe adds that Rotterdam is “a vital place for cinema and a vital place for our films to be seen by a public audience. For people who appreciate cinema, it’s still a place that introduces a lot of new filmmakers and shows a lot of work that’s pretty groundbreaking. That’s the kind of cinema we want to be associated with and so it makes sense to be here.”
Emotional connection
Visit works on the principle that if “we find the right films that we love,” the company can communicate its enthusiasm to the buyers. “That’s the underlying idea – the emotional connection to these films: that they will find buyers and audiences. Will they sell the 35 territories? Probably not, but the idea is that we’re bringing value and exposing these films to a wider marketplace.” Visit recently closed a North American deal with the Global Film Initiative for Shirley Adams, which will be released later in the spring.
Ubiquitous
Securing a US deal early is still often the key to selling films internationally. With fewer US buyers now buying independent arthouse fare, Kampe said that it was becoming “tougher” to sell these films abroad. “If you have a US deal, it definitely doesn’t hurt you,” Kampe said. “The marketing on the internet is so ubiquitous, anyone anywhere will access that. Even a distributor in Sweden understands that its audiences are looking at the US blogs.”
Beautiful and amazing
Visit Films generally picks up films at an advanced stage. On occasion, though, the company will acquire films at script stage. For example, Visit recently signed up Toomelah, the new project from Aussie director Ivan Sen. “We can’t take every challenging film that comes along. There is a lot of stuff that is going to be beautiful and amazing, but we have to be picky. We don’t want to get on board a film that we don’t end up selling,” Kampe said.