ISA of the Day: Films Boutique
International Sales Agents (ISA)
This is the first of a series, part of a tour of the arthouse international sales agents who are active today, looking for new ways of delivering the kinds of films I love the most which are also the most difficult and non-renumerative.
Many films are financed by their governments or international film bodies who recognize that one cannot live on bread alone; that art sustains our spirit. But in today's days of Corona Virus, we are moving into survival mode and art is often the first casualty in any struggle for survival. So monetary renumeration matters.
In times of trouble, the spirit does not die and so we are keeping up the good fight. I hope that by highlighting the ISAs (international sales agents) who create monetary returns for artists by selliing the rights to exhibit the films to distributors who then open films territorially or on platforms, we can steer the intrepid artist filmmakers into channels of remuneration for their efforts.
Festivals matter but their prime importance, in this particular instance, is to bring films to the avant-garde of the most interested public which in turn attracts the next person in line to see the film who is the one who will actually pay for a ticket which will transmute into money that reaches the filmmakers themselves in order to keep the industry turnover churning and the filmmaker working.
The international sales agent Films Boutique is clearly one of the most outstanding arthouse international sales agents today.
Films Boutique, (a sibling of the Paris-based Films Distribution, now called Playtime), is based in Berlin and was founded by Jean-Christophe Simon and Gabor Greiner. As they describe themselves, they are a “world sales agent with a heart, slightly obsessed with arthouse and documentary films. We pride ourselves in building up a repute of new and confirmed talents.”
Films Boutique and other international sales agents (who for short are called ISAs by me and IMDb in their Companies Pages) find films in many ways: firstly through filmmaker relationships that have been established over time; then perhaps “over the transom” which means hopeful filmmakers sending in their films with relevent information which might hook ISA interest; also through other connections, perhaps at festival premiere screenings, but also at workshops that festivals increasingly offer as a way to help filmmakers whose films they may be showing or whose patronage the festivals are seeking. Festivals must offer filmmakers something in return if they want their films to show “for free”.
Gabor is taped here discussing why he attends the Cannes Producers Network, to be held this year 22–26 June 2020. Filmmakers should be encouraged to attend such workshops because it is there that they can meet such ISAs as Films Boutique. Watch Gabor explain more here.
This Festival de Cannes, Films Boutique, in conjunction with its parent company, the former Film Distribution, now called Playtime (Read more about Playtime here.), is selling the Festival Film Death of Cinema and My Father Too by Dani Rosenberg starring the ubiquitous producer Marek Rosenblum.
A highly personal story of the director’s relationship with his father, their love of cinema and his father’s illness: “Although Tel Aviv burns to the ground at the end of the fictional film I tried to make with my father, his real world does not end with a bang, but with a slow, fading crumble.” Sister company Films Boutique is handling international sales.
Films Boutique made a huge splash in Berlin this year with the Golden Bear Winner, the Iranian film There Is No Evil; with the Gala Special art doc with Tilda Swinton Last and First Men; with China’s Suk Suk in Panorama, produced by the beloved veteran Michael J. Werner; with Agnieszka Holland’s Competition film Charlatan, written by Marek Epstein, a young Prague actor who has written one of Holland’s best recent movies.
The last batch of films (from the Toronto Film Festival through the Academy Award season on the film circuit calendar) included Estonia’s Academy Award-nominated or shortlisted Truth and Justice, a film I loved and wrote about in November; the Dutch Academy Award submission Instinct; the German submission which I caught in Toronto Pelican Blood where I interviewed director Katrin Gebbe; and the beautifully lyrical Morocco submission Adam, another of my favorites which I first saw at Al Gouna Film Festival, and the already ‘old’ (2018) but unforgettable film, Birds of Passage from Colombia.
So There is No Evil sold quite well, to Benelux, Surinam and Dutch Antilles to September, for France to Pyramide, to Baltics’ Kono Pavasaris, Norway’s Bergen, Spin’s BTeam, Turkey’s Filmarti, Switzerland’s trigon-film and US’ Kino Lorber.
What is obviously most important in choosing an international sales agent is what sales do they make. Sometimes noviate filmmakers think festivals are most important but those are marketing tools in order to bring in sales which in turn means wide distribution to a paying public. Film is, after all, a public art which combines with business in order to make money to sustain its ongoing ability to create more art.
