B Media Global Backs Up Jim Mickle’s ‘Cold’ in First for Fund (EXCLUSIVE)
Paris-based Backup Media, a film consultancy and investor, has unveiled the first financing deals put through on three titles by B Media Global.
Launched last year by Backup, B Media Global is a film fund aimed at bringing Gallic financial know-how and clout to non-French movies made around the globe.
In one of its earliest moves, B Media Global has fully financed “Cold in July,” the next film by American director Jim Mickle, hot off his English-language remake, “We Are What We Are” which bowed at Sundance.
Produced by Linda Moran and Rene Bastian at New York-based Belladonna, “Cold” is a character-driven thriller. Mickle rolls on “Cold” in July. “Cold” marks Backup Media’s first ever case of fully financing a movie.
B Media Global has also secured an average 20%-of-budget financing on two titles going into production this year.
The first feature from Denmark’s Jonas Arnby, “When Animals Dream” is a “the kind of coming-of-age genre movie that gets that gets us excited,” said Backup Media partner Joel Thibout. It turns on a teen growing up as a werewolf.
Ditte Milsted and Caroline Bingestam at Alphaville Pictures produce; Christoffer Boe, a distinguished director in his own right, exec produces with Tine Grew Pfeiffer.
Backup’s B Global media will also gap finance, partnering with sales company WTFilms, Chilean director Patricio Valladeres’ English-language remake of his own original, a backwoods slasher “Hidden in the Woods.” Michael Biehn produces through his joint production venture with Jennifer Blanc and co-stars.
On both “Dream” and “Woods,” B Global Media’s involvement effectively greenlit production.
“We don’t have any fixed scheme about when we get involved with a producer or sales agent,” Thibout said. “We’re willing to put up all the risk money to get a film into production.”
Backup Media finance can run from $1 million up to $15 million per project.
Other titles in which Backup Media has invested via its B Media Sofica fund are: “Human Nature,” from Italy’s Paolo Virzi (“The First Beautiful Thing”), a road accident drama with social undertones; first-timer Abner Pastoll’s buzzed up title “Road Games,” a French-English starring Ana Girardot and Andrew Simpson, produced by “The Host’s” London-based Junyoung Jang and Superb Films’ Guillaume Benski; TV docu series “Wild France,” from Jacques Malaterre (“Homo Sapiens”), which is sold by BBC Worldwide.
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