Canada's Alliance Films Partners With Italy's Medusa

TORONTO -- Combining their respective territorial bulk, Canadian movie distributor Alliance Films is to partner with Italy's Medusa Film on feature film acquisitions and co-productions.

Alliance Film chairman Victor Loewy and Medusa Film CEO Giampaolo Letta have unleashed their respective execs to co-produce films or jointly acquire multi-territory rights.

The pact will see Medusa release product in Italy, with Alliance distributing in Canada and in the U.K. via its local outfit Momentum Pictures and in Spain through Aurum Producciones.

The deal was negotiated by Loewy and Charles Layton for Alliance Films and Faruk Alatan for Medusa.

Alliance Films, Canada's top indie distributor, has supply deals with Focus Features, Relativity Media, CBS Films and the Weinstein Co. as well as co-financing and distribution arrangements with a range of indie producers.

Medusa Film, Italy's leading indie distributor, recently co-produced Somewhere, by Sofia Coppola, and This Must Be the Place, by Paolo Sorrentino, with Sean Penn toplining.