Sundance 2012: New Online Hub Slated Launches (Exclusive)

Stephan Paternot & Duncan Cork

As the Sundance Film Festival once again gets underway with its annual showcase of independent filmmakers and their work, Stephan Paternot and Duncan Cork are launching an enterprise that they hope will facilitate even more indie filmmaking.

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Called Slated, the online hub is designed to provide a private investment network for established independent filmmakers looking for backers, and investors looking for seasoned filmmakers with quality projects and solid reputations. Paternot, the new company’s chairman, and Cork, its CEO, aim to create an exclusive marketplace where filmmakers, distributors, investors and sales agents can interact with each other and track projects in an online environment protected and vetted by the community’s own members.

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“The acute economic downturn has resulted in a severe shortage of investment capital across all industry sectors, including film, making financing independent films increasingly challenging,” says Paternot. “To a limited extent online ‘crowd-funding’ has begun filling the void for micro budget projects, using donations from fans. However, we decided from the get go to be an equity investment platform only, catering to established filmmakers and financiers looking to raise tens of millions for their films. As such, all our investors are accredited investors, about 50% of our investor community represent institutions, distributors and sales companies.”

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The company recently completed a two-month private beta period, which narrowed more than 2,000 feature-film submissions down to 30 and signed accredited investors, production companies, sales companies and distributors with a combined capital interest of over $100 million. New projects listed on Slated include Trust Me, The Way, Way Back, The Mourning Portrait, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out and Phoenix. Initial producers involved in Slated include Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte (The Kids Are All Right, Thirteen), Lesley Chilcott (Waiting For Superman, An Inconvenient Truth), Mary Jane Skalski (Win Win, The Visitor) and Rene Bastian (Transamerica, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints).

“Every once in awhile an idea comes along that when you first hear about it, you find it hard to believe that it hasn't been done before, it just makes that much sense,” said Chilcott. “Slated brings crowd funding to a new level. By actively trying to connect established filmmakers with serious investors that would normally not meet one another, entire new financing models are going to emerge.”

Slated will hold an official announcement Saturday at the Sky Lounge at 4 p.m.