Specialty film financier The Forest Road Company is taking a stake in New York-based Yale Productions to diversify its film lending model.
Terms of the investment deal were not disclosed, but Forest Road, led by CEO Zachary Tarica, has already collaborated on nine films with Yale Productions, which is led by indie producers Jordan Yale Levine and Jordan Beckerman.
Their joint projects include I Used to Go Here, directed by Kris Rey and starring Gillian Jacobs, and Burn, starring Josh Hutcherson and Suki Waterhouse.
“Forest Road’s number one priority is to help filmmakers tell their stories by putting our capital to work. We’re so pleased to be able to support Yale’s creative endeavors with this investment in their firm,” Rachel Swearingen, head of creative operations at Forest Road, said Tuesday in a statement.
The Yale Productions pact marks a different sort of investment for Forest Road beyond traditional film tax credit collateral deals.
“We are eager to hit the ground running in the new year with more overall investments similar to this,” added Swearingen.
Additional Forest Road and Yale Productions collaborations include director William Brent Bell’s Separation; After Everything, directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power and starring Marisa Tomei; and Already Gone, starring Sean William Scott and executive produced by Keanu Reeves.
“We are excited to move into a new phase of our relationship with Forest Road, one that allows us to accelerate the company’s growth and build out our infrastructure and operations in a substantial way,” Yale Productions co-founder Yale Levine said in his own statement.
Forest Road’s other film credits include Marc Meyer’s Human Capital, which debuted at Toronto; Guy Nattiv’s Skin, starring Jamie Bell; and Andrew Ahn’s Driveways, starring Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye.
