Levelfilm

Levelfilm, stylized as levelFILM, is a Canadian film distribution company based in Toronto, Ontario. The company was founded by David Hudakoc and Michael Baker in 2013,^[1] and later acquired two other Canadian distribution houses: Search Engine Films in 2018^[2] and KinoSmith in 2021.^[3] It has released more than 200 titles, with a focus on independent Canadian films.

levelFILM, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Film distribution
Founded	2013 (2013)
Headquarters	11 Davies Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Pratik Tiki Patel (CFO) Olivier Gauthier-Mercier (VP, Distribution) Lainie Elton (VP, sales and acquisitions )
Products	Motion Pictures
Services	Film distribution
Number of employees	9 (January 2023)
Website	level.film

History

levelFILM was founded by Michael Baker and David Hudakoc in August 2013, who had previously worked together at the U.S. distribution house ThinkFilm.^[4] The company's first acquisition, Chen Kaige's Caught in the Web, was announced along with the company's creation.^[1]

In 2017, the company sold a majority stake to Laurie Venning, a Canadian investor, entrepreneur, and producer.^[5]

At the 2018 Berlin Film Festival levelFILM announced its acquisition of another Canadian distributor, Search Engine Films (SEF). John Bain, the head of SEF at the time, joined as the company's new Head of Distribution.^[2] SEF's library was folded into levelFILM's existing catalogue, including titles such as Equals, Kilo Two Bravo, and Mary Shelley.

In 2019, it was announced that levelFILM and U.S.-based distributor Good Deed Entertainment had struck a four-year output deal, ending in 2023.^[6]

At the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival levelFILM announced a multi-year output deal with the U.S. company Greenwich Entertainment, beginning with The Capote Tapes.^[7] Later in the fall, levelFILM acquired KinoSmith, and folded in its CEO, Robin Smith, as the new Head of Factual. Simultaneously, the company partnered with Smith's other venture, the documentary financing and distribution house Blue Ice Docs, a subsidiary of the Blue Ice Group.^[3]

In April 2022 the company was listed at number 9 in The Globe and Mail's list of the 22 most influential people in the Canadian film industry.^[8]

During the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival levelFILM signed an exclusive output deal with Bleecker Street. Mafia Mamma, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, is set to be the first release of the deal and is scheduled for April 2023.^[9]

In October 2022, levelFILM released Eternal Spring, which was selected to be Canada's official submission to the 95th Academy Awards for the Best International Feature Film category.^[10] The film was also eligible for Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature, but did not make the shortlist in either category.^[11]

Released films

List of films released by levelFILM

Year	Canadian Release Date	Title	Director	Genre
2014	April 11, 2014	That Burning Feeling	Jason James	Comedy, Romance
	May 30, 2014	Hotel Congress	Michel Kandisky, Nadia Litz	Romance, Comedy
	July 18, 2014	Lawrence & Holloman	Matthew Kowalchuk	Comedy, Drama
	November 21, 2014	Rosewater	Jon Stewart	Drama, Thriller
2015	March 6, 2015	Two Men in Town	Rachid Bouchareb	Comedy, Drama
	April 17, 2015	Sunshine on Leith	Dexter Fletcher	Musical, Drama
	May 5, 2015	Soul Boys of the Western World	George Hencken	Documentary, Music
	May 15, 2015	Wet Bum	Lindsay Mackay	Drama, Kids & Family
	August 21, 2015	Bang Bang Baby	Jeffrey St. Jules	Sci-fi, Romance
	August 18, 2015	Learning to Drive	Isabel Coixet	Comedy, Drama
	September 4, 2015	Before We Go	Chris Evans	Drama, Romance
	November 13, 2015	Kilo Two Bravo	Paul Katis	War, Thriller
	December 4, 2015	I Smile Back	Adam Salky	Drama
	December 11, 2015	People Places Things	Jim Strouse	Comedy, Romance
2016	January 8, 2016	The Liberator	Alberto Arvelo	Drama, War
	March 15, 2016	Glassland	Gerard Barrett	Drama, Thriller
	March 18, 2016	Coconut Hero	Florian Cossen	Comedy, Drama
	July 15, 2016	Equals	Drake Doremus	Romance, Sci-fi
	August 19, 2016	Standing Tall	Emmanuelle Bercot	Drama
	September 23, 2016	The Girl King	Mika Kaurismaki	Drama
	November 4, 2016	Morris from America	Chad Hartigan	Comedy, Drama
	November 11, 2016	Jean of the Joneses	Stella Meghie	Comedy, Drama
	November 29, 2016	Dégradé	Arab Nasser	Drama
	December 6, 2016	The Great Gilly Hopkins	Stephen Herek	Kids & Family, Comedy
2017	February 9, 2017	Urban Hymn	Michael Caton-Jones	Drama, Musical
	May 9, 2017	Sled Dogs	Fern Levitt	Documentary
	May 19, 2017	Alone in Berlin	Vincent Perez	Drama, War
	August 25, 2017	Bushwick	Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott	Action, Adventure
	September 22, 2017	Don't Talk to Irene	Pat Mills	Comedy, Drama
	December 1, 2017	Wexford Plaza[12]	Joyce Wong	Comedy, Drama
	December 1, 2017	Suck It Up[12]	Jordan Canning	Comedy, Drama
2018	January 12, 2018	Never Steady, Never Still[13]	Kathleen Hepburn	Drama
	January 16, 2018	The Devout	Connor Gaston	Drama, Sci-fi
	March 16, 2018	I Can Only Imagine	Andrew Erwin, Jon Erwin	Drama
	March 30, 2018	Journey's End	Saul Dibb	War, Drama
	June 22, 2018	Hearts Beat Loud	Brett Haley	Music, Drama
	June 22, 2018	Octavio Is Dead!	Sook-Yin Lee	Drama, Thriller
	July 6, 2018	22 Chaser	Rafal Sokolowski	Drama, Action
	July 13, 2018	Mary Shelley	Haifaa Al-Mansour	Drama, Romance
	August 24, 2018	Madeline's Madeline	Josephine Decker	Drama
	September 4, 2018	The Night Eats the World	Dominique Rocher	Thriller
	October 5, 2018	Transformer	Michael Del Monte	Documentary
	October 16, 2018	After Everything	Hannah Marks, Joey Power	Drama, Romance
	November 30, 2018	Dead in a Week (or Your Money Back)	Tom Edmunds	Thriller, Comedy
	December 14, 2018	Blaze	Ethan Hawke	Drama, Music
2019	January 15, 2019	The Bookshop	Isabel Coixet	Drama
	February 26, 2019	Salt and Fire	Werner Herzog	Thriller, Drama
	March 15, 2019	To Dust	Shawn Snyder	Comedy
	March 29, 2019	Firecrackers[14]	Jasmin Mozaffari	Drama
	May 3, 2019	Tell It to the Bees	Annabel Jankel	Romance, Drama
	May 7, 2019	Maze	Stephen Burke	Adventure, Action, History
	May 24, 2019	I'm Going to Break Your Heart	Jim Morrison, Annie Bradley	Documentary, Music
	June 7, 2019	Mouthpiece	Patricia Rozema	Drama, Comedy
	July 2, 2019	Storm Boy	Shawn Seet	Kids &Family, Adventure, Drama
	July 5, 2019	The Last Black Man in San Francisco	Joe Talbot	Drama, Adventure
	July 23, 2019	The Delinquent Season	Mark O'Rowe	Romance, Drama
	August 23, 2019	Angelique's Isle	Michelle Derosier, Marie-Hélène Cousineau	Drama, History
	August 23, 2019	The Peanut Butter Falcon	Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz	Adventure, Comedy, Drama
	September 13, 2019	Riot Girls	Jovanka Vuckovic	Action, Sci-Fi, Drama
	November 1, 2019	The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open[15]	Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers	Drama
	December 6, 2019	Brotherhood	Richard Bell	Drama, History
2020	January 17, 2020	Les Misérables	Ladj Ly	Drama, Action
	February 7, 2020	The Assistant	Kitty Green	Drama
	February 21, 2020	Ordinary Love	Lisa Barros D'Sa, Glenn Leyburn	Drama, Romance
	February 28, 2020	The Jesus Rolls	John Turturro	Comedy, Action
	March 13, 2020	Hope Gap	William Nicholson	Drama
	March 20, 2020	The Rest of Us	Aisling Chin-Yee	Drama, Comedt
	April 17, 2020	White Lie	Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas	Drama
	May 8, 2020	Fisherman's Friends	Chris Foggin	Comedy, Drama, Music
	May 19, 2020	The Roads Not Taken	Sally Potter	Drama
	May 22, 2020	Military Wives[16]	Peter Cattaneo	Music, Drama, Comedy
	June 5, 2020	2040	Damon Gameau	Documentary
	June 16, 2020	You Don't Nomi	Jeffrey McHale	Documentary
	July 31, 2020	Summerland	Jessica Swale	Drama, War
	September 4, 2020	Feels Good Man	Arthur Jones	Documentary
	September 18, 2020	Blackbird	Roger Michell	Drama
	September 18, 2020	Nadia, Butterfly	Pascal Plante	Drama, Sports
	October 2, 2020	The Glorias	Julie Taymor	Drama, History
	November 6, 2020	The Kid Detective	Evan Morgan	Drama, Comedy, Thriller
2021	March 3, 2021	The World to Come	Mona Fastvold	Drama, Romance
	March 8, 2021	Underplayed	Stacey Lee	Documentary
	March 9, 2021	Jump, Darling[17]	Phil Connell	Drama
	April 2, 2021	No Ordinary Man	Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt	Documentary
	April 6, 2021	Sugar Daddy	Wendy Morgan	Drama, Music
	May 4, 2021	I Am Syd Stone[18]	Denis Theriault	Drama
	May 7, 2021	Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street[19]	Marilyn Agrelo	Documentary
	May 11, 2021	Together Together[20]	Nikole Beckwith	Comedy, Drama
	June 15, 2021	Akilla's Escape[21]	Charles Officer	Thriller, Drama
	August 13, 2021	Naked Singularity	Chase Palmer	Thriller, Action, Drama
	October 21, 2021	Sin La Habana	Kaveh Nabatian	Drama, Romance
	December 3, 2021	The Souvenir Part II	Joanna Hogg	Drama, Comedy
2022	January 7, 2022	See For Me	Randall Okita	Thriller, Horror
	January 28, 2022	Aline	Valérie Lemercier	Drama, Musical
	February 25, 2022	Scarborough[22]	Shasha Nakhai, Rich Williamson	Drama
	March 11, 2022	Donkeyhead	Agam Darshi	Drama, Comedy
	March 18, 2022	A Small Fortune	Adam Perry	Thriller, Crime, Drama
	March 25, 2022	Run Woman Run	Zoe Leigh Hopkins	Comedy, Drama
	April 8, 2022	Night Blooms	Stephanie Joline	Drama
	April 8, 2022	Sundown	Michel Franco	Drama
	April 15, 2022	Kicking Blood	Blaine Thurier	Fantasy, Romance, Horror
	April 29, 2022	Quickening	Haya Waseem	Drama
	May 6, 2022	Stanleyville	Maxwell McCabe-Lokos	Comedy
	May 27, 2022	The Middle Man	Bent Hamer	Drama, Crime, Comedy
	May 27, 2022	Benediction	Terence Davies	Drama, Comedy, Romance
	July 1, 2022	Mr. Malcolm's List[23]	Emma Holly Jones	Romance, Drama, Comedy
	August 12, 2022	Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon	Richard Claus, José Zelada	Animated, Kids & Family
	September 23, 2022	Eternal Spring	Jason Loftus	Documentary, Animated
	October 14, 2022	Drinkwater[24]	Stephen Campanelli	Comedy
	October 21, 2022	Drop the Needle[25]	Rob Freeman	Documentary, Music
	November 4, 2022	The Swearing Jar[26]	Lindsay MacKay	Drama, Romance, Musical
	December 2, 2022	The Inspection[27]	Elegance Bratton	Drama
2024	TBA	The Invisibles	Andrew Currie	Science fiction

References

1. Ford, Rebecca (2013-08-15). "LevelFILM Launches With Acquisition of Chen Kaige's 'Caught in the Web'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
2. Vlessing, Etan (2018-02-16). "Berlin: levelFilm Acquires Rival Indie Film Distributor Search Engine Films". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
3. Kay, Jeremy (2021-10-06). "Toronto's levelFILM acquires KinoSmith, partners with Blue Ice Docs (exclusive)". Screen Daily. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
4. "The Children of ThinkFilm". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
5. Lang, Brent (2017-09-07). "LevelFILM Sells Majority Stake to Laurie Venning (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
6. Wiseman, Andreas (2019-02-07). "Canadian Distributor LevelFILM Strikes Output Deal With 'Loving Vincent' Firm Good Deed Entertainment". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
7. Wiseman, Andreas (2021-09-10). "'Free Solo' Distributor Greenwich Entertainment Sets Canadian Output Deal With LevelFILM — TIFF". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
8. Hertz, Barry (2022-04-07). "The 22 most influential people in Canadian film". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
9. Ravindran, Manori (2022-09-09). "Bleecker Street Signs Output Deal With Canada's LevelFilm". Retrieved 2023-01-30.
10. Tapp, Tom (2022-08-24). "Oscars: Canada Sets 'Eternal Spring' As Its Best International Feature Entry". Retrieved 2023-01-30.
11. Giardina, Carolyn (2022-11-09). "'Marcel the Shell With Shoes On' Qualifies for Oscars' Animated Feature Race (Exclusive)". Retrieved 2023-01-30.
12. N'Duka, Amanda (2017-05-30). "MUBI Picks Up 'Lover For A Day'; LevelFILM Nabs Three Titles – Cannes". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
13. Frater, Patrick (2017-10-12). "LevelFilm Buys U.S. Rights to 'Never Steady, Never Still' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
14. N'Duka, Amanda (2018-08-22). "levelFILM and Seville International Light Up 'Firecrackers' – Toronto". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
15. Linden, Sheri (2019-11-27). "'The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
16. Lang, Brent (2019-09-09). "Toronto: Bleecker Street Wins Rights to 'Military Wives'". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
17. Wiseman, Andreas (2021-02-02). "'Jump, Darling': First Trailer For Indie Drama Featuring Cloris Leachman In One Of Her Final Starring Roles". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
18. Grater, Tom (2020-10-08). "LevelFILM Boards 6-Part Short Form LGBT Series 'I Am Syd Stone'". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
19. Wiseman, Andreas (2021-03-10). "Canada Deal For Sundance 'Sesame Street' Doc; U.S. Deal For Doc 'It's Not A Burden' — North American Briefs". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
20. Wiseman, Andreas (2021-02-01). "Sundance Comedy 'Together Together' Gets Canada Distribution Deal". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
21. Wiseman, Andreas (2020-12-15). "'Akilla's Escape' Canada Deal; Raw Hires BBC Studios Exec; Britbox UK First Factual Series — Global Briefs". Deadline. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
22. Dowling, Amber (2021-09-10). "'Scarborough' Gives Ground-Breaking Voice to Ignored Toronto Community". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
23. Barraclough, Leo (2021-03-19). "Universal Takes International on 'Mr. Malcolm's List,' Zawe Ashton, Theo James and Ashley Park Join Cast". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
24. Assman, Bowen (2022-10-27). "Penticton-set film, Drinkwater, in theatres this week". Kelowna Now. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
25. Cowie, Del (2022-10-20). "Canadian Hip-Hop Landmark Play De Record Gets Its Due in 'Drop The Needle' Doc". Complex Canada. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
26. Schneller, Johanna (2022-11-02). "The Swearing Jar is the Canadian rom-com success you didn't see coming". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2023-01-30.
27. Black, Sarah-Tai (2022-11-01). "Personal, intimate drama The Inspection offers nuanced look at sexuality in the military". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2023-01-30.

External links

• Official website