Brazil's Marco Aurelio Marcondes has relaunched his distribution consortium, which includes Art Filmes' Ugo Sorrentino, Jose Sobrinho of Top Tape and Europa Filmes' Wilson Feitosa, under the new banner M.A. Marcondes.

The consortium, first announced in March last year, was originally called Consorcio Brasileiro de Cinema (CBC). "It was more a pipe dream then," explained Marcondes who will oversee marketing, sales and physical distribution at the venture while his partners will trawl film markets to acquire product. "Each company will remain independent and own the rights to films it acquires," Marcondes added.

The venture will handle both mainstream and arthouse films and plans to distribute up to 30 titles a year. Its growing slate includes features which Art Filmes has acquired through its output deal with Mexico's Nuvision such as Santitos, Nobody Writes To The Colonel, Family Man, Autumn In New York, Amores Perros and Todo El Poder.

Top Tape brings Woody Allen's Celebrity and Morgan Freeman thriller Under Suspicion among others. Europa Filmes' line-up includes Five Senses and Caravan.

M. A. Marcondes will also handle Brazilian films starting with Tainah, An Amazon Adventure, directed by Tania Lamarca and Sergio Bloch. Marcondes split from Globo Filmes, the fledgling film division of media giant Globo, last year. His long career includes stints with local prominent producer Luiz Carlos Barreto and Art Filmes.