On the eve of Toronto TheNetherlands' leading independent distributor A-Film has beefed up its firepowerwith a $12m (Euros10m) working capital facility.

The cash will be used to expand the company's film acquisitionprogramme and to enable it to enlarge its p&a commitment to the films itreleases in the Benelux region. "The company is now four years old and hasgrown as far as it can without a credit line of this kind," said San Fu Maltha,A-Film co-chief. "This finance allows us to acquire more films and take biggerrisks on the pictures we were involved with. In some cases we took films on a'distribution-only basis', which is low risk and low reward."

At Venice last week, A-Film beat off rival bids for theacclaimed Spanish film The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro), by AlejandroAmenabar.

The company, which handled the Lord Of The Ringstrilogy, has a slate of forthcoming films including The Eye 2, Stage Beauty,Super Size Me and Ae Fond Kiss. It will also handle Blackbooks,the big-budget WWII-set film that marks director Paul Verhoeven's return tolocal film-making after establishing himself as one of Hollywood's leadingtalents.

The facility was provided by F van Lanschot Bankiers withMain Corporate Finance arranger and advisor to the transaction.