EXCLUSIVE: Festival regulars Joe Yanick, Hugues Barbier and Justin Timms of US specialty sales and distribution outfit Yellow Veil Pictures are in Cannes talking to international buyers about two new pickups: Australian genre titles A Grand Mockery and Salt Along The Tongue, which they will distribute in the US.
The New York- and Los Angeles-based company acquired worldwide rights, which enables the co-founders to coordinate international rollout with the US release, and share materials with their partners around the world.
“We’ve been doing more worldwide pick-ups [like this] from filmmakers so we can sell internationally and distribute ourselves in the US,” said Yanick, who used to work at Visit Films. He partnered with former Raven Banner staffer Barbier and Timms, who co-founded the North Bend genre festival in the US, to launch Yellow Veil in 2018 and champion a wide range of genre films, many with prestige festival pedigree.
The company’s biggest release to date will be Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s fantasy drama and Berlinale Competition selection The Ice Tower starring Marion Cotillard, on which they took North American rights.
“This is the biggest star we’ve worked with and the only movie that we’ve actually acquired at festival thus far,” said Yanick. ”We went into Berlin wanting to make a statement. As sales agents we know films are taking so long to sell. It’s important to have that excitement of buying at the festival.” The Ice Tower will open in around 50 cinemas.
Distribution is a relatively recent push. “We knew solely doing sales would not be our forever future,” said Yanick. “You learn so much about the distribution market when you sell. Some of these smaller movies simply can’t find a footing. We’ve become a one-stop shop for filmmakers.”
The first release was Frida Kempff’s Swedish horror and 2021 Sundance entry Knocking, followed in 2022 with Gaspar Noe’s witchcraft film Lux Aeterna, which the partners had seen at 2019 Cannes Midnight. They did two sell-out screenings with Noe in attendance and staged a 55-screen run en route to approximately $50,000 in theatrical receipts.
The release roster has included Charlotte le Bon’s 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection Falcon Lake and most recently Weston Razooli’s 2023 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry Riddle Of Fire.
“We’re looking to connect more with local community-driven gatekeepers who know how to reach those audiences,” said Yanick, who said the company is developing ties with niche distributors like Glasgow-based Matchbox Cine, and Canada’s Bleeding Edge, which programmes screening series around Toronto.
Yellow Veil releases tend to stay in theatres exclusively for 17 days before they go to digital platforms. “We’re doing the bulk of our licencing through places like Mubi, Criterion, and Shudder,” said Barbier, who is building connections with AVoD platforms like Tubi. “We also use [arthouse and genre platforms] Ovid TV and Night Flight in the States.”
“Cannes is still a very important market for us in terms of sales, even though sales are happening more slowly,” said Yanick. “It’s always been about relationships.”
Yellow Veil launched at Film Festival’s Frontières market with sales on Tilman Singer’s debut feature Luz. The filmmaker went on to make his second feature Cuckoo with Neon. Sales highlights have included a 4K re-release of George A Romero’s 1975 horror The Amusement Park, and fantasy animation The Spine Of Night from 2021 SXSW.
The two new Australian films came out of 2024 SXSW Sydney. Adam C Briggs and Sam Dixon’s Best Feature Film winner A Grand Mockery shot on Super 8 film and follows a young man in Brisbane with a psychic ailment who heads into the Queensland rainforest. Parish Malfitano’s Salt Along The Tongue is about a grieving young woman whose mother possesses her from beyond the grave.
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