Exclusive Media’s Alex Brunner Joins UTA Independent Film Group

Alex Brunner has left Exclusive Media to join UTA Independent Film Group as a film finance agent. He will focus on global finance, packaging and distribution strategies for independent and co-financed feature films. Brunner, a respected indie sales veteran, was one of the original co-founders and deputy chief operating officer at Exclusive, which just went through a revamp earlier this year in which co-chairmen and CEOs Nigel Sinclair and Guy East departed and Marc Schipper took over as CEO. Sinclair and East had been on the outs with Exclusive’s majority owners who no longer wanted to take big bets in the production business after a few films didn’t hit. The company has been downsized since, and is moving forward primarily as a library and sales company.

During Brunner’s time there, the films he helped shepherd include Rush, End Of Watch, The Ides Of March, Undefeated, Let Me In, The Woman In Black, Begin Again and the upcoming A Walk Among The Tombstones, Dark Places and The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death.

“Alex is a superb film executive whose experience and relationships throughout the global film community will greatly benefit our clients as we create the best financing and distribution options for their films,” said Rena Ronson, Head of UTA Independent Film Group.

Before Exclusive, Brunner co-founded Spitfire Pictures with East and Sinclair in 2003. He was the production executive on Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and later a producer on Matt Reeves’ Let Me In, executive producer on the Hilary Swank-starrer The Resident, co-executive producer on Peter Weir’s The Way Back, and most recently as an executive producer on The Quiet Ones and Dark Places, starring Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz and Nicholas Hoult.

Brunner launched his career in at ICM, where he worked for three years in both the motion picture literary and production departments.

UTA Independent Film Group has packaged pics for clients including clients Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Joel and Ethan Coen, Garth Davis, Drake Doremus, Sean Durkin, Asghar Farhadi, David Michod, James Ponsoldt, Lynn Shelton and Paolo Sorrentino. Recent sales credits include Lynn Shelton’s Laggies, John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary and Craig Johnson’s Skeleton Twins.