EXCLUSIVE: Burgeoning Toronto-based indie streaming platform HighballTV has announced five original titles it plans to put into production in 2023, with an overall investment of CAN$21M ($15.6M).
The new slate consists of Caden Douglas’ genre comedy Mother Father Sister Brother Frank, music documentary Working On The Radio, anthology film The God Of Frogs, Andre Rehal’s crime drama Jin And The Wild Dog and Alice Moran’s comedy film Bash. (scroll down for more details).
The company has raised the slate financing via private investors and loans with the Royal Bank Of Canada and will also tap into the regional film tax incentives.
“We’re looking at being 50:50 between the two types of financing (private financiers and RBC),” said HighballTV head of production Matthew Campagna. “They really believe in us and our company with its slow, careful organic growth.
“We’ve got the corporate guarantees and the tax returns to back up the fact that we can pay these loans off because we have a model that is making enough money to do so,” he added.
Campagna launched indie streamer HighballTV in 2018 with Melissa D’Agostino.
The platform has a focus on indie fiction features and documentaries that have played festivals in Canada and internationally but are not easy to watch outside of the festival circuit.
Current highlights include Tallinn Black Nights drama Mater, Brazilian documentary Obscuro Barroco, which played at Berlin, Hot Docs and IDFA, as well as collections devoted to the Ukrainian Diaspora and LGBTQ+ stories.
Former BFI staffer Niall Macpherson is head of programming and acquisitions for the site.
Offering both subscriptions and TVoD options, most of the site’s users are based in North America but it is available internationally and has followers in other territories such as the UK.
HighballTV has also steadily moved into production.
D’Agostino and Campagna are directors in their own right and their productions such as the comedy series Tactical Girls and features including Six Days To Die, Six Guns For Hire and Mother of All Shows have or will be made available on the platform.
HighballTV started getting behind other directors in 2021, with a first slate focused on films by women directors and/or people of color. They included Rehal and Moran’s first respective features, thriller Strangers in a Room and mystery-drama Paige Darcy: Former Teen Detective as well as D’Agostino’s Mother of All Shows.
D’Agostino and Campagna see their model as a way to make their own films and also support a growing network of indie filmmakers outside of Canada’s state-backed funding system.
“All those juried funds are things you can’t really build a slate around because you don’t know until the last minute what they will support,” says Campagna. “It can take three years to get a yes or a no. We don’t find it a reliable way to build a sustainable business.”
They point out that the new slate of films reunites HighballTV with directors Rehal and Moran on their second features, which is in keeping with their plan to build a network of associated filmmakers.
Rehal’s new film Jin And The Wild Dog revolves around two private security operators employed to protect and chauffeur the elites of the city, who become implicated in a criminal conspiracy that reaches all the way to city hall.
Moran’s comedy Bash follows a struggling 1970s women’s hockey team that finds new success when their league flirts with the idea of allowing fighting. Writer, comedian and actress Moran is best known for her roles on City TV’s Sunnyside as well as FX on Hulu’s Man Seeking Woman.
Documentary Working On The Road explores the history and legacy of Toronto’s influential alternative music station CFNY and features interviews with The Barenaked Ladies, Billy Talent, Blondie, Blue Rodeo, Joy Division, Metric, Stars, and Parachute Club.
Douglas’s Mother Father Sister Brother Frank is a genre comedy about a suburban family who plots murder when an unsavory uncle crashes Sunday dinner with a nasty surprise.
The God Of Frogs is a monster-themed anthology film exploring gory unexplained events and features segments by emerging directors Adrian Bobb, Richard Lee, Natalie Metcalfe and Ali Chappell.
“Each year, HighballTV has a goal of increasing our commitments to equity and inclusion within our production slates, and this year we’re thrilled that the vast majority of our writers and directors are from equity-seeking groups, many of which are making their feature debut,” added Campagna.
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