During the Red Sea International Film Festival (Red Sea IFF) Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie was able to interview Marie Zeniter the Head of Sales for Utopia, a US distributor and sales company founded in 2018.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you start by telling us a little about your role in Utopia?
Marie Zeniter (MZ): As the head of sales, I’m in charge of all sales. That’s SVOD and TV (domestic Pay 1) and global/international sales for titles that we have worldwide. As a distributor, we do about half of American productions and half of foreign acquisitions. And as a sales agent, we sell American films to international territories.
(UM): What kind of movies are you mostly looking for at Utopia?
(MZ): We are looking for independent, arthouse cinema. We like first-time filmmakers, or renowned filmmakers in the festival space. Last year we picked Holy Spider in Cannes by Ali Abbasi and Sick of Myselfby Kristoffer Borgli. His new film, Dream Scenario, premiered in Toronto.
In terms of American cinema, we had Shiva Baby which was one of our first films that we distributed and did foreign sales for. Currently, we have The Sweet East, a film by Sean Price Williams, which is in theaters in the US. And we picked up Omen by Baloji, which is premiering at the Red Sea IFF. It was also in Cannes.
Usually, we like auteur-driven cinema. We don’t shy away from controversy. And we try to put out films that are exciting for our audience. Our audience is fairly young and cinephiles. For example, we did a documentary called Meet Me in the Bathroom last year which was a music doc about the New York scene in the 2000s. And it did extremely well. Kids were lining around the block to get in the theater. So that’s the type of release that excites us and hopefully gets our audience excited to see it.
(UM): Do you have a definition for a good movie? One when you see, you are like, I need to get this one?
(MZ): Well, I’m in sales, not in acquisition. So, I rely on our acquisition department for selection. But it’s also a decision that we take together at Utopia. We always strive to have a consensus when we pick up a new movie. But when we decide to go in on a movie we always say, “Okay, is there anything artistic? Is there anything new in this film?” We don’t go for middle-of-the-road movies. We try to see if there’s a new angle, a new approach, in the film. We’re always trying to think, what about that movie is going to be exciting for people to see? Every movie that we release is going to theaters first. We don’t do straight to TVOD. We have to think about the theatrical aspect. How is it going to excite people to come out and purchase a ticket to go see the film?
(UM): Looking at your background, I see that you worked for Magnolia and other companies. How is working here different than working at Magnolia or other experiences? How is this experience new for you?
(MZ): I had a great time working at Magnolia. My previous boss, Lorna, taught me a lot of things about international sales and how to reach out to arthouse distributors and all of that. But I had less of a say in the films that we acquired and chose to work on because Magnolia is a much older, more installed company, and I was looking for films that I would watch as an audience member too.
When I decided to work in film as a teenager, it was because I was reading magazines. I would read about a movie coming out in a few months and I would get very eager to see it. I would mark it on my calendar and think, “Okay, that movie is coming out in two months. It looks cool. I’m going to make a plan to go see it.” When I started to work at Utopia, it was because I wanted to work on movies like that.
(UM): In terms of sales, how has the situation been changed following COVID? Has it become more difficult? Can you just say a little bit about the evolution that’s happened in the market?
(MZ): COVID has changed the way we do markets. You can decide not to attend a market if it’s not economically viable, you can just do all your meetings on Zoom. That works for contacts that you already have. I think for someone that you’ve met at a previous market and you decide, “Okay, I’m going to skip this year but we’re going to catch up over Zoom.”
But we’re a new company. We need to make new contacts. And nothing is better than being in person. For example, me being here meeting with Gulf Film and Front Row in person is sometimes better than talking to them over Zoom because we can establish a real connection. On Zoom, it is strictly business, “This is what I have. This is what you’re looking for.” When you meet in person, you’re able to chat about, “What movies did you see at the festival? What did you like?” You can get to know them.
At the end of the day, none of us want to waste our time. It’s still business. But if I know more about you as a person and if you know more about me as a person, it’s much easier to work together. Because if you see something that I have, you can text me directly about the film. It’s a more open relationship than just formal emails.
In terms of outside of the market, how it affected sales, I think for American arthouse it’s always been a bit difficult. Because there are more European distributors, they have the support from Creative Europe MEDIA that helps them release European films first. For American arthouse, there are so many films on the market that it’s hard to break through the noise. That’s why we always try to sell films that we distribute. We make very strong marketing materials, so that helps us make a difference.
(UM): In terms of distribution, is it becoming more difficult to distribute arthouse films?
(MZ): I don’t know if it’s ever been easy, and I’m not going to comment on the strikes because it’s not something that I’m very well-versed in but more about the general landscape in arthouse. There are lots of movies. There are so many movies being released that it’s hard to exist. There are a lot of good films, so how do you make sure that people are aware that your movie is coming out? That’s the difficulty as a small distributor. Because not only do you have to compete with studios that have hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing budget (which we do not have), you also have to compete with small distributors too. And sometimes a movie simply doesn’t reach its audience. You can try as much as you want, but it doesn’t connect. That’s one thing you can’t control.
Generally, I think there’s a renaissance of theatrical interest in the US. There are a lot of new theaters that opened in New York five or six years ago like the Metrograph and the Quad. LA was on the decline for a few years, and now I think it’s coming back. Vidiots re-opened. I think the Metrograph is going to open in LA soon too. The New Beverly, Quentin Tarantino’s theater, is great. And he opened another one in East LA, The Vista Theater. So, I think this is slowly going to change because when I moved to LA I didn’t understand why, this is the city of cinema, there was no arthouse cinema at all. It was very weird. I was like, “Wait, I moved from New York and the theatrical scene is much better in New York than it is in LA.” And I feel like LA is changing so that is great for us. Because these types of theaters, that’s exactly our audience. Our audience wants to see fresh things, new things.
There’s that sense of community as well when you go to your local theater and you trust the programmer there too because then you don’t plan around going to a specific movie, but the cinema, and trust that you’ll enjoy it. I think that renaissance is great. It’s obviously limited, but it’s a great platform for us to launch films.
(UM): I know France has a very good culture of supporting arthouse movies, can you speak a little about the culture in the US?
(MZ): It’s funny because there are so many more people in the US than there are in France but the box office in France for small movies is much higher. One of the first thresholds in the US Box Office is when you pass $100,000. And for an arthouse movie, $100,000, that’s good.
In France, if you do $100,000 you fail. It’s a much smaller country, but there’s more cinemas.
It’s hard to compare. Because I think the culture in the US is much more attached to multiplex and bigger films. But at the same time, if you look at the box office in France, the movie that made the most entries this year is The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I think the biggest difference is that the French audience doesn’t mind seeing a movie with subtitles. In the US you have to push for them to go read when they watch a movie.
(UM): I imagine cities like New York are much better compared to the others.
(MZ): Yeah. New York, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, and Austin. And then in Canada, sometimes we distribute directly to Canada too, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are also very good. But it depends. For example, Holy Spider did very well in Toronto because there’s a very strong Iranian community there. So sometimes you will see these different little pockets that you can attach. But New York and LA are still the strongest openers in the US for arthouse.
(UM): In terms of streamers, how is the relationship between you and the streamers?
(MZ): It’s a title-by-title conversation. Some of the distributors in the US have what is called an output deal. This means that most movies they release are going to the same streamer. It’s a guarantee when they release a movie, it’s going there afterward.
We don’t have that. For every title we have, I have to start the conversation with every streamer and see if they’re interested. Granted, we do know ahead what they’re looking for, the type of film that works for them, and that informs the conversation. But usually, streamers try to be all-encompassing in terms of what they have on their platform. They’re looking for mainstream content, first and foremost. Independent films come on the fringes to complete their offers.
They buy very few titles as originals anymore. If you look at what Netflix, Hulu, or Max bought as an original last year, there are not that many. They get a lot of their content through distributors, but much bigger distributors than us. What we have to do, is make sure that the work we do in the first windows, theatrical and TVOD, is excellent. And then I can go back to them and show them, “Hey, look at the work we’ve done with these films. Look how we’ve captivated this part of the audience.” And if it fits, they might say, “Well, we need younger people to come to our platform. So, this movie is good for us.”
(UM): And what did you realize is the most important for the sales? Is it the stars attached? Is it a script? Is it the awards? Or is it a combination?
(MZ): It’s a combination. The cast is important.
(UM): Like even for an international film, the cast is important?
(MZ): Well, for an international film, let’s talk about Holy Spider again. No one knew Zahra Amir Ebrahimi in the US before she won Best Actress at Cannes. But once she had, she had profiles made about her. She’s still not a mainstream actress, but that sparked interest in her. It’s harder when there isn’t that award component and it’s an international cast.
Other than that I will always value a good film over a good cast. Maybe that’s not the greatest economic decision, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have a lineup that has only good movies that will stand the passing of time. A movie that in five years you’re like, “That is still a good movie.” Rather than a quick grab-the-money-and-run average movie with the TikTok star of the moment. I’m not interested in that.
(UM): And how important are festival laurels? For example, I heard that only Cannes laurels, even if you get the main award elsewhere, will help with sales.
(MZ): Yeah, definitely Cannes is very important. You see a different approach. Like you have the poster, with one strong laurel, which is Cannes. Or you have the poster with 30 laurels from festivals all over the poster, and in this case, it doesn’t matter which one because what you want is quantity over quality. But in the US, Sundance is important. And when you have a genre film, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and Sitges are the important ones because the genre audience knows these festivals and looks at them, and they see it as, “Oh, that’s like a quality seal.”
(UM): You are talking a lot about Holy Spider. My background is also from Iran. I’m curious, about the market for those kinds of movies. Because I see the movie had a budget of more than 1 million, but the total sales were also almost the same. It feels like movies with the biggest stars can’t make a profit.
(MZ): You would need to ask the producer for profit. But as far as we’re concerned as the US distributor, we’re happy with it. The movie is on Netflix now, and we got shortlisted. Ali Abbasi announced his new movie. I don’t know if you saw—
(UM): Yeah, about Trump.
(MZ): Yes, The Apprentice. Zahra is now repped by UTA. And she’s in this great movie, Shayda. I think we are happy with the movie. Whether or not it’s profitable for the producer, I don’t know. And it’s also not my job. My job is to make sure that it’s profitable for us as a distributor.
(UM): How important are festivals like Red Sea IFF to you? What is your goal here?
(MZ): Well, my goal is twofold. The first one is I want to watch what films are coming out of the region. I look at the works-in-progress to see what’s being funded and what’s being made just so I can catch some projects early. I think it’s also important for me to be here because the film industry in Saudi Arabia is so young but it’s super interesting and it’s very promising.
And then the other goal is, for the movie that I have international rights for, I want to meet with the distributors. I want to meet with the local Middle Eastern distributors. Like I was saying, it’s much more important and better to meet in person with Gulf or Front Row than doing two Zooms a year to make a connection.
(UM): Is there anything else you’d like to add?
(MZ): I think as a distributor we will always value a good film over anything else. Over the language, the cast, the genre.
A good film should be highly personal. It’s important for filmmakers to not be overly ambitious with their first feature and they should focus on the story they want to tell.
Rather than thinking, “I’m going to make this for Netflix.” This rarely works out. And then you’re left with something that you made for someone who doesn’t want it. That means that the chances that someone else will look at it are even lower. Just tell the story you want to tell, the way you want to, and stop thinking about what comes next, it’s too early. That should be the role of a producer, not of a director.
But don’t also hold me responsible if it doesn’t work out.
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