Distributor acquires international sales rights to Vivieno Caldinelli’s horror comedy, which stars Roddy Piper.

Raven Banner has acquired international sales rights to Portal to Hell.

The distributor, who will also release the feature in Canada, joins XYZ Films who are handling US rights to Vivieno Caldinelli’s horror comedy, which stars Roddy Piper as a semi-retired building manager who discovers a supernatural portal in the basement and has to stop old god Cthulhu becoming overlord of the Earth.

Portal to Hell is part of the Harold Greenberg Fund’s Shorts to Features programme which nurtures short films with a goal towards realising their feature versions. The short film will shoot in March 2015 with an aim to package the feature film in Fall 2015.

Executive producer Andrew Rosen commented: “It’s crazy and amazing. We’re still in the middle of our Indiegogo campaign to raise money for the short film, and now we’re gaining major interest for the feature version. This boost in confidence will give our proof-of-concept short even more value when putting the feature package together. We’re ecstatic to have great companies like XYZ Films and Raven Banner behind Portal to Hell.”

“What excited us most about the Indiegogo campaign was the team the producers assembled – particularly director Vivieno Caldinelli, writer Matt Watts, and special effects wizard Steve Kostanski. That, combined with their genuine passion for genre films, was the tipping point for us to want to be a part of Portal to Hell,” added Michael Paszt, Raven Banner’s managing partner.

Executive producer Todd Brown of XYZ Films said: “Raven Banner have been great friends of XYZ for years now and we’re huge fans of the hard work they’ve done to champion quality genre film in Canada and around the world. Yes, it’s a horrible pun to refer to this as a tag-team but we couldn’t imagine a better partner to have in our corner for Portal to Hell. We’re very excited to work with Raven Banner to bring the film to the world.”

Both the short and feature film will be produced by Lori Fischburg and Ryan Reaney, with Raven Banner joining the feature film as executive producers alongside Andrew Rosen and Anthony Leo of Aircraft Pictures, XYZ’s Brown, Caldinelli, and Watts.

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