Revamped, rebranded uMedia backs Stassen’s World

Brussels-based tax shelter film financier Motion Investment Group (one of the backers of Rachid Bouchareb’s competition entry Outside The Law) is re-branding and launching itself as a mini-studio.

The company, which has raises €110 million in tax shelter funding over the past six years, is metamorphosing into uMedia Family, a fully integrated company with financing, production, distribution and financing arms.

The financing arm will now be known as uFund. This entity already has several new projects in the pipeline, among them Around The World in 80 Minutes (working title), the new 3D project from nWave’s Ben Stassen (Fly Me To The Moon, Around The World in Fifty Years/aka Sammy’s Adventure). This is again a collaboration between nWave and StudioCanal. uFund has provided around €8 million of the budget, which is understood to be in the €25 million range. The project is already in pre-production.

The new, Benelux-based distribution arm, uDream, has already been on an acquisition spree, taking
Benelux rights to a dozen titles that uFund has backed. Among these are Bouchareb’s Outside The Law,
A Monster In Paris,Jackboots In Whitehall, Little Big Panda, Libre Echange, PointBlank, Le Fils A Jo and
Un Monstre A Paris. uDream also plans to pick up third party projects.

Meanwhile, the company has formed its own production arm, uFilm, based in Belgium and which will
act as a coproducer on films backed by uFund. The company will also develop its own projects.

The company has also embarked on a joint venture with London-based VFX boutique MFX, to be called
uFX. The companies will act independently and are autonomous.

Details of the new structure were confirmed this week by company Chief Executive Officers and co-
founders Nadia Khamlichi, Jeremy Burdek and Adrian Politowski.