Neon Lifts The Lid On International Sales Ambitions & The Chances Of Making It Five Palmes d’Or In A Row – Cannes

EXCLUSIVE: Thriving U.S. indie producer-distributor Neon is no stranger to the Cannes Film Festival with the Tom Quinn-founded banner having acquired a historic four consecutive Palme d’Or wins (last year’s Anatomy of a Fall, 2022’s Triangle of Sadness, 2021’s Titane and 2019’s Parasite), thus earning them the nickname “the Palme d’Or whisperers”. This year, while the company has Sean Baker’s new rom-com Anora playing in Competition, it’s also descending upon the Croisette in a new capacity with its recently-launched international sales strand, led by seasoned sales exec and Sierra/Affinity veteran Kristen Figeroid.

International buyers will be hard pressed not to notice the new Neon banner right on the Croisette this year, as the company launches sales on Osgood Perkins’ next genre movie Keeper, starring Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland. Neon is already set to distribute the title in the U.S. (Elevation has the title in Canada) and, for the first time at the Cannes market, the company will be liasing with global buyers in a different capacity by selling direct to market, making it one of only three independent outfits (including A24 and Lionsgate) with this now worldwide theatrical distribution footprint. 

In one of the first acquisitions to kick off the Cannes market this year, Neon announced that it was getting back into business with Titane filmmaker Julia Ducournau for her second feature Alpha. The project, which is set to go into production in the fall, marks the second pre-buy for Neon with the French director.

Having launched the international sales strand of the business ahead of the Venice Film Festival last year, Figeroid and her team (many of whom migrated with her from Sierra/Affinity including Joey Monteiro, who is EVP of International Marketing, and Laurel Charnetsky, VP of International Acquisitions and Operations) have a slate that currently includes Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, which world premiered in Sundance (where Neon snagged worldwide rights) and They Follow, the long-awaited sequel to modern horror pic It Follows from writer-director David Robert Mitchell.

Last year in Cannes, Figeroid launched sales on Hunter Schafer starrer Cuckoo through Sierra/Affinity, which Neon exec produced with Waypoint Entertainment’s Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum producing. (Earlier this year, Neon struck a non-exclusive financial partnership with Waypoint to deliver “bold, genre-spanning films” aimed in the $10 + million range). 

And these titles, according to Figeroid, have “virtually sold out”. Having an international sales arm tied to a U.S. distributor offers an appealing prospect for international buyers who look Stateside in order to platform their acquisitions.  

“Because Neon is such a high-level domestic distributor, things come our way because people want to work with them,” says Figeroid. “The business is so tough at the moment – and we say that flippantly every year –, but really for the last few years, it’s been as tough as it’s ever been and half the battle is, ‘Who is the domestic distributor and what are they going to do with this movie?’ That ultimately changes the MG.” 

She continues: “A buyer can love a movie but if it’s going to straight to streaming in the U.S., they are not going to pay the same as if they get a big theatrical opportunity that their own theatres need to platform off of a U.S. theatrical release. So, it’s a huge difference, particularly on Neon-branded titles. It makes my job easier, even though it’s still tough. It takes one mysterious piece of the puzzle off of the table and allows buyers to really assign a value knowing that if they like the movie, they like the cast and the theatrical release is by us, it really helps me formulate a proper value to things.” 

In Berlin, Figeroid and her team were tapped to handle worldwide sales on A Bold, Beautiful Journey starring Margot Robbie on the heels of Barbie, which ultimately landed a worldwide deal with Sony Pictures. “I don’t think we could have imagined it any better,” says Quinn. “That combined with being able to buy worldwide rights for a number of films that we can set up beyond our own territory has had an immediate impact on the company.” 

Stepping into the international sales game, says Quinn, feels like a natural expansion for the now seven-year-old company as it has grown from a straight-up acquisitions outfit to also a production banner. 

“The reality is, when we were going into production, we were working with all sizes and sorts of international sales companies that were great organizations,” says Quinn. “We had even considered a joint venture with one of the top two sales agencies but with the range of our films and eclectic nature of our slate, I don’t know that we would have been accurately represented.” 

Having released five of its in-house productions in the U.S. across the last two years (Infinity Pool, It Lives Inside, In The Earth, The Everlasting Storm and Stress Positions) not having skin in the sales game felt like Neon was “passing up the opportunity to interact with like-minded distributors around the world, who are taking care of our movies and who love what we are doing in this territory.” 

After meeting at the Zurich Film Festival in 2022, Quinn says he “immediately” knew Figeroid would be the right person to steer the next strand of Neon’s business. “She’s exactly what the market needs,” he says. “And she understands who we are. As we extend our brand around the world and the kinds of films that we want to support, she is the right person to take care of it.” 

For Figeroid, she says the big attraction to working with Neon came down to “working with people who care about movies.” 

“Of course this does happen at other places,” she says. “But the extent that Neon cares about film and the conversations you can have, even if it’s not your own slate, is what we got into this business to begin with. You want to have those amazing conversations and talk about movies and get excited about things together, which can be pretty rare in this business.” 

Figeroid and her team will be responsible for selling “the majority” of Neon’s own productions and, when it comes to acquiring third-party projects, the aim is to “stay as true to the brand as possible.” 

“There’s a little bit of flexibility,” she admits. “But when we look at a project, we have to believe that this could wind up on the Neon slate so it can’t be wildly different or for a different audience that Neon has built. But when it comes to a worldwide acquisition or production that we are looking at, I think we all work really well together to weigh what’s more valuable – the domestic sell or the international sell – and then we try to build it that way because every movie is built differently and has an appeal in other places that can be higher, even in individual countries.

“It’s definitely a team effort to try to figure out how we can best represent the value of the film and sometimes domestic has to say, ‘this makes a lot more sense for us but we’re still going after it’ and that’s completely fine at the end of the day. If it’s a Neon theatrical release in the U.S., that in itself, no matter what the stars, the director or the genre, that’s a value add for independent international distributors.” 

Quinn emphasizes that the game plan for Neon is still the same and the company’s taste for movies hasn’t changed. “The entire manifesto is that all of our movies are built on artistic merit, cultural relevance and a real purpose of voice, whether it’s the film itself, the subject, the filmmaker or an eye towards the future cinephiles of the world and the under-35 audience,” he says. “This will just broaden our ability to go and support filmmakers that we previously worked with around the world to start financing their films.”

So, with the Cannes Film Festival kicking into gear tonight, will Quinn and his team cinch another Palme d’Or winner? “I don’t know to be honest,” he says. “I’ve never known what the Palme d’Or is going to be. I would love to let everybody know that somehow there’s a secret sauce here, but I think Bong Joon-ho said it best in that we’re just chasing great cinema. And the good news is the Palme d’Or loves great cinema.”