EXCLUSIVE: Canadian film and TV production outfit 9 Light Entertainment is launching a sales and distribution arm which will kick off its activities with upcoming comedic thriller Sound & Fury.
Scheduled to go into production this fall, Sound & Fury is the directorial feature debut of SXSW short film regular Charles Wahl (The Mohel, Little Grey Bubbles).
Freshly announced cast members include Canadian Screen Award winner Daniel Maslany (Murdoch Mysteries, Impulse), Shaun Majumder (The Miniature Wife, From, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) and Kaelen Ohm (From, Hit & Run).
Toronto-based 9 Light Entertainment, which was founded by Pasha Patriki in 2015, will handle sales across Canada and internationally.
“Our sales and distribution arm can be seen as a natural evolution for the company, but for us it is a necessary move: we see an opportunity to do things better and embrace the fast changes of the industry. It is a statement, and we don’t want to follow the beaten path,” said Patriki.
“We plan to back titles not because they’re this year’s hot-selling genre, but because they’re films we’d actually want to watch. If you believe in something, it finds its audience. Sound & Fury is exactly the kind of film that made us want a bigger megaphone. Charles has captured something painfully real, comical, and somewhat disturbing about the world we live in today, and we can’t wait to inflict it on Canadian and international audiences.”
Sound & Fury explores public humiliation, online culture, and the consequences of seeking justice in an age where social media can instantly transform an unlucky moment into viral sensation.
Maslany stars as Gavin Tremblay, a divorced theatre director and former TV actor, still looking for his career breakthrough moment. When a humiliating prank by an online influencer turns him into an internet sensation, desperate to reclaim his dignity, Gavin becomes obsessed with the influencer that humiliated him, and his attempt at revenge takes him down a much stranger road than he ever anticipated.
Written and directed by Wahl, the film is lead produced by actor-turned-producer Gharrett Patrick Paon, who first made waves in the latter profession with 2021 coming-of-age tale Wildhood about a teenager who embarks on a road trip in search of his mother and Mi’kmaw heritage.
The launch of a sales and distribution division builds on 9 Light Entertainment’s expertise in developing strategic international partnerships and content for global audiences. The company will represent a curated slate of commercially driven projects designed for worldwide audiences, alongside developing its own original slate of unscripted and scripted titles.
9 Light Entertainment focuses on commercially driven, export-ready IP designed for multiple territories. In 2017, it joined forces with Raven Banner Entertainment to launch genre film production company Hangar 18 Media. Its some dozen feature-length films and be found on Crave, and Tubi, Shudder, Netflix, and in theatres internationally.
With over 25 years of industry experience, Patriki is a member of Canadian media Producers Association, with credits including the action feature Black Water, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, Please Kill Mr. Know It All, Gridlocked, The Sound, and Anonymous.
“Pasha has done every job on a film set, crew, post, producer, director, and now he’s bringing that full picture to distribution. I can’t think of anyone better to take Sound & Fury to a wider audience,” said Wahl.
