CAA’s Roeg Sutherland Discusses Bridging Gaps Between Artists, Financiers and Helping Indie Film Market Thrive at Zurich Summit

variety.com:

Ed Meza @edmezavar CAA’s Roeg Sutherland looked back on his eventful career and discussed the changing landscape of the global film industry at the Zurich Film Festival, where he’s being honored with this year’s Game Changer Award.

Taking part in the Zurich Summit industry forum, where he’s been a regular for years, Sutherland pushed back against the idea of a “game changer,” at least in the film business, joking that “LeBron James can be a game changer.” At CAA, where Sutherland co-heads the Media Finance department and the International Film Group, finding solutions for clients and ensuring films get made despite major obstacles is a big part of his job. “Our goal, our job is to make sure that whatever happens, if there’s a pandemic, if there are two strikes, if the studios aren’t buying, if China closes down, if Russia’s at war, whatever happens, we need to figure out a way to get these movies made.

And that now is changing,” said Sutherland. He said the outfit always strives to “set up their movies in an appropriate way (…) and respects the needs and desires of the film financing community, with international distributors and whoever may finance.” “Sometimes it’s worldwide deals; for the most part, it’s piecemealed with a foreign sales agent being part of it and selling off international territories, bringing in an equity investor, making sure that the equity investor is in a pretty safe position if they go into making a movie without having distribution in place,” he said.

Going beyond that, it’s also about filling gaps, he added. “If we feel there’s a gap in the marketplace, if there is a gap in Canada and we need help in setting up a distribution company, we’ll do that.