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Participant buys into Cineflix

US film producer Participant Media has taken an equity stake in transatlantic producer-distributor Cineflix Media a week after establishing a new TV arm under former IFC TV and Sundance exec Evan Shapiro.

Evan Shapiro

Evan Shapiro

Participant, whose film credits include Good Night, and Good Luck; Syriana; and An Inconvenient Truth, has made an undisclosed investment in Cineflix amounting to a minority share.

The pair will now work together on the conception, development, and production of original TV shows.

Participant last week hired Shapiro, president of IFC TV and Sundance Channel, to become president of newly created Participant Television.

“Cineflix has grown over the past decade from an independent production start-up to an international media corporation, and our investment in this innovative company provides Participant with the talent and creative resources to expand our business into television,” said Participant Media CEO Jim Berk.

Cineflix Media produces some 400 hours a year factual and scripted programming including titles like American Pickers, William Shatner’s Weird or What?, and Nazi Hunters.

Drama arm Cineflix Studios will debut its first original series, Copper, on BBC America in the US and on Shaw Media’s Showcase in Canada this summer.

Cineflix founders and co-CEOs Glen Salzman and Katherine Buck said the move represented a “fantastic opportunity … not only as a business but as a creative organisation.”

Other recent changes at the company saw Paul Heaney, long-term MD of UK-based distribution wing Cineflix Rights, exit earlier this month, following the appointment two months previously of former Warner Bros International Television Production exec Chris Bonney as CEO of rights for Cineflix Media in Canada.

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