Australia’s newest distributor, David Doepel’s Leap Frog Films, has taken on a new partner and has confirmed its second acquisition, The Sea, a drama starring Ciaran Hinds and Charlotte Rampling.
Andrew Hazelton, a former Roadshow Films and Greater Union executive, has joined the company and will spearhead acquisitions.
Based in Los Angeles, Hazelton most recently was VP Distribution & Marketing at Michael Favelle’s Odin’s Eye Entertainment.
Hazelton met Doepel at this year’s Cannes Film Festival where Doepel bought his first film, Wrinkles, a Spanish animated film directed by Ignacio Ferreras. A surprisingly funny and touching film set in an aged care facility, it won the award for best animated feature at the Spanish Goya Awards in 2012.
Doepel is a former ordained minster who spent 22 years in the US, including 10 years making educational documentaries. He also served as the Western Australian Government’s Trade Commissioner based in L.A.
Back in Australia he worked for Murdoch University, eventually as deputy vice chancellor, research.
He decided to launch Leap Frog Films after identifying a gap in the market for what he terms as “good stories, well told with heart and substance.” He’s looking for films targeted at people aged 55-plus as well as family films.
Doepel and Hazelton bought The Sea at the Toronto International Film Festival. Based on a Booker prize-winning novel by John Banville, the film co-stars Rupert Sewell, Sinead Cusack and Natasha McElhone.
Doepel tells IF he’s on the verge of closing a deal for a second title out of Toronto. He says he is looking to raise finance from private investors to fund Leap Frog Films’ acquisitions and to put up minimum guarantees.
He hopes this relatively low-risk investment will encourage those investors to eventually contribute funds to enable his firm to embark on producing films.
His wife, screenwriter Barbara Connell, is also involved in acquisitions, particularly for projects that are at the script stage.
He aims to release 4-6 films a year. Doepel says Titan View’s John L. Simpson is a consultant to Leap Frog Films and he foreshadows a close collaboration between the two companies.