Head Gear Films Opens U.S. Arm With $120 Million Plan for Indie Film and TV

Head Gear Films is opening a U.S. arm, Head Gear US, and plans to invest $120 million in American independent film and television in its first year, according to Deadline.

The new unit will be run by Samantha Allwinton, who takes the title of Director of Operations. She was previously chief operating officer of Head Gear Films in London, and before joining Head Gear she worked at Ingenious Media. She will be based in Denver and split her time between Denver and Los Angeles.

Head Gear is a financier, which means it supplies the money that gets films made, usually in return for a share of what they later earn. Phil Hunt is the company's co-founder and chief executive. He started the business in 2002 with Compton Ross.

According to Deadline, Head Gear helps fund about 30 movies a year. It also works as a hands-on executive producer on roughly a third of the films it backs. An executive producer is a credit that usually covers the money, contracts and oversight of a project, rather than the daily work on set.

The company has backed a run of films that have reached cinemas. Deadline reports that Head Gear recently helped finance The Apprentice, Talk to Me and How to Have Sex. The company's own website lists earlier titles including Black Mass, Belle, The Forgiven and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and says it has financed more than 600 titles. That site also says the firm offers cashflowing of government film incentives, which means borrowing against tax rebates that governments pay to productions filmed in their territory, such as the Australian Offset and the UK Rebate.

Head Gear US has its first events on the calendar. Deadline reports that the team will attend the American Film Market in November, a deal market where distributors buy and sell films, and the Sundance Film Festival in January, where many independent films find buyers.

For anyone who has watched a small film reach a big screen, the chain is long. Money has to be found before a camera rolls, and the people who supply it often decide which projects get made. A dedicated U.S. team gives Head Gear a new base for those early conversations, and the first test will come at the two markets it has already announced.