Atlanta-based Liaison Pictures has boarded the documentary feature Behemoth Ann Holds a Seance, joining Because the Night Productions on a project presented this week at the Locarno Film Festival's Match Me! networking platform. The producers are in Locarno seeking production, distribution and world sales partners for the film, which is directed by Isidore Bethel, Vicki Bethel and Daniel Hymanson. Variety

The documentary centres on Arthur Douglas Thayer — an artist, designer, writer and educator who spent a lifetime crocheting creatures. After Thayer's death, the film depicts Isidore Bethel helping his mother Vicki organise an exhibition of her late husband's crocheted work at the world's busiest airport. Atlanta Airport hosted that exhibition from December 2023 to April 2024. Variety

Match Me!, for those unfamiliar with the festival circuit, is Locarno's curated industry-meeting programme — a speed-dating format where selected producers pitch projects to potential financiers, distributors and sales agents. Landing a slot puts a film in front of the people who decide what reaches screens.

The personal connection behind this deal runs deep. John Henry Hinkel, who co-founded Liaison Pictures in 2023 with Andrew Ostapchenko as a boutique production and finance company, was classmates with Isidore Bethel in high school and at Harvard. Hinkel launched the company after relocating to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Variety

Liaison's early slate gives a sense of the house taste. Its credits include Charlie Kaufman's How to Shoot a Ghost, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival the prior year, and Coroner to the Stars — Ben Hethcoat and Keita Ideno's film about former Los Angeles chief medical examiner Thomas Noguchi — which bowed at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles. The company has also had Shotplayer by Sam Shainberg screen at SXSW and I'm Not Home by Elena Parasco at Tribeca. Variety

Because the Night Productions, founded by Anne-Laure Berteau, lists Behemoth Ann Holds a Seance among its projects in progress, describing it as a 75-minute documentary and noting it as a laureate of the Brouillon d'un rêve grant — a French development prize for documentary projects. Because the Night Productions

What makes this project stand out is the blend of personal story and public space. A lifetime of crocheted creatures, displayed in the corridors of the world's busiest airport, then captured on film by the artist's son and widow — that is a chain of decisions rooted in family rather than commerce, now entering the marketplace to find the partners who will carry it to audiences.