Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead’s Rustic Films Teams With V Channels & XYZ On Genre Slate

Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead’s Rustic Films Teams With V Channels & XYZ On Genre Slate

EXCLUSIVE: V Channels and Rustic Films have formed a partnership to produce and distribute a slate of ten micro-budget feature length genre films from a group of diverse filmmakers from around the world.  

V Channels will fully finance the ten features, with Rustic Films spearheading the curation and overseeing production on the slate. Production is due to commence in early 2023 on the initial films.

XYZ Films will serve as executive producers and help with the curation, and also help facilitate sales and distribution for some of the films. Rustic partners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are clients of XYZ Films’ management arm, which brokered the partnership on the slate.   

Jamie Freed of Momentus Media and Giulia Lupetti brokered the deal on behalf of V Channels and both will also be executive-producing the films. Nate Bolotin of XYZ Films brokered the deal on behalf of XYZ and Rustic.  

Rustic Films, behind movies such as Synchronic and The Endless, were recently nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards for Sundance title Something In The Dirt.  The film was produced by Rustic partners David Lawson, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, co-directed and starring Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, and exec-produced and distributed by XYZ.  

V Channels is a network of YouTube movie channels which streams films in five languages. In August, the company launched the project #RoadTo100 with the goal of producing 100 micro budget data driven movies for the AVOD market in one year from new and emerging artists in the post-Covid era.

“Championing new and emerging talents has been our goal since the birth of V Channels. Leveraging on our unique localization process and the immense reach of YouTube to bring to the world independent movies that found insurmountable obstacles to reach the world. With XYZ and Rustic, not only we are championing emerging artists now, but bringing them a dream team to have the best shot to succeed in the entertainment business,” said V Channel’s Mario Niccolo Messina.  

“When the idea of this slate was proposed to us, we leapt at the opportunity to be involved. We at Rustic have always been advocates for grabbing a camera, some friends and making a movie. This slate will allow people that may not otherwise have had the opportunity or the resources to do just that. We have been tirelessly scouring the globe to find filmmakers and projects that showcase what can happen when you allow talented visionaries the freedom to tell bold stories,” said Rustic’s David Lawson.