Exclusive Media’s Alex Brunner has joined UTA Independent Film Group as a film finance agent, the agency announced Monday.
Brunner will focus on global film finance, packaging and distribution strategies for independent and co-financed feature films.
“Alex is a superb film executive whose experience and relationships throughout the global film community will greatly benefit our clients as we create the best financing and distribution options for their films,” said Rena Ronson, Head of UTA Independent Film Group. “Alex is a great fit for UTA’s team-oriented culture, and we’re pleased he is joining the agency.”
Brunner joins UTA from Exclusive Media, where he was one of the original co-founders and deputy chief operating officer. The global independent film company is known for the financing, production and global distribution of feature films and documentaries such as “Rush,” “End of Watch,” “The Ides of March,” “Undefeated,” “Let Me In,” “The Woman In Black,” “Begin Again” and the upcoming “A Walk Among The Tombstones,” “Dark Places” and “The Woman In Black: Angel of Death.”
Before becoming deputy COO at Exclusive Media, Brunner was the company’s co-president of the International Sales and Distribution division, and prior to that the SVP of Production and Los Angeles Operations. Before the launch of Exclusive Media, Brunner co-founded Spitfire Pictures with Guy East and Nigel Sinclair in 2003, where Brunner built a full slate of film projects as the key development and production executive. In 2005, Brunner was the production executive on the critically acclaimed “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan” directed by Martin Scorsese. In the years that followed, Brunner served as a producer on Matt Reeves‘ “Let Me In,” executive producer on the Hilary Swank-starrer “The Resident,” co-executive producer on Peter Weir’s “The Way Back,” executive producer on the Grammy Award-winning Foo Fighters rock doc “Foo Fighters: Back And Forth,” producer on the Dwayne Johnson starrer “Snitch” and most recently as an executive producer on “The Quiet Ones” and “Dark Places,” starring Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz and Nicholas Hoult.
Prior to joining Spitfire, Brunner worked at Intermedia Films under company co-chairman Nigel Sinclair. Brunner launched his career in Hollywood at ICM, where he worked for over three years in both the motion picture literary and production departments of the firm.
Before making a move from Hong Kong to the USA, Brunner worked for Hong Kong’s largest movie studio, Golden Harvest Films, working on productions such as Jackie Chan’s “First Strike” and “Super Cop” as well as project managing the development of a new studio facility in the territory.
UTA Independent Film Group is known for packaging and representing many high-profile and critically-praised independently financed and co-financed films from a diverse range of American and international filmmakers, including clients Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Joel and Ethan Coen, Garth Davis, Drake Doremus, Sean Durkin, Asghar Farhadi, David Michod, James Ponsoldt, Lynn Shelton and Paolo Sorrentino. Recent and upcoming packaged and/or represented titles include Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel”; the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” and upcoming “Hail, Caesar”; Chris Rock’s “Top Five,” starring Kevin Hart; Jon Stewart’s directorial debut “Rosewater”; Drake Doremus’ “Equals”, starring Nicholas Hoult; Hossein Amini’s “Our Kind of Traitor,” starring Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, Damien Lewis and Naomie Harris; David Michod’s “The Rover”; Haifaa Al-Mansour’s award-winning “Wadjda,” the first-ever film shot in Saudi Arabia; Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns’ “Side Effects,” starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum; Joachim Trier’s “Louder than Bombs”; Afonso Poyart’s “Solace” starring Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell; Anthony Mandler’s “Tokyo Vice” starring Daniel Radcliffe; Don Cheadle’s “Miles Ahead,” starring Ewan McGregor, Cheadle and Zoe Saldana; Elton John’s “Rocketman,” for which the group also brokered the domestic rights sale to FilmDistrict/Focus Features, marking one of the biggest indie film finance deals in recent years.
A leading sales representative at film festival worldwide, UTA Independent Film Group this year sold numerous films including Lynn Shelton’s “Laggies,” John Michael McDonagh’s “Calvary” and Craig Johnson’s “Skeleton Twins.”
