NonStop, Submarine launch doc distributor

The newly-independent NonStop Entertainment and US film vendor Submarine have partnered to create a documentary distribution company.

Scandinavia-based NonStop Submarine will between 10 and 15 docs per year theatrically, and sell digital, TV, DVD and streaming rights in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Holland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The firm will also have a first look at all Submarine fiction titles.

This comes after high-profile Scandinavian film executives Jakob Abrahamsson and C.G. Anderson acquired NonStop Entertainment back from Turner Broadcasting System in August. The firm had closed its TV sales arm, NonStop Sales, in February 2013, as TBI revealed at the time.

Turner had acquired NonStop from Ignas Scheynius’s Millennium Media Group in 2010. Scheynius subsequently left, before resurfacing at subtitling business Hippeis.

Abrahamsson, a long-time NonStop executive, called his company a “newly reborn independent”.

NonStop Submarine’s debut slate includes Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Chris Burden: Double Bind and Sneakerheadz.

“We have had a very fun and successful collaboration over the years and our filmmakers and producers couldn’t have a better home and distributor as NonStop Entertainment,” said David Koh, Dan Braun and Josh Braun of Submarine in a joint statement.

“Scandinavian audiences are amongst the most sophisticated in the world and doc crazy and we look forward to supplying great films, stories and human voices from around the world by great directors as we help to expand the doc market in Scandinavia with NonStop and worldwide.”

Abrahamsson said Submarine’s “impeccable tastes and sensibilities are very much aligned with” NonStop’s strategy.