When Wilhelm Was Growing up in South Africa, Television Was Not Available, but Movies Were

A Regent Releasing/here! Films Release Of A TVA Films WildKoast Entertainment Production Liebenberg/Sanchez Film

ETERNAL

“Erszebet, you are like a wild animal. You do not deserve to breathe the air on earth, nor see the light of the Lord. You shall disappear from this world and never reappear in it again. The shadows will envelop you and you will find time to repent your bestial life.”

The Prosecutor The 1611 trial of Erszebet Bathory

Running Time: 108 minutes 1.85 Aspect Ratio Dolby Digital SRD

Media Contacts: New York Los Angeles P & F Communications Marina Bailey Film Publicity 210 East 86th Street - Suite 203 1615 North Laurel Ave. - 201 New York, NY 10028 Los Angeles, CA 90046 (212) 861-2100 (323) 650-3627 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

1. Eternal

The Cast

Conrad Pla Detective Raymond Pope

Caroline Néron Elizabeth Kane

Victoria Sanchez Irina

Liane Balaban Lisa

Sarah Manninen Wildcat

Ilona Elkin Nancy

John Dunn-Hill Inspector Thurzo

Nick Baillie Cusack

Arthur Holden Mr. Ronaud

Kathleen Munroe Connie

Romano Orzari Detective Angle Manning

Yves Corbeil Captain Gerard

2. Eternal

The Crew

Co-Produced, Written and Directed by Wilhelm Liebenberg Federico Sanchez

Director of Photography Jamie Thompson

Edited by Isabelle Lévesque Denis Papillon

Art Direction Massimo Antonello Geleng Marina Pinzutti

Visual Consultant Perri Gorrara

Music by Mysterious Art

Executive Producer Bruce Robertson

3. Eternal

Synopsis

Eternal is a psychological thriller that examines the supernatural, sexuality and murder. Inspired by real-life events, it references the life and crimes of Countess Erszebet Bathory of Hungary, a woman responsible for the deaths of as many as 650 young women --- all tortured and murdered in the 15th century to satisfy the blood lust of the Countess.

In modern-day Canada, a woman drives to a stately home in a heavily wooded area of Montreal. Before getting out of the car, she removes her wedding ring. After a snarling dog vanishes at the entrance, she is greeted by a young woman, Irina (Victoria Sanchez), part of the house staff. Irina leads her to a sumptuously decorated salon where she meets the stunningly alluring Elizabeth Kane (Caroline Néron), a woman she had met on the Internet, but never before in person. They know each other well from their online relationship, but Elizabeth only ever meets a new woman once, with fatal consequence.

Raymond Pope (Conrad Pla) is a tough Montreal vice detective of questionable morals. When his wife goes missing, he personally takes on the case. Following the clues, he arrives at the home of Elizabeth Kane, a woman quite unlike any of Pope's wife's usual friends. The meeting between Pope and Elizabeth takes on an unnerving quality when she tantalizingly hints at having seen the missing woman on the night of her disappearance and that the nature of their meeting was intimate. Pope, perplexed by these revelations and unaccustomed to not getting answers, ups the ante by revealing that the missing woman is his wife. This works, momentarily, to ruffle Elizabeth’s composure, but she snaps back with the malevolent suggestion that perhaps she was able to give his wife something he could not.

Pope leaves, but he does not go far for very long. As a father of a young boy, Pope now has the full responsibility for his upbringing; for help, he relies heavily on Lisa, the young babysitter who none-too-secretly carries a torch for the newly-single father. Further complicating Pope's life is an affair he is having with his partner’s wife --- a sordid fetishistic relationship mired in bondage, blindfolds, handcuffs and high risk sex.

The image of Elizabeth Kane intrudes on him mercilessly. She has mesmerized him as much by taunting him with her sexuality as by denying him the information he needs to find his wife. Elizabeth’s perverse amusement of toying with Pope backfires, though, when it draws him deep into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse.

Pope's investigation reveals that Elizabeth and her servant Irina have no documented history. Yet, they are bizarrely connected to the past life of Erszebet Bathory, a countess

4. condemned in 1611 for the murder of 650 women, all killed so Bathory might bathe in their blood.

The closer Pope gets to unraveling her mystery, the more sadistic Elizabeth becomes - systematically targeting those around Pope and in doing so, framing him for the murders.

Seeking to elude him, Elizabeth slips away to Venice and Pope is compelled to follow. Upon arrival, Pope learns the gruesome details of the Elizabeth's history. Unable to return to Montreal until he clears his name, Pope continues on, finally confronting her in her Venetian predator's lair. There, in solitude of her private temple, Pope learns that he can no more release her from her obsession than he can escape his own: Elizabeth Kane.

5. Eternal

On the background and concept for making the film…

“Eternal is a story which originated from true events,” says co-director Frederico Sanchez.” “It is based on the psychology of a woman who was born in 1560. It is a study of the psychopathologies of perversions, specifically those of the characters Elizabeth Kane and Raymond Pope.”

Eternal is also a story of two accomplished men who have been looking forward to becoming filmmakers for many years and, once the opportunity presented itself, applied themselves with gusto to the task.

Producer/co-director Wilhelm Liebenberg grew up in South Africa where television was not available, but movies were easily accessed. Weaned on a steady diet of classic film, an average of four films per week starting at age fourteen, Liebenberg believed that a career as a filmmaker was the pinnacle of achievement, but not something he considered possible. After moving first to Greece and then to Montreal, his career encompassed music and up-market fashion design for clients such as Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Producer/co-director Frederico Sanchez was born in the Canary Islands and grew up speaking three languages: English, Spanish and French. Beginning his career by writing comic books, he studied film at Concordia University in Montreal and then produced television shows before opening his own company which focused on high concept design and promotion.

It was in Montreal, twelve years ago, that Liebenberg crossed paths with Sanchez and a friendship began. Three years ago, Sanchez brought a script he had written to Liebenberg. It was a small, dark film about a woman who believed she was Erszebet Bathory, the Translyvanian countess who during the early 1600s murdered 650 young women for their blood. This was the property both men had been looking for in order to realize their dreams of becoming filmmakers, and formed WildKoast Entertainment to bring it to life.

“It was the right film for us,” explains Liebenberg. “We rewrote it, but the script definitely came from the right starting point. But at the time, I said, if we cannot go for a theatrical release and if we are not going to make something that stands up to Hollywood standards, then I am not interested.” Sanchez concurred.

“The original story was gritty, taking place in tight spaces, apartments and alleyways, but we decided to go big, make it more surreal and introduce more of the element of fantasy into the film,” says Sanchez. Together, the co-producers/co-directors wanted to bring something original to the thriller genre, to add heightened sexuality, as well as the

6. supernatural elements that would provide a fantastical sense that would transport audiences.

Working on a philosophy of ‘go big or stay in bed’, they shot a 15-minute pilot in black- and-white and packaged it elaborately.

Eternal, the pilot, was presented to potential investors in a slim, walnut case lined in deep crimson velvet. Nestled into the velvet was a custom designed silver ring of the Bathory family crest, complete with a curl of silver which extended out, fashioned like the claw Elizabeth uses for opening her victims’ arteries. Supplementing the walnut case was a hardcover book pitching the movie, complete with stills, synopsis, history and bios. This proved to investors that WildKoast could create, package and market a movie on par with the best.

On the casting of the feature film…

Not only does Sanchez regard Eternal as a guided tour through a morality-free zone, he takes it further by saying, “With the exception of Lisa the babysitter, few if any characters are morally upright by traditional standards. In the case of Elizabeth Kane, there is no story arc. This is what she is and this is what she does. And what we were working towards was portraying this with a steady eye, without passing judgment. It was all about watching her perversity in action --- without retribution or punishment. Even with Raymond Pope, the audience can hate the man or just enjoy watching him work through his vices.”

In casting the feature, Liebenberg and Sanchez considered finding new actors for the roles, but given that the pilot had been so well received, they felt confident with the original cast: Caroline Néron as Elizabeth Kane, Conrad Pla as Raymond Pope and Victoria Sanchez as Irina.

By the time the pilot has been completed, both Liebenberg and Sanchez had developed an extensive shorthand with each other, and they came to rely upon it in making the feature film they had envisioned.

The key was Elizabeth and both directors felt secure in their choice of Caroline Néron. “We needed an actress who was very much in touch with her masculinity as well as her femininity. She needed to be powerful and predatory as well as charming and sweet. She could be the beauty and the beast…a master manipulator,” says Liebenberg. “There is the hint of Dracula here, but Elizabeth has no fangs, which keeps the story grounded in a believable reality.”

The key to Elizabeth’s power was her ability to seduce her victims, her servant Irina, and, ultimately, Raymond Pope. Néron, an intense person both on and off screen, brought a heightened energy to her performance. “She has an exceptional sense of focus,” says Sanchez. Combined with her classic-style Hollywood beauty and glamour, she moved smoothly into the role.

7. On playing Elizabeth Kane…

Caroline Néron prides herself on her quest for perfection in acting and looks for her character’s motivation in both the text and the subtext of the script. She understands Elizabeth’s sense of control in a very simple manner.

“This is a woman who has been killing for years, so of course she is very in control. I admired her intelligence. She’s like a fox – wise and shrewd, but it’s not an academic intelligence. She directs and she always wins in every scene. To play a character you have to love her a bit. She is lonely, she’s someone obsessed by her exterior, but something is missing. Usually it’s love; it always goes back to love.”

Eternal gave Caroline the opportunity to go beyond anything she had done before on screen. “The bath scene was the first time I did nudity. I felt it brought something to the story. The way I rose up out of the bathtub was the result of ten years of dance, that snake-like movement, one long, continuous, sinuous move. That was the moment when Elizabeth felt most alive. She felt right. She felt beautiful.”

The adventure in acting didn’t stop there. In the scene where Elizabeth brings the wife of Pope’s partner to her house, Caroline says, “That second love scene with the girl in my bed, I loved it. I’d never kissed a woman before; I’d never been that aggressive with a woman. I surprised myself. I didn’t know what to do during the rehearsal. I was so shy and nervous, but when we shot it, when they say ‘action’, you forget everything and act.”

On playing Detective Raymond Pope…

The counterpoint to Elizabeth is Conrad Pla’s performance as Pope, the troubled vice cop living so far out on the edge that the likelihood of getting caught has become an integral part of his risk-junkie diet. These two characters are the personification of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. While Elizabeth can slide away from the consequences of her actions, Pope is still living in the real world and has to manage his life more carefully. In addition to being a cop, he is also a husband and a father. Sanchez likes this character because while Pope has obvious flaws and weaknesses, he also has redeeming qualities.

“Conrad is a world-class kickboxer. He owned a successful gym and then in his mid-30s, decided he wanted to act,” explains Liebenberg. “He’s not a pretty boy and he worked so hard developing his character. The most important characteristic Conrad had to deliver was that Raymond Pope loves danger: the bigger risk - the bigger fix. Strange sex, sex with his partner’s wife, the chance of getting caught, all this brings him to life. And Elizabeth is the ultimate fix. As his obsession draws him deeper into the cesspool, his life begins to spin out of control. We loved working with him. He toned down the bully and had a calm charm with a good sense of timing such as that perfect dramatic moment when he informs Elizabeth that the missing woman is his wife.”

8. “If you listen carefully to Pope, he never lies,” states Conrad Pla, embracing what little integrity he could find in his character. “He doesn’t say what he doesn’t want to say, but he never lies. The public forgives a lot, but they won’t forgive a liar.”

It was a very good role for Pla. “I think I am similar to Pope in one way: Pope has his marriage, his son, his work, his affairs and his moth-to-flame attraction to Elizabeth. Those many lives are fairly complete and separate; for me, when I’m at the gym training, no one knows I have a wife and kids. At home with my family, no one knows I’m a kickboxer or that I act. I think that Pope is like that absolutely, but his lives really can’t overlap.” Even the location chosen for Pope’s apartment visually represents his life – Habitat ‘67. This extraordinary ziggurat of 158 living modules, ingeniously stacked, gives privacy and a view to each unit, much like the fresh air Pope gives to each of his personas.

“As an actor, I don’t pass judgment on him. I rationalize things from his perspective,” explains Pla. “While many actors play the flawed character with the understanding that what they are doing is right for them and that they aren’t wrong, Pope struggles with his conscience. He knows when he’s doing something wrong. I mean, he’s not a psychopath. But the sex, the fetishes, the guns and the death, these are elements of his addiction and there’s no way these interests end when he’s not in the bedroom. It’s always there.”

On playing Irina…

The third element in the dramatic triangle is Elizabeth Kane’s young lady-in-waiting, Irina, part apprentice, part acolyte, part sycophant. Actress Victoria Sanchez loved the part.

“Irina is a chameleon,” says Victoria Sanchez. “She believes profoundly in Elizabeth. Such conviction. And such frustration. Because Irina is looking so hard for an identity of her own. Of course, in one way or another, everyone is working on polishing their identity, but poor Irina --- she just seems to have a harder time with it than most. She changes her clothes, her hair, even her voice in almost every scene, always trying to adapt to something that will please Elizabeth. But underneath, it is still Irina. And what better type of role for an actress to play. The prize she is aiming for is important - Elizabeth has promised that when Irina is ready, she will give her eternal life.”

“Victoria has it all and that’s what is needed to play Irina,” says Federico Sanchez, Victoria’s brother as well as co-director. “She is beautiful, cunning, and manipulative, with just that right amount of submissiveness, but only to one person, nobody else. She understands the power. Irina would challenge the power occasionally, but only up to a certain point. Then she would back off. Victoria plays this always-transforming woman very well.”

9. But Irina is not all sweetness and light. She has a temper. “Her frustration and her impatience waiting for Elizabeth to make good on her promise infuriates Irina, making her reckless and lethal. She’s a brute and an animal and she takes it out on young boys,” Victoria says with amusement. She laughs at the fact that prior to this role, the closest she came to playing a ‘bad girl’ was when she played the Princess of Darkness on a children’s television show.

On the “look” of the film…

Liebenberg and Sanchez were in complete agreement that the key to making Eternal was that the film be beautiful. “Not real, but beautiful,” says Liebenberg. “We worked with Jamie Thompson, a cinematographer who gave warmth and shadows and an opulent quality to the film.”

Wardrobe was a major component of the look of Eternal. “For us, the costumes were like a supporting cast. They are there to mesmerize and transform. In each scene, each character is surrounded by their environment and their costumes,” proclaims Sanchez. “Take the scene with Elizabeth in the cape. That is such a la Traviata moment. Very operatic.”

The strongest components of the heightened production values were the sets and locations, aspects over which the co-directors wax poetic. Filming first in Montreal and then moving to Rome, Venice and the hills of Umbria, Italy, Sanchez and Liebenberg found cinematic vistas which gave them enormous satisfaction as well as inspiration.

Montreal, like Venice, is a city surrounded by water. That visual element is deeply ingrained in the film’s landscapes. Only at the end is Elizabeth seen in a landlocked environment, when she is taken to the hills of the Italian countryside.

The house on Montreal’s Summit Drive is what first inspired the film. In that area of the city, filming is permitted for two productions a year. Both directors were determined to not only shoot there because of the wooded isolation of the area, highly unusual in the middle of an old city, but also at that particular house. The long drive, the iron gate and the castle-like architecture were absolutely perfect for the home of Elizabeth Kane. The second major Montreal location was Habitat ’67; it was chosen because for both Liebenberg and Sanchez, it offers a Montreal state of mind: simultaneously retro and modern, timeless.

All interiors for Eternal were shot in Rome because of their incomparable uniqueness and beauty to be found there. First stop was the Grand Hotel Plaza, built in 1860, one of the oldest and most prestigious hotels in Rome. The lobby of the hotel stood in for the interior of Elizabeth’s home in Montreal. Then to the Villa Parizi which belonged for centuries to the Borghese family of the Renaissance. “The artistry at the Villa Parizi was quite exquisite. That is where we shot the bath scene using blood that was leftover from the same supply used in Passion of the Christ,” recalls Liebenberg.

10. Recalling their collective experience in the field of design, Liebenberg says, “The furniture for each set was hand-selected. A team of four people searched out each item, fanatical about every lamp, every piece of furniture. Every shot was structured like a painting, every element, lighting-wise, and in set design, was rich and sumptuous and there was meaning behind it all.”

It was in Venice where Sanchez and Liebenberg were nearly overwhelmed with creative potential and rose to meet the challenge. They’d walk the streets at night to find the right locations and then the right angles to give the film as broad a perspective as possible. Even though it was the height of tourist season, they quickly discovered that at night, the streets of Venice emptied out and they could have the solitude they needed for each shot.

They came across a boarded-up building that, before being the now-abandoned Academy of Music, had for years belonged to the Casoni family. The statuary in front was intact, as were the light fixtures. “There are these six-feet-high lanterns in front which date back to when the Venetians were fighting the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Sailors returned to Venice on a galleon that sank. The lanterns were recovered and mounted as a memorial to the lives lost. You see these in the film when the boat crosses and as the camera moves up the stairs to the party at Elizabeth’s villa,” explains Liebenberg with great enthusiasm.

Completing the adventure in locations was the final scene in the monastery. They scouted for a suitable location and the Abbazia San Pietro in Valle, Valneria was the one they wanted. The only one. The problem was that this was an operating monastery and the script for the scene to be shot had to be rewritten to suit the Vatican. A new script was produced, the Vatican approved, and the cast and crew were in and out in one day.

An endnote on the making of the film…

“We have achieved what we set out to do. We financed this privately, we packaged it privately, we have delivered this film in spite of the adversity which accompanies all filmmaking, and we are extraordinarily proud of it.”

11. Eternal

About the Cast

Caroline Néron ( Elizabeth Kane ) Caroline Néron began acting at the age of 17 in Montreal in television commercials, which quickly led to roles in such television series as Urgence, Diva, Réseaux, Haute Surveillance, and Tribu.com., in which she played Stella for three seasons. In 2001 and 2002, she was nominated in the Best Actress category at the Gala Metrostar for this role.

Starting in1993, Caroline transitioned into film acting. Caroline earned roles in Sylvie Groulx's film, J'aime, j'aime pas (1994), Alain Desrochers' Les fables de Lafontaine (1995) and Michel Poulette's La Conciergerie (1997). In 1997, Caroline also had the pleasure of working with Michael Paré when she played the role of Sela in the American feature film Strip Search. In addition to performing in Un petit vent de panique, Pierre Greco's first full length feature film released in 2000, Caroline held roles in two English television series in Toronto in 1999: Cover Me and Traders. In October 2000, she was nominated in the Best Actress category at the Gemini Awards for her leading role as a secret agent in Cover Me.

In 2002, Caroline appeared in the Canadian short film Ice Cold which won the Best Short Film award at the Screamfest Festival of Los Angeles. Her lead performance won her a Best Actress award at the Newport Beach Film Festival. She also appeared in the 2004 comedy C'est pas moi c'est l'autre directed by Alain Zaloum.

For the past few years, Caroline has launched a successful singing career. Her first public performance as a singer was in November 2000 when she played Rizzo in the musical Grease, at the Théâtre St-Denis in Montreal. Since then, Caroline has made several additional appearances on stage: In 2000, Caroline sang Imagine (John Lennon), a duet with Éric Lapointe on the TV program Poing J. And, at the Harley Davidson show, Caroline went on stage to sing Michel Pagliaro's J'entends frapper. She also performed an excerpt from Grease with Serge Postigo on La Fureur. Along with all these accomplishments, Caroline had the opportunity in 2000 to co-host the Gala de la Griffe d'Or with Charles Lafortune, as well as the Gala de la Pub with Martin Petit. In May, 2003 she released her first album and videoclip and is currently working on her second music album. Caroline is also a spokesperson for Virgin phones and worked closely with designer Andy Thê-Anh promoting his latest clothing collection.

12. Conrad Pla ( Detective Raymond Pope )

Born in Madrid, Spain, Conrad Pla came to Canada at the age of three. Between the ages of 18 and 32 he was a professional kickboxing champion. After an injury, acting became his life.

Conrad has recently been seen in the pilot for NBC’s E.D.N.Y., where he plays Mike Ruiz, an ex-convict, and on Lifetime's Wild Card where he plays a plant nursery owner. In the Hearst Entertainment TV television movie Wall of Secrets, he is Diego, a dirty cop. He also makes memorable appearances in the following television series: Odyssey V as a scientist, Sue Thomas:F.B.Eye as the head of a car-jacking ring who speaks in sign language and in Tribune’s Mutant X.

His other notable TV appearances include the Columbia TV/Showtime pilot Street Time, The Rendering, a television movie directed by Peter Svatek, as Detective Mormino in the Hearst Entertainment TV feature, Wicked Minds, alongside Angie Everhart, the lead in Lifetime's False Pretences, CBCs This Is Wonderland and a starring role as Carlos Serrano in the TV series Regenesis.. Conrad also made guest appearances in the USA Network series Kojak and the UPN series Kevin Hill starring Taye Diggs.

Conrad made his mark in the low-budget indie Jericho Mansions as Mr. Cordero, including a steamy love scene with Jennifer Tilly and a confrontational moment opposite James Caan.

In $windle, a Faulkner production by first time director K.C. Bascombe, Conrad co-stars with Tom Sizemore and Sherilyn Fenn as Cisco, an urban cowboy and the loose cannon of a team of bank robbers. Other film credits include: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind with Sam Rockwell; Levity, directed by Ed Solomon, in which he plays Billy Bob Thornton’s old friend; The Sum of All Fears with Ben Affleck; Tonie Marshall’s The Nearest to Heaven alongside Catherine Deneuve and Dead Awake with Stephen Baldwin. In 2004 he appeared in director Steven Spielberg's The Terminal.

Conrad Pla is currently filming 16 Blocks with Bruce Willis in the supporting role of Detective Ortiz and completing the second season of the TV series Regenesis.

Victoria Sanchez ( Irina )

The daughter of a Polish dancer and a Spanish documentary filmmaker, Canary-Islands- born, Victoria Sanchez currently resides in Montreal. She will soon be seen in Adam Goldstein's Dorian; a remake of Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” in which she plays Mariella Steiner alongside Malcolm McDowell. Victoria will also be seen in John L'Ecuyer's latest film, Choice:The Henry Morgentaler Story. Victoria starred in the short film, Duo, which was shown at the 2001 Reel Film Festival in Montreal.

Victoria also starred in acclaimed director Thom Fitzgerald’s feature, Wolf Girl, alongside Tim Curry, as Tara Talbot, a young woman with a severe form of

13. hypertrycosis, a rare disorder that causes her to have extreme body hair growth. The film, shot in Romania, required 18-hour shooting days in full body-hair makeup. Wolf Girl premiered on USA Network in 2001 and was shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

In the Canadian/German co-production television series, The Neverending Story, based on the award-winning novel by Michael Ende, Victoria plays Xayide, the Princess of Darkness. In 2000, Victoria appeared on FOX Family’s Big Wolf on Campus as Melissa/Medusa, as well as on two episodes of TVA International’s Largo Winch, the series based on one of the most popular French comic books. Other television credits include: Aaron Spelling’s Satan’s High School for Girls, A & E’s P.T. Barnum, Fox Family’s Misguided Angels, Showtime’s The Hunger, and two seasons on Fox Family’s Student Bodies. She can also be seen in the CBS TV series When Angels Come to Town, in Naked Josh on the Oxygen Network and in a supporting role in This Is Wonderland on CBC.

Victoria’s other film credits include: John L’Ecuyer’s Saint Jude, opposite Liane Balaban, The Promise, from director/producer Patricia Chica which won Best Foreign Film at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, and earned Victoria a nomination at the Yorkton Festival; Code Name: Jaguar, an HBO film co-starring Danny Nucci, and, Perpetrators of the Crime, both directed by John Hamilton. She also appeared in Mambo Italiano and in Noel, directed by Chazz Palminteri.

Victoria is currently working on the television comedy-drama 15/Love in a recurring co- star role.

14. Eternal

About the filmmakers:

Wilhelm Liebenberg and Federico Sanchez Co-Producers, Writers, and Directors.

Federico Sanchez

Canary-Island born trilingual (English, Spanish, French) Federico Sanchez started his entertainment career as a comic book writer and artist for various publications in Spain and Canada. After earning his Masters in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal, he co-produced and co-hosted a long-running award-winning cable TV show about cartoons and movies.

In the mid-90s, Federico founded his own decorating and theming company, which obtained some of the most important artistic large-scale decorative projects in and around Montreal, including Planet Hollywood restaurants, Famous Players Theatres and various retail stores. Although very successful, Federico longed to return to his first love – film.

Federico returned to the entertainment business with his production of Slayers, a digital action feature film for Canada’s second largest distributor. Several high-rotation music videos, TV commercials and the first live-action sci-fi Internet serial, Ghetto-Tech followed.

Through his varied experience in the digital domain, Federico made in-depth studies of online entertainment and marketing, which resulted in the 2001 creation of the Montreal- based digital boutique-studio WildKoast Entertainment International Inc..

Wilhelm Liebenberg

Wilhelm Liebenberg’s broad experience in a unique mix of creative fields has prepared him for the world of entertainment and the staggering challenge of competing with Hollywood. Over the past 20 years, he has been extensively involved in design, retail and entertainment related ventures across the globe, from his native South Africa to Europe and the United States.

As a singer/songwriter, Wilhelm published his first single at 19. He pursued his musical dreams in Europe, where he produced a number of successful singles, mini-albums and music videos. After moving to the U.S. in the mid 80s, Wilhelm’s interest for clothing design was sparked and he designed his first men’s high fashion line, sold to Macy's in San Francisco. He further left his mark on the retail industry by designing and producing

15. exclusive casual clothing lines for such major department stores as Edgars’ in the U.S. and South Africa.

Upon moving to Canada in the early 90s, Wilhelm started an avant-garde group of boutique-companies in music production, modeling and advertising. He spearheaded advertising campaigns and marketing strategies for well-established and high-profile retailers and entertainment-driven companies such as Cirque du Soleil, Sony Canada, Centre Eaton and Les Arts du Maurier, as well as designed innovative food, retail and entertainment concepts for restaurants and hotels. His advertising division rapidly became known as a branding and packaging specialist.

By co-founding WildKoast Entertainment International Inc. in 2001, he made the next step toward his goal of creating commercial films with high production values, films that will delight and seduce audiences all over the world.