411_WIRE \ FundingPublished Nov 4, 2026 1 min read

Catalytic Films Launches at AFM With a Four-Feature Indie Slate

By Kinolime Editorial Team // Verified Human Journalist Review

Summary

Milena Rimassa's new production, financing and sales banner opens with James Franco horror title Something's In There and a South Asian cricket drama.

"Milena Rimassa, a veteran of international distribution, production and entertainment finance, is launching Catalytic Films at the American Film Market, Deadline reported Tuesday. The company will produce, finance and sell independent features, and it has formed a strategic alliance with Unni Rav's Visual Narrative Films, under which Rimassa will executive produce VNF's slate and Catalytic will handle its global distribution and international sales.

The opening slate includes Something's In There, a supernatural horror thriller written and directed by Joel Harber and starring James Franco as part of an ensemble with Peter Gold, Elsie Hewitt and Raoul Max Trujillo. Kirandeep Karnati's Boundaries follows South Asian women in suburban California who form a cricket team. Catalytic is also licensing remaining worldwide rights to Mahesh Pailoor's Paper Flowers, which streams on Angel Studios in North America, and handling the docudrama We Are Never Alone.

Rimassa said the company pairs ""exceptional storytelling with the commercial expertise and relationships needed to reach audiences worldwide."" Budgets and the source of the company's financing were not disclosed."

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"Milena Rimassa, a veteran of international distribution, production and entertainment finance, is launching Catalytic Films at the American Film Market, Deadline reported Tuesday. The company will produce, finance and sell independent features, and it has formed a strategic alliance with Unni Rav's Visual Narrative Films, under which Rimassa will executive produce VNF's slate and Catalytic will handle its global distribution and international sales.

The opening slate includes Something's In There, a supernatural horror thriller written and directed by Joel Harber and starring James Franco as part of an ensemble with Peter Gold, Elsie Hewitt and Raoul Max Trujillo. Kirandeep Karnati's Boundaries follows South Asian women in suburban California who form a cricket team. Catalytic is also licensing remaining worldwide rights to Mahesh Pailoor's Paper Flowers, which streams on Angel Studios in North America, and handling the docudrama We Are Never Alone.

Rimassa said the company pairs ""exceptional storytelling with the commercial expertise and relationships needed to reach audiences worldwide."" Budgets and the source of the company's financing were not disclosed." "Every AFM brings a handful of new banners promising to produce, finance and sell under one roof, and most of them disappear by the following Berlinale. The ones that last usually have a pipeline before they have a logo. Catalytic's alliance with an existing production company gives it exactly that, a steady supply of titles to sell instead of a wish list.

The slate itself is an odd, interesting mix. A horror film with a recognizable lead is the market's safest currency, the kind of title that pays for the sales office. A cricket drama about South Asian women in the suburbs is the opposite bet, a specific community story aimed at a diaspora audience that distributors still underestimate. Picking up remaining rights on a film already streaming through Angel Studios is the least glamorous move and possibly the shrewdest, because finished films with a track record are easier to license than promises."

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