It will be our aim to ensure that every film we back is properly supported at every stage of production in order to give each project the best chance of being both financially as well as artistically SUCCESSFUL.

Our name comes from a Spanish expression, common in Argentina -- "hijos del rigor" -- which translates literally to "sons of rigor" and refers to the tendency we have as humans to learn everything the hard way. 

In the context of filmmaking, this concept can be applied to the ability to deliver highly-polished results under tight scheduling and budget constraints. All supported by a rewarding team effort.  

Sons of Rigor’s founder & principal

Douglas Choi

Douglas Choi is a British-American cinephile with years of experience structuring and negotiating financing transactions, and as an angel investor, attorney and/or advisor for multiple successful private companies representing billions of dollars in market capitalization.  As an investor, Doug’s approach has always been to back smart, talented, easy-to-get-along-with people (the No Assholes Rule is an underlying principle here), and then let them work their magic without meddling.  He has often been the very first backer of a project.  Doug has served, or is serving, as an executive producer on over 10 feature-length fiction and documentary film projects to-date (including The Starling Girl - Sundance and SXSW 2023 and Pay or Die - SXSW 2023), traveled to over 80 countries from Antarctica (okay, not really a country) to Zambia, studied classical French cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu, and has lived in North America, South America and Europe.

Martina Bassenger

Martina works as the Creative Executive for Sons of Rigor Films. Martina sources and evaluates projects based on their creative and financial potential, as well as their suitability for Sons of Rigor. Her knowledge of the industry helps her support those projects further with key insights and strategies to ensure the films are able to maximize their potential. She studied film and theatre criticism and holds a BA from Reading University in English Literature and Film and Theatre.  Martina heads the day-to-day operations at Sons of Rigor and is based in London, UK.

Producer

Séverine Tibi

Séverine Tibi is a producer whose mission is to find, nurture and promote emerging and unique filmmakers with distinctive voices. In 2017, she co-founded the Cannes-based production company Sevana Films. Since then, they have produced documentary and fiction films in several countries and with international teams, which have screened at festivals across the globe. Séverine regularly attends events and festivals as a consultant, through talent development programs and to discover the next generation of storytellers. Most recently, she was a film mentor at SXSW, a Rotterdam Lab and Zurich Film Festival Academy participant and a jury member at the Annapolis Film Festival. She also worked at the British Film Institute as a Business Partnerships Coordinator.  Séverine is based in LA.

What is film finance for us?

We invest in film projects on an equity basis, which means that we would either partially or fully fund your project, in exchange for a percentage of the profits of the film, if any. Our equity deals will always be filmmaker-friendly.   

What do we mean by co-production?  

As co-producers we can offer support with creative development, sourcing additional funding, assistance with the marketing and distribution strategies, as well as helping with festival submissions.

Part of the inspiration to start Sons of Rigor came from this open letter Martin Scorsese wrote to his then-14-year-old daughter on the future of cinema. 

We want to support fiction films that explore important and topical themes through original perspectives, and documentaries that have the potential to spark meaningful conversations

We don't see an irresolvable tension between making great art and making money. 

You just can't be so focused on one side of that equation that you pay no attention to the other half.  Some artists have such a disdain for commercial considerations that they forget that if more people have seen your film, it will have a greater cultural impact.   Even if they create a beautiful artistic work, it may languish with a very limited release.   On the other hand, too many studio films have that distinctly soulless quality where you cannot shake the feeling that one too many production decisions were made via a decision-by-budget-committee process.   Sons of Rigor believes that a filmmaker’s creative vision should co-exist with, and need not be hijacked by, the profit motive.

We consider projects at all stages of production. These can be either fiction films or documentaries.

We especially want to make films that are concerned with the following: empathy for the other,  earnest wonder, the meaning of authentic community,  redemption of lost souls, benevolent subversion, the recovery of truth in a post-truth society, and the righting of wrongs in unexpected ways. For documentaries, we want to see great access, engaging storytelling, and important topics.

Our submissions are currently closed. We will be announcing when they reopen on our website and on our Instagram page - @sonsofrigor.