1. MICHAEL CERENZIE FOUNDER/CHAIRMAN
Michael Cerenzie is the Founder/Chairman/CEO of Stratagem Entertainment and
Stratagem Financial. Both companies are headquartered in Toronto with offices in
Tribeca, New York City.
Mr. Cerenzie is a Canadian-born multi-award winning film producer, financier,
versatile entrepreneur and a serial disruptor who has excelled across a wide range
of creative endeavours. He has over 25 years of experience focused on the
entertainment business: creative development, producing, and financing for live
theatre, film, television, technology, and tech innovation.
He counts on a diverse network of creative and business relationships domestically
and internationally, keen industry acumen, and a pervasive awareness of developing
trends and new opportunities.
Finance Profile
Cerenzie has raised in excess of of $800 million from private equity sources,
institutional investors and banks both foreign and domestic over the past 15 years.
The funds raised were utilized for creative development, production, financing (gap,
bridge, and completion), and investment in films and various entertainment
companies. Additionally, some of these monies were dedicated to incubating
entertainment technology companies in the US, India, South Korea and Japan, as
well as to financing other independent producers and filmmakers and to strategic
partnerships with specific Hollywood studios on a distribution level.
As a resource uniquely qualified to speak end-to-end on both creative and financial
topics, Cerenzie has contributed as on-air entertainment industry expert for Fox
Business News, CNBC and Bloomberg.com as well as in print for numerous financial
and trade publications including Forbes, The Financial Times, The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Film Profile
Cerenzie's films have premiered or competed at Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Deauville,
Rome, Paris, Tokyo, Sundance and Toronto International Film Festival. They have
been awarded top honours from the American Film Institute, the Boston, Chicago,
Los Angeles and New York Film Critics Associations, and the Independent Spirit
Awards among many others. Additionally, his films have made it onto 82 critics'
“Top Ten Films” of the year.
He has collaborated with many of the most talented and legendary filmmakers in
the business, including Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman, Jim Sheridan and Martin
Scorsese. Further, Cerenzie has produced an extensive list of Academy Award
winning and nominated actors that include Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Franco,
Michael Shannon, Matt Dillon, Albert Finney, Amy Ryan, Marisa Tomei, James Caan,
Ethan Hawk, Bob Hoskins, Stellan Skarsgård, Natascha McHelhone, Gerard
Depardieu, and Harvey Keitel.
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Stratagem Entertainment
Stratagem Financial
TD Canada Trust Tower
161 Bay Street
Suite 2700
Toronto, M5J 2S1
Ontario, Canada
81 Worth Street
Tribeca, NY 10013

2. MICHAEL CERENZIE FOUNDER/CHAIRMAN
A brief history... UNITY
UNITY Productions, was Michael’s first entertainment company, founded in 1998
and headquartered at the Tribeca Film Centre in NYC on the heels of wide critical
acclaim producing live theatre that garnered an Obie Award in NYC and, for his LA
productions, another twenty Dramologue Awards between 1991-1995.
From 1995-1998 Michael worked under a three-year "first look" deal at HBO, where
he reported directly to Chris Albrecht. At HBO, Michael's very first pitch resulted in
his co-creating and co-writing a one-hour drama along with Emmy Award winners
Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson.
He also co-created and developed a one-hour western drama with the late
filmmaker Geroge Cosmatos who had just found great success in directing
Tombstone featuring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. Later, Cerenzie branched into the
documentary format and went on to co-create several documentary series for Sheila
Nevins, Head of Documentary and Reality programming for HBO.
Wanting to focus on film, Cerenzie moved UNITY to Los Angeles for the purpose of
establishing a truly unique independent film production/finance company. The
philosophy of the company was to focus on developing, producing, and financing
the creative talents of both new and veteran filmmakers on both coasts.
The company's mandate was to foster creative talent while utilizing unique
financing models developed by Cerenzie with unwavering intent to protect the
integrity of creative partners, support these talents, and produce them outside of
the studio system and outside the overbearing reach of the same, only utilizing the
studio for its distribution platform. The design was to ensure that the genesis of
their ideas and creative concepts and their production could be incubated,
produced, and delivered without outside interference.
Keeping to this philosophy, UNITY was officially launched when Cerenzie negotiated
his first deal with German film fund Cinerenta GMBH, a $325 million USD tax-based
fund. He negotiated and partnered with MGM/UA to create a multi-picture deal
through which Cinerenta funded 65% of the budget and MGM/UA funded 35%
against the domestic rights of the films and put up the P&A (Print and Advertising
costs) for each film. This deal was unprecedented given that Cerenzie had never
even produced a film before and had no contacts in Hollywood at the time in the
film business.
UNITY went on to produce their two first films: Deuces Wild, Executive Produced by
Martin Scorsese, and City Of Ghosts. The deal and the films produced by Cerenzie
caught the full attention of Hollywood. Variety Magazine named him as the
“Producer to Watch” in their annual "50 Creatives in Hollywood" listing,
immediately cementing his maverick reputation and his position at the forefront of
a new breed of producers, able to astutely helm both the creative and financial
aspects of the business.
The strength of their strategic operations lay in the fact that UNITY financed 100% of
their development and a minimum of 65% of every production budget through an
ii
Stratagem Entertainment
Stratagem Financial
TD Canada Trust Tower
161 Bay Street
Suite 2700
Toronto, M5J 2S1
Ontario, Canada
81 Worth Street
Tribeca, NY 10013

3. MICHAEL CERENZIE FOUNDER/CHAIRMAN
equity/debt mix from that point onwards.
Under Michael’s skillful guidance, UNITY developed, partnered, produced, and
financed more than a dozen feature films.
"The Devil"
Cerenzie's latest film was, at that time, the highly critical acclaimed Before The Devil
Knows You’re Dead, directed by the legendary filmmaker Sidney Lumet, a film that
would garner Cerenzie the Maverick Producer Of The Year Award by the CAIFF.
Leading the cast, Philip Seymour Hoffman noted, “This film is an homage to the
beautiful city of New York. It means so much to me.” The film also boasted Oscar
nominees and winners Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Rosemary Harris, Albert Finney,
Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan; however, Cerenzie still found himself displaced in
the Hollywood system, a system he felt was archaic, weighted and severely flawed.
“I felt that after making The Devil with Sid that I had finally reached the
creative bar I had been seeking and the bar against which all of my future
productions should be measured against. For me, The Devil (Cerenzie's regular
shorthand for the film) started out to be the bar for filmmaking, but in the end I
came to realize it was much more than that: It was, indeed the bar, but the one that
would be the measure for all of my creative and entrepreneurial endeavours. More
than that, it would be the standard for my own talent, the decisions I make, and
especially whom I would take on as creative and financial partners. I see now,
looking back, that it was Lumet, the man, the artist, the friend, and the mentor who
had become the bar, not the film, and Sidney was a giant.”
From UNITY... onward
In late 2008, on the strength of the UNITY experience, Michael decided to form the
partnership that made up Cerenzie-Peters Productions (CP), for which he was the
Co-Chairman/CEO of the company. CP negotiated a three-year "first look" deal at
Paramount Studios. Though Cerenzie was excited about having such a coveted deal
with a major studio, being the independent-minded producer he is, he raised an
additional $3 million under his UNITY banner for development to build a more
extensive and diverse development slate, to seek out strategic partnerships, and to
secure more creative freedom.
Under Cerenzie’s sole guidance and using his own funds raised through UNITY,
several high profile scripts were developed and set up during this time, including
Black Mass, the story of the infamous Whitey Bulger, to which Cerenzie attached
five-time Academy Award nominee Jim Sheridan to co-write and direct and a biopic
on Steve McQueen for which he hired writer Jesse Wigatow. The project attracted
such praise that two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner attached
himself immediately based on the script. Additionally, under CP, Cerenzie set up the
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Stratagem Entertainment
Stratagem Financial
TD Canada Trust Tower
161 Bay Street
Suite 2700
Toronto, M5J 2S1
Ontario, Canada
81 Worth Street
Tribeca, NY 10013

4. MICHAEL CERENZIE FOUNDER/CHAIRMAN
film A Boyfriend For My Wife which was being adapted from the original Argentinian
film for Steve Carrell and his Carousel Pictures enterprise at Warner Bros.
Two years into the partnership, Michael disbanded Cerenzie-Peters, continually
seeking to create a more expansive concept and to build an environment that did
not restrict his creative goals and ambitions. Following this instinct, he moved back
to NYC to refocus on finding, developing, and producing the new voices of
filmmakers in NYC ...back to where he had started some twenty years earlier. It was
“a calling that kept him up at night.”
The Crash... and The Birth
With the world in the heavy throes of the 2007-2009 Great Recession, Cerenzie
realized that the financial climate was negatively affecting even some of the most
seasoned filmmakers and producers that he knew; so, he decided to expand the
New York offices to include Toronto, Canada.
To many, this would seem a counterintuitive or even misguided move; however, it fit
squarely in his vision, that being to find a way to merge US production with
Canadian production, though in a manner never before done, such that both would
be positioned to prosper and to take their rightful places on a global stage.
For Canada, this meant, perhaps for the very first time, a chance to brand “Canada"
as an entertainment export power. For NYC the vision was (and is) simple: to regain
the heyday of the 60’s 70’s and 80’s, bringing back the type and weight of the films
produced in that time and, most importantly, the type of filmmakers it produced. In
short, this would be the return of the New York filmmaker.
Cerenzie opened principal offices back in Toronto, Canada after a 25-year tenure of
working primarily out of NYC and Los Angeles. His desire to create this “bridge” and
a truly disruptive financial model was the genesis of Stratagem Entertainment and
Stratagem Financial as an extension of UNITY’s original vision.
The company newly founded by Cerenzie retains all of UNITY’s philosophies, mission
and sensibilities while, most importantly, maintaining the high bar of world-leading
quality in projects, talent, and filmmakers. Additionally, given the economic climate
and resulting paradigm shift in the financing and production of independent films,
television, and mini-series, Stratagem presents a distinctly unassailable and far-
reaching presence in the facilitation of cross-border fluidity for productions
between the US and Canada and Canadian treaty co-productions under the auspices
of the Canadian government and internationally approved partners. These treaty
co-production agreements now number over 50 countries.
As a CAVCO (Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office) producer, Cerenzie also has
a keen interest and clear mandate to ensure that Stratagem develops, produces,
and finances Canadian content in television and film. Stratagem is dedicated to
supporting fellow Canadian producers, actors, directors and writers and in branding
their content on a domestic and international basis in English, French and Aboriginal
languages.
iv
Stratagem Entertainment
Stratagem Financial
TD Canada Trust Tower
161 Bay Street
Suite 2700
Toronto, M5J 2S1
Ontario, Canada
81 Worth Street
Tribeca, NY 10013

5. MICHAEL CERENZIE FOUNDER/CHAIRMAN
Cerenzie highlights the distinct competitive advantage of using mixed financial
modeling that allows filmmakers to shoot the necessary “establishing shots” in a
given city (for best creative results) and then coming north of the border to take
singular advantage of some of the best and most experienced crews in the world.
The result is a seamless execution with the assistance of Stratagem’s creative, legal,
production and financial teams, while leveraging a tax system known to be
unmatched anywhere in the world.
Additionally, in today’s market where foreign exchange plays such a strategic role in
the financing model of any film or series, Canada is in even greater demand per the
strong power of the US dollar, which translates into an additional 10% or greater in
direct savings.
Whether a production is set in England, New Zealand, China or New York City, there
are many benefits to partial shooting as either a US "runaway production" or treaty
co-production in Canada today. Stratagem is opening offices in both Hong Kong and
London in mid 2015.
Next up: Launch of Stratagem NYC
Stratagem NYC is preparing to open its doors in Tribeca and will be up and running
by March 2015. The company’s focus is to bring back a legitimate level of film
production to the city as well as foster, promote, and produce new and veteran
filmmakers to create content that is New York themed, shot in New York, or based
on city-specific historical figures and events.
The company will produce 1-2 films per year in the $10-40 million range. "For me it
is about quality not quantity," adds Cerenzie. "We are going to produce films that
we hope will define a whole new generation of filmmakers as we did in the 60’s, 70’s
and 80’s. The time for that is now."
v
Stratagem Entertainment
Stratagem Financial
TD Canada Trust Tower
161 Bay Street
Suite 2700
Toronto, M5J 2S1
Ontario, Canada
81 Worth Street
Tribeca, NY 10013