Cairo/MTM Pictures International

Cairo/MTM Pictures International Limited (CMPI) is an international distribution arm of Cairo/MTM Pictures which distributes all Cairo Pictures, Argosy Pictures, and MTM Enterprises films outside North America. CMPI also has international distribution rights to Visual Arts and Entertainment One films, as well as FremantleMedia Motion Pictures releases.

Until 1999, it distributed all Virgin Pictures films in Brazil, Portugal, and Southeast Asia, but all Virgin films are now owned by BSkyB.

When Argosy Media broke away from Corus in 2007, Cairo/MTM got the international rights to films made by Svensk Filmindustri, Gramercy Pictures, ITV Films, and Virgil Pictures.

Cairo Pictures International
In a cost-cutting move, in 1970, as a result of American anti-trust laws, and due to declining movie-going audiences, both Cairo and Visual Arts, agreed to merge their international operations into a new company: Cairo Pictures International, registered in England and Wales. It even operated in Canada and the Caribbean until the late 70s, when those territories were considered part of the "domestic" North American market.

In 1973, Entertainment Films closed down its distribution offices outside Canada and became a partner in CPI, which took over international distribution for Entertainment's films; however, Visual Arts took over the US and Caribbean distribution for Entertainment's films that time. CPI also entered the home video market by forming Cairo Pictures Home Video International, which distributed Cairo and Visual Arts titles on video worldwide. Entertainment, however, had its own video unit.

Cairo Pictures/Visual Arts International
In 1981, Entertainment merged with Vancouver Pictures, which had its own international distribution unit, to form E1 Entertainment. CPI refused to let E1 drop out of the venture at the time, but let the latter merge Vancouver's overseas arm into CPI, which led to the reorganization of the company as Cairo Pictures/Visual Arts International.

In 1986, Baton Broadcasting purchased E1, but later resold the company except for its film library, which included Canadian rights to the Cairo film and television library and the Visual Arts film library. After that library was acquired by Baton, CP/VA (through E1) signed a deal to continue distributing the pre-1986 Entertainment and Vancouver film libraries for theatrical release.

CPI's name lived on in its video division, which became directly managed as a joint venture of Cairo Pictures Home Video and Visual Arts Home Video. CPHVI survived until 2006, when Cairo's owner Argosy took over Visual Arts and merged CPHVI under its own video division.

CP/VA also had a subscription television arm, Cairo Pictures/Visual Arts Pay Television, which distributed Cairo, E1, and Visual Arts releases to pay TV broadcasters outside the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Anglophone Caribbean. CP/VA Pay TV was broken up in 1997 after a 4-year investigation by the United Kingdom, as it accused CP/VA as a cartel-like organisation. The pay TV rights for the films were eventually transferred to Cairo Pictures International Television (later renamed Cairo/MTM International Television and currently known as Argosy Media International; today, the films are distributed by Trifecta Entertainment & Media).

2007 reorganization
Starting in 2007, CP/VA considerably reduced its international operations. At least 15 "key countries" are now directly managed separately by Cairo/MTM subcontractors FremantleMedia Motion Pictures, Cinema City Entertainment (Hong Kong), ViD, Village Roadshow Pictures, Globo Filmes, and The Rank Organization, taking over operations in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Though their Japanese operations were initially planned to be kept intact, CP/VA withdrew from the Japanese market in late 2007; and as a result, Argosy Media Japan started taking their Japanese distribution operations in-house. In 2002, CP/VA withdrew from the Finnish market. As a result, their releases in that country later started being handled by Svensk Filmindustri.

Current organization
The company is based in London, United Kingdom, though their operations in that country are currently being taken over by The Rank Organization. However, as of 2010, they continue to directly distribute films in 19 countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Malaysia, Norway, Panama, Peru, the Philippines (through ABS-CBN Films since June 2014), Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey. In addition, the company has distribution agreements with locally owned distribution companies in a further 43 countries.

In 2012, the company was renamed Cairo/MTM Pictures International.