NEW YORK – Long-time gay activist and indie film producer G. Sterling Zinsmeyer’s Sterling Genesis International LLC has acquired Philadelphia-based TLA Entertainment Group. The deal includes all direct-to-consumer brands and digital properties, including TLA’s flagship website TLAVideo.com, the video-on-demand website TLAOnDemand.com, and the company’s adult properties TLAraw.com and TLAgay.com.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In addition, TLA Releasing, owned separately by Sterling Genesis chief executive officer and president Derek Curl, will become part of the new TLA Entertainment Group as part of the acquisition. Curl will serve as CEO and president of the new company.
“With this acquisition’s potential for consolidation and global expansion, we will be able to realize even further the tremendous value TLA Entertainment Group has in the entertainment world,” Curl said.
Zinsmeyer, who is chairman of Sterling Genesis, will serve as TLAEG’s chief operating officer.
“TLA’s powerful worldwide brand awareness, together with fresh capitalization, will enable us as a company to continue to flourish, build upon a strong infrastructure and seize new opportunities for digital expansion in the current marketplace,” he said.
Some of the current staff will remain post-transition, among them General Manager Brian Sokel, who will move into an unspecified senior management position, and Controller Jo Borasky, who will serve as chief financial officer. Eric Moore, who co-founded TLAEG, will remain with the company as its chief technology strategist.
“I am excited about the new possibilities Sterling Genesis has brought to the table and I am eager to begin implementing their new vision,” he said.
What is now TLAEG grew from an experimental theater troupe, Theater of the Living Arts, founded in the 1960s by Andre Gregory. The group served as a spawning ground for the careers of celebrated mainstream actors including Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Sally Kirkland and Ron Leibman, all of whom were exclusive to the troupe in its early days. Within 10 years, as funding for live theater dried up, Murray and a group of others took over operation of the company, transforming it into an art-house movie theater. In 1981, the company incorporated as TLA Entertainment Group. By 1985, TLAEG had expanded to include a chain video stores in Philly and New York City; in 1997, the company moved into online retail. The last of the brick-and-mortar stores closed in 2007.
TLA also operates QFest (formerly the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and Philadelphia CineFest (formerly the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema).
Zinsmeyer founded Sterling Genesis in 2013 as a private investment firm focused on global media, entertainment, distribution and communications investments. In addition, Zinsmeyer has executive-produced gay indie films including Naked Boys Singing!, Adam & Steve, The Deception and Latter Days. He is the recipient of the Stonewall Democratic Club’s Outstanding Community Service Award for philanthropy and activism within New York’s GLBT community, as well as his efforts to create positive portrayals of gay and lesbian characters on film.
