Equinoxe Films continues to roll.

Two years ago, the Montreal-based distributor scored Canadian rights to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which went on to reap $30.5 million at the domestic box office. Last year saw Equinoxe's release of Mambo Italiano, which made $5.3 million at the till, making it the most successful English-language Canuck production since Porky's. And the streak continues in 2004 with The Passion of the Christ, which so far has pulled in $23 million at Canadian theaters.

Director Mel Gibson's hot-potato-turned-cultural-phenom, spoken in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew, was passed over by the major Hollywood studios. It was upon reading this in his weekend newspaper that Michael Mosca, Equinoxe's senior VP and COO, was inspired to action.

"On the Monday, I ran into the office and spoke to Yves [Dion, Equinoxe's VP distribution] and told him to see what he could do," Mosca recalls.

Boutique New York distrib Newmarket Films ultimately signed on to service the film's U.S. release. Equinoxe got on the phone with Newmarket prez Bob Berney to see if Newmarket's deal included Canada, which it didn't. Berney put Equinoxe in touch with Gibson's Icon Entertainment, which produced Passion and which, coincidentally, had bought Mambo rights from Equinoxe for the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Mosca, Dion and Marc Beausejour, Equinoxe's director of video, Canada, stopped over in London on their way to the MIFED film market in Milan for a screening of the film with other international distributors.

"We had just landed in London about 11 a.m., flying overnight, and at 2 p.m. we had the screening of the subtitled film, so I was hoping I would stay awake," Mosca recalls. "But I had to be there. The opportunities for an independent distributor to pick up something from an Oscar-winning director are rare to none."

Finally having seen the film, which documents the final hours of Jesus Christ (played by James Caviezel) in graphic detail, Mosca says he and his colleagues were speechless and "absolutely blown away." When their emotions settled, they agreed that they wanted the film, and initiated talks with Icon brass.

As to how Equinoxe scooped the film from underneath its bigger competitors, rumors have a major local player shying away from the project out of respect for the U.S. studios with which it has an ongoing relationship. The American majors steered clear of the film in the wake of early accusations that it could inspire anti-Semitism through its portrayal of Christ's killers as Jews.

But Icon was not going to simply hand its baby over to the first bidder. Equinoxe had to win them over with a marketing plan, one that underlined the company's success with Greek Wedding, the most successful indie film ever at the Canadian box office. And the release of the film that it displaced for that title, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was supervised by Dion when he was at now-defunct Blackwatch Releasing. Like Passion, Tiger is subtitled, usually making for a hard sell.