The only reason Kodak is manufacturing film for Alaris may be because the bankruptcy court told them they had too. Maybe they have no interest in doing any of it and would like nothing more than dropping the whole film line? See my post #40 and 42.
The bankruptcy court didn't tell Eastman Kodak any such thing. The bankruptcy Trustee negotiated a deal where, in return for $600,000,000.00 and a release of The Kodak Limited Pension Funds super-priority claim, plus an offer of employment to a large number of Eastman Kodak and Eastman Kodak subsidiary employees that Eastman Kodak could no longer afford to employ, The Kodak Limited Pension Fund obtained exclusive worldwide marketing rights to Kodak still films, Kodak still photo-chemicals, Kodak colour photographic paper, plus some other digital related products. The Pension fund also received a bunch of ownership and leasehold interests in manufacturing facilities around the world that were primarily involved in the production of photographic paper.
So the majority of Eastman Kodak's employees, who they could no longer afford to employ, retained similar employment.
The super priority is something that is wielded effectively by a part of the UK government that has statutory authority to protect the pensions of UK workers. Kodak Limited - the UK subsidiary of Eastman Kodak - was at one time very large. It had the highest number of employees, outside the USA. While its pension fund was well funded, the actuarial realities were such that the projected claims on that fund had gone from less than what was in the fund to an amount that substantially exceeded the amount of the fund.
The deal between the fund and the bankruptcy trustee was approved by the UK pension authorities, the pension fund trustees, the management of Eastman Kodak in bankruptcy and, effectively, the majority of the other creditors.
As a result of all that, the bankruptcy court approved the settlement, which took the .
single existing liability out of the bankruptcy equation. And the $600,000,000.00 made it possible for Eastman Kodak to continue producing the things they still produce.
The Pension Fund incorporated Kodak Alaris to run the business they received from the settlement. They are a separate entity, even if they work cooperatively with Eastman Kodak. Directly and indirectly they have worldwide reach, with worldwide responsibilities and employees, while Eastman Kodak's operations are limited mostly to the USA (excluding some small marketing resources relating to their motion picture film and other businesses - they are, for instance, a pre-eminent source of chemistry for developing printed circuit board films).
Kodak Alaris have all the responsibilities for measuring market needs and opportunities for still films. They have one manufacturer for those products, who sells them only to them. But that manufacturer - Eastman Kodak - is constrained by limitations involving people, access to component ingredients and other things, limits to their available machinery, and probably most importantly, limits to their available capital. So with their production capacity being more limited than the demand for the products they make, they and Kodak Alaris have to negotiate.