By Staff, May 12, 2008
What do Todd Haynes, Deepa Mehta, Atom Egoyan, Francois Ozon, Olivier Assayas, Christopher Nolan, and Guy Maddin have in common? They all trusted Zeitgeist Films to release and distribute their films to American audiences with the care and dedication that the company has been bringing to all of their quality foreign and independent feature films and documentaries since 1988.
In honor of the 20th Anniversary of this strongly independent distribution force, Zeitgeist Films will be celebrated at the Museum of Modern Art this June with a month-long retrospective from the company’s acclaimed library. As of this writing, plans are for the retrospective to open on June 27 with two classic Zeitgeist releases; Guy Maddin’s critically acclaimed, and undisputedly hilarious, 1992 satire, Careful; and the beautifully restored classic, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (which the company first re-released in 1996). Guy Maddin will be on hand to introduce both films (as he is both a huge fan and authority on Cherbourg).
***image1***Emily Russo and Nancy Gerstman co-founded Zeitgeist Films in 1988 in a bathroom sized-office in Greenwich Village with a budget of $2,000. Today, Co-Presidents Russo and Gerstman run the company out of a Soho loft with eight employees and enough accolades and awards to make larger distributors jealous: Nowhere in Africa won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; Sophie Scholl - The Final Days was nominated in 2006 for an Academy Award in the same category
. My Country, My Country (2006) and Let's Get Lost (1989) were nominated for Academy Awards as best documentaries. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Zeitgeist distributed the re-issue) and Taste of Cherry both won Cannes’ Palme d’Or, the festival’s most prestigious honor. Zeitgeist has distributed more than 150 films, including many other award-winning features and documentaries from throughout the world.
Zeitgeist is known for discovering new talent and has released the early films of such renowned directors such as the aforementioned Haynes, Mehta, Egoyan, Ozon, Assayas, Nolan, and Maddin. In addition, their catalog contains films from many of the world’s most acclaimed directors including Agnes Varda, Abbas Kiarostami, Peter Greenaway, Jan Svankmajer, Jia Zhangke, Jacques Demy, among others.
States Gerstman and Russo…“Over the past 20 years our industry has undergone enormous change, and many companies involved in distribution have come and gone, but Zeitgeist has remained, and thrived. We are film lovers first and get the same thrill as we did our first day when we see an exciting new film, or a distinctive voice we can introduce to U.S. audiences.â€
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