New Yorker Films: The End of a Revolution

Fans of international films—and the libraries serving them—lost a longtime champion of art-house cinema on February 20 when New Yorker Films (NYF), after 43 years in the business, sadly shuttered its doors. (The distributor's parent company, Madstone Films, reportedly defaulted on a loan secured with NYF's funds.)

"Years before companies like Miramax and Sony Classics and other high-end assets of global corporations were in the distribution business," Video Business product digest editor Laurence Lerman tells LJ, "New Yorker was humbly servicing the world's growing hunger for international cinema from a small office on the Upper West Side."

Founded in 1965 by Dan Talbot, NYF brought the influential works of such directors as Claude Chabrol, Roberto Rossellini, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Louis Malle, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder to the United States. Its first release, Before the Revolution, was by a then 22-year-old, relatively unknown Bernardo Bertolucci. It also introduced American audiences to Asian, Latin American, African, and Middle Eastern filmmakers as well as a smattering of domestic independent auteurs.

Commercially risky but artistically daring fare was a staple and included the likes of Shoah, Claude Lanzmann's omnibus Holocaust documentary; Jean-Luc Godard's provocative Hail, Mary; and Krzysztof Kieslowski's epic The Decalogue, to name a few.

Not all of NYF's output was controversial or esoteric, however. Louis Malle's My Dinner with André managed to make a small splash in 1981, providing postscreening conversation material in the markets where it played.

NYF held the rights to some 400 titles for theatrical and nontheatrical exhibition. In addition to 35mm prints for commercial venues, the distributor provided schools, libraries, film societies, and other institutions with 16mm prints until DVDs largely superseded narrow-gauge celluloid.

What will become of NYF's back catalog? At press time, the fate of its inventory was in the hands of owners auctioning its resources. Assuming a buyer comes forward, perhaps some titles will reemerge under the same or another company logo. If so, at least part of the pioneering distributor's legacy will continue, thrilling viewers around the country.