Palisades Tartan

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
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#201 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:29 pm

Scharphedin2 wrote:Any recommendations for titles that are particularly good and worthwhile, and not available from the UK arm? In the interest of securing these, before they are sold out from the e-tailers.
Well the big one that I've been meaning to get for a while now, since reading this article was Spider Forest.

If you are into Kim Ki-Duk, Tartan US released The Bow last year. There was also Election 2 released under the title Triad Election, though I have not checked out whether that is a definitive must have version of the film or not.

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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#202 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:36 am

The Tartan Election/Election 2 (sorry, I mean "Triad Election") discs didn't look any better than the Hong Kong versions (which weren't too hot to begin with) and dropped a lot of the extras. The films have a different distributor in the UK (Optimum) so there may be better-looking versions out there -- I haven't seen any direct comparisons.

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foggy eyes
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#203 Post by foggy eyes » Fri Jun 06, 2008 8:42 am

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:The films have a different distributor in the UK (Optimum) so there may be better-looking versions out there -- I haven't seen any direct comparisons.
They look good but have fixed subtitles - probably best to go for the HK discs.

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wowser
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 9:54 am

#204 Post by wowser » Sun Jun 08, 2008 10:14 am

Er, recently bought the Tartan Bergman Faith Trilogy box. Good picture, but I'm having problems with the sound: it's all strangely phased, like it's been run through a guitar effects box or something. Anyone else experience this?

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Awesome Welles
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#205 Post by Awesome Welles » Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:25 am

Rumour this morning is that Tartan have gone bust... I'll post more as I find out.

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ellipsis7
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#206 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:41 am

FSimeoni wrote:Rumour this morning is that Tartan have gone bust... I'll post more as I find out.
What - the McAlpine fortune run dry?...

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colinr0380
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#207 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:53 am

It was that Blu-Ray of The Seventh Seal that did it, wasn't it? :x

Terrible news if it is true though.

Narshty
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#208 Post by Narshty » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:54 am

Gumph! Really?

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SoyCuba
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#209 Post by SoyCuba » Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:58 am

Some information here.

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Awesome Welles
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#210 Post by Awesome Welles » Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:09 am

Aparently they've been on the rocks for years. I wonder who will buy their library? Quite a shame really even if I was never that fond of their DVD releases but this will create a big gap in the market, not that we're short on distributors in the UK.

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Tommaso
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#211 Post by Tommaso » Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:40 am

Too bad! I guess this will create a run for all the remaining stock (whatsoever) of their Bergman, Ozu, Pasolini releases... or these will get dead cheap at retailers now, who knows. In any case, this significantly diminishes the chance that finally someone will release the remaining Bergmans, I fear. And we'll never see that 'Soviet Shakespeare'-Kozintsev set :-(

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Telstar
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#212 Post by Telstar » Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:06 am

So I guess we won't be seeing those Blu-rays of Tale of Two Sisters and Lady Vengeance...

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colinr0380
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#213 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:40 am

It certainly puts the future distribution of Asian (but really all modern 'foreign and arthouse' titles) in question - on home video at least.

Still a bit shocking considering Tartan's longevity and that a couple of months ago they did their first Blu-Ray, had the US arm and co-produced-and-distributed the Funny Games remake. A case of spreading themselves too thinly in too many directions that didn't pay off?

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skuhn8
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#214 Post by skuhn8 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:36 am

colinr0380 wrote:It certainly puts the future distribution of Asian (but really all modern 'foreign and arthouse' titles) in question - on home video at least.

Still a bit shocking considering Tartan's longevity and that a couple of months ago they did their first Blu-Ray, had the US arm and co-produced-and-distributed the Funny Games remake. A case of spreading themselves too thinly in too many directions that didn't pay off?
Or intentionally raising their market value for hopeful buy-out, especially in the US.

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ellipsis7
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#215 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:16 pm

Screen Daily relates the developments in detail...
Tartan Films goes into administration

UK distributor Tartan Films has gone into administration, ending months of speculation. The business, founded in 1982 by Hamish McAlpine, is believed to have made more than 20 staff redundant. The news has come as no surprise after months of discussion about the company's finance.

Last year, the business restructured with veteran managing director Laura De Casto leaving the business. Head of acquisitions Jane Giles also left the business to become head of content at the British Film Institute. Other veterans who left the company in recent months included publicity veteran Sarah Bemand.

The company announced a $6m investment package in November 2007 but sources said that ultimately fell through. The company has announced no new acquisitions since that time.

Tartan's next planned release, documentary Crazy Love, has been pulled from its planned July release at cinemas including London's Renoir. earlier this month, the company closed its Tartan Video USA division, which had been set up in 2004. It sold off its 100-film library with Palisades Media taking US rights to a catalogue which included Korean director Park Chan-wook cult hits Oldboy and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance.

The company was best known for its championing of horror titles and Asian cinema. Its pioneering Asia Extreme video line was particularly influential and included films such as Hard Boiled, Audition and Battle Royale. Other successful titles among 300 films released in the UK were The Cooler, Super Size Me, Capturing the Friedmans, Secretary and The Triplets of Belleville.

"It's a sad day," said Mark Batey, CEO of the Film Distributors Association.

"The company had an extrordinary track record of distributing films from all over the world and it has become a brand in the way that not many publishers of intellectual property in any sector have managed."

Construction family member McAlpine launched Tartan Films in the UK in 1984 -- it merged with Metro Pictures to create Metro Tartan in 1992 and later reverted to the Tartan Films banner.

Tartan's most recent UK theatrical releases were I'm A Cyborg, Mister Lonely, Funny Games and P2. McAlpine also served as a producer of Michael Haneke's US remake of Funny Games, which was a box-office flop.

Tartan head Hamish McAlpine hasn't returned calls seeking comment, and calls go unanswered at the company's London headquarters.

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miless
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#216 Post by miless » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:23 pm

I'm still wondering what's going to happen to the Reygadas titles (here in the US)? I know that article states that the library was purchased by Palisades Media, but those Reygadas titles could very well have been special licenses not under the deal (like most American companies would willingly handle a Reygadas film).

My hope is that his films wind up with Criterion... it'd be a great move, especially given the rumors around a Criterion box set of Pedro Costa's films. It's be nice to see them tackle some contemporary world fare.

The Glue Man
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#217 Post by The Glue Man » Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:22 pm

So that'll explain what happened to the 2nd volume of their Eisenstein Collection - time to just bite the bullet and buy the Criterion "The Sound Years" set...

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Oedipax
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#218 Post by Oedipax » Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:41 pm

Damn. So does this kill the upcoming R2 DVD of Mister Lonely?

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kaujot
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#219 Post by kaujot » Sat Jun 28, 2008 3:11 am

Does anyone know anything about Palisades Media?

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chaddoli
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#220 Post by chaddoli » Sat Jun 28, 2008 10:52 am

Yes. I am friends with the CEO's assistant and am currently working with the CEO on a film. They are a good company with excellent taste in film. They are mainly a P&A company, but are obviously expanding into production financing and distribution. The biggest film they helped produce was the John Kerry film Going Upriver.

Check out their website to see the other films they've worked on: www.palisadespictures.com

Most of these films they worked on in an advertising capacity, but you can see they are mostly daring and intelligent films.

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miless
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#221 Post by miless » Sat Jun 28, 2008 2:40 pm

it's good to see Battle In Heaven on that list of titles... They could really know what to do with some of Tartan's more artsy fare.

filmnoir1
Joined: Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:36 pm

Tartan

#222 Post by filmnoir1 » Sat Jun 28, 2008 4:19 pm

Dvd times has announced that Tartan films has ceased operations and that this will also most likely affect their dvd releases as well. It is interesting to watch as another distributor of "Asian" cinema is forced out of the global marketplace even as Asia is becoming the most important economic and social center in the world.

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colinr0380
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#223 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Jun 30, 2008 11:23 am

A Guardian blog post and one from Filmbrain. Both the articles suggest that maybe Tartan USA was the company's undoing - the Guardian suggesting pushing Red Road as a flagship title was a wrong decision and a comment on Filmbrain's blog suggesting that Tartan USA's legal problems over Mysterious Skin might have been a harbinger of difficult times.

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ellipsis7
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Re: Tartan

#224 Post by ellipsis7 » Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:07 am

Screen Daily...
Buyers chasing Tartan Film' back catalogue
Geoffrey Macnab in London

Buyers are clamouring to acquire the back catalogue of Tartan Films, the independent UK distributor that went into administration last week.

David Oprey, a partner in Chantrey Vellacott DFK (which is handling the administration) confirmed to ScreenDaily, that a number of firm bids have already been received for the entire catalogue and a deal may be finalised within the next few days.

"As administrators, we are looking to find buyers for the catalogue of titles," Oprey commented. In an ideal world, he added, Chantrey Vellacott would like to "sell all the titles to one person if that is
the best offer because it is administratively more convenient."

"We are talking to a number of people at the moment and we would hope to find a buyer very quickly. We are trying to keep the catalogue together," Oprey said.

"We do need to move quite quickly so that we don't have problems with licences reverting to licence holders."

Oprey refused to reveal who the bidders were or where they were from.

"Our job is to get the best price we can and that is we are trying to do," he commented.

It is not envisaged that Tartan Films will be able to resume trading. However, there are several other companies that bear the Tartan name and they are not affected by the administration. "We are dealing solely with Tartan Films Distribution Ltd," Oprey said.

The reasons why Tartan Films Distribution was moved so hurriedly into administration last Thursday have yet to be made clear.
In depth from The Guardian
Death of a salesman
Led by the maverick Hamish McAlpine, Tartan Films was the UK's most influential indie film distributor - but now it's gone bust.

Geoffrey Macnab

For once, Hamish McAlpine was lost for words. "I really can't comment," the flamboyant and normally loquacious UK film distributor told me earlier this week when asked what had pushed his film distribution company Tartan Films into administration. "I am not allowed to comment on the situation at this moment. I've been gagged. I just can't help you at all." He wasn't, he added, even allowed to comment on why he couldn't comment.
Last Thursday, Tartan staff turned up at its central London offices to discover that the doors were locked and that the company had ceased trading. By the beginning of this week, administrators Chantrey Vellacott DFK were already scrambling to find buyers for the company's vast back catalogue. There was no shortage of interest. ("You're picking off the bones of the dead as if it was carrion," one distributor was reprimanded by an old friend of McAlpine for the haste with which he inquired as to which films might now be on offer.)

There are obvious reasons for Tartan's woes. Only a month ago, in May, Tartan Films USA (Tartan's American offshoot, which had been set up in 2004) hit the reefs with the announcement of a "public foreclosure sale" of all its assets. The UK market for Asian horror films, for so long Tartan's staple, had bottomed out. Recent releases such as Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely and Park Chan-wook's I'm a Cyborg did only patchy business. McAlpine's long-cherished plans to get more involved in film production hit a massive roadblock when Michael Haneke's English-language remake of Funny Games (Tartan's highest-profile production) performed poorly at the box office, despite a cast headlined by Naomi Watts. Some say McAlpine simply bought too many films, and Tartan's rivals have long known the company was seeking investment or a sale.

Eccentric and flamboyant, McAlpine was an adventurous distributor with a taste that ranged from the best US independent cinema to turn-of-the-century pornography (The Good Old Naughty Days) to films about serial killers (Ed Gein, Bundy) and classic European arthouse cinema (Tartan has released far more Ingmar Bergman titles on DVD than any Swedish distributor). He championed free speech, constantly jousting with the BBFC over ratings for films such as The Pornographer and The Isle. He was pioneering in introducing British cinemagoers to the work of Asian directors like Park Chan-wook, Wong Kar-wai and Kim Ki-duk.

Some former staff members are understandably bitter about the demise of the distribution company and the loss of their jobs. However, producers and fellow distributors have rallied to defend McAlpine, pointing out that Tartan has been among the most adventurous independent companies in the UK for more than 20 years - and one of the few with a recognisable brand name.

"It is so easy to bash iconoclastic entrepreneurs like Hamish," says producer Don Boyd, who founded Tartan in 1984 with McAlpine and veteran Scottish distributor Alan Kean. Boyd soon left Tartan to pursue his career as a producer and director, but maintained close ties with McAlpine. "Hamish is a brilliant, creative distributor with passion for what he does. Those aspects of his personality are inevitably the ones that cause ups and downs in creative careers."

Boyd suggests that McAlpine ran Tartan like "a creative tsar. He was like a Diaghilev of the film industry." Sometimes, he was erratic, but many of his decisions were brilliant. Boyd also takes issue with the idea that the company was a rich man's plaything. "Even in the very early days, people used to say it's the McAlpine family getting into film. We would say, 'It's not.' We put our own money there. We backed Tartan collectively. This was no vanity exercise."

"I've known Hamish McAlpine for many years. He is a friend of mine. I have admired and respected him from a distance over many years," says Philip Knatchbull, CEO of the Curzon Artificial Eye Group, which co-owns a DVD sales company with Tartan. Knatchbull confirms that his company is looking over the Tartan library. "Our team here is having a look at the detail of what is available to see if we can rescue the catalogue in its entirety to see that it isn't broken up."

There are plenty of anecdotes about McAlpine: some apocryphal, some true. He is supposed to have once dressed himself up as Béatrice Dalle and presented himself for interview to journalists when the French actress failed to turn up to a press junket. Once, he freaked out a senior US executive by holding a flickknife to his neck (he was trying to demonstrate that film is a cut-throat business, but the American didn't see the joke). Everyone in the industry knows about his scrap with US director Larry Clark. (After a heated discussion about Middle Eastern politics during the London film festival, the two men came to blows, and McAlpine refused to release Clark's film, Ken Park.)

Whatever the personal implications for McAlpine and his staff, Tartan's demise is sad and worrying for the UK independent sector. "It underscores the market polarisation that we are seeing," says Mark Batey, chief executive of the Film Producers' Association, pointing to the gulf between the blockbuster end of the market and the indie world. "The middle ground is incredibly treacherous. It is really difficult to sustain viable life. Everything is very risky indeed."

These are paradoxical times for UK distribution. On the one hand, there are dozens of companies handling what might loosely be referred to as arthouse fare. On the other, there is the sense of a contracting market. Distributors feel they are caught in a transitional period between old-style theatrical releasing and a brave new world of digital distribution and video on demand that doesn't seem to have arrived. Hundreds of films are released every year, and the competition is ferocious. "It definitely feels like there are more players at the moment fighting over fewer good films," says Justin Marciano, managing director of Revolver.

Whereas in the past, a small arthouse gem might be given a chance to build up word of mouth and find an audience, now every film is judged instantly. If the opening weekend figures are disappointing, the film will be yanked out of cinemas. Meanwhile, when a small distributor does go all out to give a film a big push, the risks can be daunting. If the film flops, the distributor is lumbered with huge bills that it will struggle to pay. Some suggest there is a growing conservatism: the exhibitors are no longer ready to take a chance on the kind of films Tartan prided itself in releasing. There are signs that the industry is moving more and more toward the mainstream. DVD profits are falling. TV no longer buys arthouse films in the way it once did.

"It is a total and utter disgrace that the television industry has marginalised independent and arthouse cinema, knowing that was a vital part of the way that films were distributed," says Boyd. He also lays blame on "New Labour apparatchiks who have marginalised cinema in its purer forms. People have been willing to back rather silly romcoms." Boyd bemoans the public money that has been "put into bureaucracy and shockingly bad British films" when that money could have been used "much more intelligently to help out people like Tartan and perhaps encourage them to be more involved in European and British film production".

Despite Tartan's travails and the struggles facing the independent sector in general, not every UK indie distributor is downcast about current prospects.

Marciano points out that Revolver made £1.2m with Guillaume Canet's French thriller Tell No One, which suggests the market isn't as averse to foreign-language fare as the naysayers suggest. Knatchbull highlights the current success that Artificial Eye is enjoying with Abdellatif Kechiche's Couscous, about an elderly shipyard worker who founds a restaurant. Meanwhile, Optimum Releasing - now backed by French major Studio Canal - is releasing 300 DVDs a year and recently announced plans to move into production, remaking old classics like Brighton Rock.

"It's an ultra-competitive and tough market to be in," says Marciano as he contemplates Tartan's woes - but then adds: "in our experience, it has always been that way."

Hail the Tartan army ...
Six films that put the distributor ahead of the game

Man Bites Dog (1992)
This Belgian mockumentary about a philosophical serial killer broke new ground with its mix of ultra-brutal murder and mordant humour. It heralded a new mood in early 90s cinema - which it shared with Reservoir Dogs, released virtually simultaneously in the UK - but avoided the kerfuffle surrounding the Tarantino video release.

Audition (1999)
Unbelievably nasty Japanese fetish-horror epic (the first Takashi Miike film to get a serious UK release, in 2001) that, in many ways, was an indicator of the psychotic depths the terror cinema of the far east would plumb. A year earlier, Tartan hadn't gambled on the true J-horror pioneer, Ringu, but quickly snapped it up for DVD release; together, they ballasted Tartan's identity as the place for skin-crawling bodyshock.

Irréversible (2002)
Gaspar Noé's deeply distasteful revenge fable tested audience endurance to the extreme with its nine-minute rape scene, though the ferocious brutality of a key murder was just as disturbing. Arguably the most gruellingly graphic film ever released in the UK - though Tartan tested the censors with the authentically hardcore The Idiots and 9 Songs.

Oldboy (2003)
In the early part of the decade, Korean cinema roared past all comers in the far east ordeal-horror stakes, with this implacably violent parable leading the way. The middle section of Park Chan-wook's "vengeance" trilogy paved the way for Hollywood's wretched exercises in torture porn - but at least Park avoided the overt misogyny that infested the films that followed in its wake.

DiG! (2004)
Proving that Tartan wasn't just about sex and violence ... or maybe not. There's quite a bit of both in this stunning documentary about two bands' rivalry in the US west coast retro scene, and DiG! led a whole spate of music films into cinemas. Tartan also put out two other wonderful examples: The Devil and Daniel Johnston and the Ramones biog, End of the Century.

Super Size Me (2004)
Tartan's most commercially successful cinema release, which made an instant global star out of activist film-maker Morgan Spurlock as he chomped his way through a month of burgers. Proved that protest docs didn't have to be worthy and boring, and triggered the environmental-issue film virtually singlehandedly. - Andrew Pulver
And Palisades now have most of the Tartan UK library too, so that's safe... Interesting move... Screen Daily...
New York-based Palisades buys Tartan Films' UK film library
Jeremy Kay in Los Angeles

New York-based P&A financier Palisades Media Corp has bought the majority of Tartan Films UK's film library of more than 400 titles several weeks after the company went into administration.

The move follows Palisades' acquisition of Tartan's US film library in May. The catalogue includes Super Size Me, La Haine, Secretary, Etre Et Avoir and In The Mood For Love. Palisades will continue to acquire titles for the US and UK from existing sales agents and licensors.

"[We] see the potential for great synergy between the US and UK titles in marketing, digital, and the future evolving delivery systems," Palisades Media Corp chairman and CEO Vin Roberti said. "We believe strongly in the new digital world at Palisades, and will be aggressively ramping up future acquisitions.

"These recent transactions are part of the foundation of what we believe will be a major global catalogue of not just filmed entertainment but all forms of entertainment by 2010."

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Awesome Welles
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:02 am
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#225 Post by Awesome Welles » Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:52 am

Palisade are planning to start releasing discs from Tartan's catalogue soon.
In the press release they note that releases will start back up in the Winter with the Asia Extreme collection. Boxsets, 2-packs and blu-rays also in the work. Nice to see that we'll still have a home for Asian cinema.

I wonder what this mean for UK releases?

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