From Indiewire comes a thoroughly depressing piece of film news: New Yorker Films, which has been distributing the very best in international cinema in theaters and on video and DVD for decades, has closed its doors. Just a murderers’ row of the auteurs listed on their official website should give you an idea of the extraordinary library they leave behind: Antonioni, Bertolucci, Chabrol, Denis, Fassbinder, Godard, Kieslowski, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Ray, Resnais, Sembene, Tarkovsky, Wajda, and on and on. And that’s not to mention the many contemporary foreign-language films that New Yorker distributed annually. No word yet on what will happen to New Yorker’s library, but it’s probably safe to speculate that the massive hole the company leaves behind in the acquisition and distribution of challenging, auteur-driven foreign films will be difficult to fill. Considering that Sony Pictures Classics is arguably the only studio boutique that bothers with foreign films of any substance, and that true independents like Tartan, ThinkFilm, and Wellspring are dropping like flies, these are fallow times for American movie-lovers.
Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez has the full scoop here. We’ll be over here, curled up in a fetal ball.