What were you doing before you founded Carlotta?
I was only 23 when I founded Carlotta. My first experience in cinema was at the Mac-Mahon movie theater, where I worked for a year and a half, along with Axel Brucker from the company Générique, organizing the movie program and private parties. We went into movie distribution based broadly on the Mac-Mahon’s programming, with musical comedies – Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, etc. – and the release of Ben-Hur. I naturally went on to creating Carlotta, a distribution company specialized from the outset in cinema heritage, first with theatrical releases and later with DVDs. Before that, I was studying economics at Assas, with, like a lot of young people fascinated by cinema, the idea of doing a two-year degree and then taking the entrance exam for the FEMIS. Since you don’t generally get in, either you continue your studies or you get a job. I tried the FEMIS once, then got the chance to work at the Mac-Mahon and create Carlotta.
Have you been a movie fan since you were a child?
Yes, since I was eight or ten years old, especially thanks to my mother. I watched movies by Hitchcock and Lang, which gave me a particular point of view, and then I’d go by myself to see popular movies, as well as films that were a little bit different from the ones my friends saw.
DVDs weren’t the basis for creating Carlotta?
Ten years ago, at the very beginning, we weren’t even thinking about that. Our first real business was to re-release films in the theaters: the first one was Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, a new copy of a restored version, with promotional means usually only available for new movies: a release in Paris and elsewhere in France, and a theatrical distribution organized with movie theaters. That was our approach from the beginning, with classics like North by Northwest, as well as movies from the 1970’s and 80’s, which gave us a specific niche on the market. These movies had been watched on TV or on video, dubbed and under bad conditions, and the idea was to have a new opportunity to see them on the big screen with the original language and format.
At the time, what was the network for re-releases like?
It hasn’t changed much. At the time I was a very young distributor and there were a lot of others in Paris: Action Gitanes Vieille du Temple, along with the Action movie theaters and Acacias, and there have been small, new companies since. There are about ten in Paris and in the rest of France who – distributors and theaters alike – make a vague attempt at screening movies with heritage value throughout the year and not only during certain periods. The hub, or nerve center, is still the same: the Latin Quarter, with the Action movie theaters, the Champo, etc., even if it’s harder for them today. And then there are institutional venues like the Pompidou Center, the Forum des Images, and the Cinémathèque, which was already an important outlet for cinema heritage. It’s still going on, and has never stopped in Paris, because outside of Paris, a lot of theater networks still exist in small, medium-sized and large cities that include programs of cinematic heritage and urge theaters to show them via our different releases throughout the year. At the time, people were already interested in getting involved in that, and in doing it with a slightly different selection of cinematic heritage, which spoke more to people of my generation, a new generation of movie buffs who didn’t necessarily have the same notion reference points for great cinema. We all agree on certain directors, from Hitchcock to Lang, who are masters in the field, but my personal canon goes more up though the 1970s than in the 1940s and ’50s, as opposed to the older generations. It’s normal: things evolve, and that’s what we worked on when we re-released films by De Palma, Coppola and Scorsese. I’m not saying we were the only ones, but there weren’t many of us who would repeatedly focus on these filmmakers and their movies, re-releasing them in theaters with new copies, and we realized certain viewers, especially a newer and younger group of movie buffs, could relate to them.
Why North by Northwest, for example?
Because we all grew up with Hitchcock, who is still considered a leading filmmaker by all movie buffs. We chose North by Northwest because we thought we could stir up new interest in the movie, seeing it again in the theater, since it had become hackneyed – it was shown annually on FR3 at 8:30 pm or watched on video –, but it hadn’t actually been seen that often, or not seen on the big screen for a long time ago, especially by our generation. It’s an undeniable classic, but it hadn’t been seen much in theaters. So we wanted to revive this desire by re-releasing the movie in theaters, with a big communication and promotional campaign to bring in viewers.
In retrospect, that seems like the ideal choice.
Yes, considering everything we’ve done since. At the time, we were able to distribute it because the rights were available in France and distributors like the Action cinemas had plenty of Hitchcocks, but not North by Northwest, because, for some reason or other, they hadn’t renewed the contract. In the mind of other distributors specialized in cinema heritage, the movie had been seen too often and had been overdone; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to get it. Not to mention that no one believed it could be done; a lot of professionals at the time were a bit skeptical. So, ideal? Yes and no. The film came at a cost, but it wasn’t astronomical, and the movie wasn’t more complicated to get than others. Then we invested to make it work, but like all companies that are just starting out, there was no room for error. This film could keep us going if it did well; and if it didn’t, it could make us reconsider everything to follow. In this way, it was a cornerstone for Carlotta’s future.
How did you come up with the promotion for this film? It was extensive, with a lot of support, since the Cahiers du Cinéma published a special edition when it came out.
That’s easy: since it was our first film and we didn’t have several releases to manage. We only had this one title to work on. The idea was to support it as long as possible – this is still the case today, but we did it at a more intense pace –, give it every possible chance to succeed and develop activities that distributors in Paris had been doing less often for decades, because we were no longer using the same approach and the same pace. So it was really a question of developing anything we could for the project, in terms of partnerships, visibility, promotion… The idea was to go further than a mere article, for example, in the Cahiers du Cinéma and to have a special supplement, which was rarely done for re-releases. We did it in partnership with the Cahiers and Antoine de Baecque, who was editor-in-chief at the time. We also had a partnership with Agnès B., who printed up postcards, had a partnership with the now-defunct TPS, which broadcast the movie on their channel Cinétoile. So the movie was shown on cable at the same time, which allowed us to coordinate the TV broadcast and the theatrical release, because we’ve always worked together – and even more so with DVDs – with theaters and TV, and haven’t kept to ourselves, which I feel is counterproductive. Today, there are so many images that it’s better to branch out as much as possible and reach different audiences. And this collective effort, with the Cahiers, Agnès B., TPS and the press coverage, allowed us to release the film a little differently from traditional releases, here and there on a smaller scale, and made it more important, put it in a new light, gave it more visibility than the umpteenth release of North by Northwest in the past. That’s what interested us: building ties. But you can’t do it for everything, the movie still determines from the outset what you’re going to do, but so does the desire at the time, which has to match what the audience, the industry and the press want. But we felt it could do well and that all that was left was to develop it as far as possible.
How do you approach theatrical and DVD releases today? Ideally, do you always prefer that they happen jointly?
We have no fixed method. We try to do it as often as possible when we think it’s relevant, when we can create a real cinematic event for the theaters and for the DVD, simultaneously or several weeks or months apart, handling all of the rights and, for certain titles the audience can relate to, giving it new life with a theatrical release or a retrospective. We did it for example with Pasolini, Fassbinder and Ozu. So first, we initiate a re-release in the theaters, and then bring the film out afterwards on DVD, in a collector’s edition or a box set, and focus on the filmmaker – not necessarily on his entire work, because that’s actually difficult to do, but on his recurring work with several films or several box sets. Thus, each time, we do our utmost. But there are some films for which we only obtain the DVD rights or the rights for a theatrical release, and for other films, we may decide that a theatrical release won’t be easy and would take a lot of time and investment. But as often as possible, we stay true to our first love: getting films into theaters if we’re going to release them on DVD. But there are a lot of deciding factors. First, there’s the contractual side: you have to have all the rights, and decide whether the timing’s right in terms of a potential audience. It’s important for us to get movies by Pasolini – like Salo – or by Fassbinder – like The Marriage of Maria Braun – re-released in the theaters, with an actual audience that’s eager to see them, and at the same time, get them out on DVD. We often work simultaneously in different media or spaces.
Do some movies that particularly need to be released in theaters?
As a cinephile, I’d say all of them do, but it’s a privilege to re-release a film in 35mm, even when you’re going to put it out on a digital medium rather quickly. Releasing a new 35mm copy on the big screen – even though I’m an avid watcher of DVDs – is still unique, and it’s not a cliché to say so. When Serpico comes out at the Max Linder, I go and see it again. It’s different than watching it at your place, even if you have a nice home cinema system. If you love movies, you’d like everything to be re-released. But then there’s the economic reality, and for certain costs or certain films, we conclude, rightly or wrongly, that releasing them in theaters is too difficult and not necessarily a wise decision. But we’re not unaccustomed to giving into a whim. When we re-released Berlin Alexanderplatz, which we didn’t have to release in the theaters because it’s a huge risk, and it’s very expensive to make a new 35mm subtitled copy for a movie that long, we felt it was important to go beyond the DVD and get it out in theaters, with respect to an audience that would want to see it. In terms of our “mission” as movie enthusiasts and our work with cinematic heritage, and even though it’s not always really profitable, that’s not our only concern. Otherwise, there are a lot of things we’d never do. It’s our job to get these films into theaters.
Are movie theaters always in the market for this kind of event and re-release?
Yes, even though you always have to elicit their requests. It’s part of the daily grind for any distributor, whether he’s specialized in movie heritage or not. And there’s also the question of habit – theaters are really into that. You have to create events around movie heritage, repeat them regularly, and develop loyalty in a young audience. I’m especially thinking of people living outside of Paris. It’s middle- or long-term work. You have to help young viewers discover a film by Anthony Mann or Ford – it can happen either in a theater or with a DVD. DVDs also get people into theaters; I’m absolutely convinced of this. We may never know the percentages, but DVDs have done a lot – even if it’s only in terms of the press – to get people talking about cinematic heritage and to shake off that dusty image it still had fifteen years ago.
How have DVDs changed movie buffs’ enthusiasm for cinema?
“Changed” may not be the right term. It’s made it evolve. A different relationship has developed thanks to DVDs, especially in terms of movie heritage, watching a movie at home with better images and sound, and with bonuses that make the movie into an “edition”, like a book, which is fascinating for movie buffs. The DVD has become a noble medium for movies. This wasn’t the case with VHS, which was really a merchandising format essentially for new films. Suddenly, thanks to the medium and its possibilities, the DVD has become interesting for a certain audience, who weren’t drawn to videotapes, who wouldn’t buy a videotape of a Sirk film, but who’ll buy it on DVD with a completely different approach stemming from the medium, psychologically and in addition to its qualities, which are unrivaled by videotape on all levels. We don’t call them “editions” for nothing: our relationship with cinema is one of an edition, like a book, owning an object, collecting it, in relationship with the packaging. Owning a DVD box set isn’t the same thing as having a videocassette box. All these aspects opened up new horizons for movie buffs and for films from cinematic heritage which wouldn’t have been possible with VHS. Of course, it’s also generational.
When did DVDs become a new work space for critics? I’m thinking especially of certain critics who work mainly with that medium.
Right away. There were relatively few of us in the sector at the beginning – besides Carlotta, in France there were Arte, MK2 and Wild Side, who were leaders in cinematic heritage and had the same ambition of working with critics, historians and film experts, with interviews and analyzing sequences. The whole movement occurred naturally, and was started about five or six years ago. It’s a natural movement in the French territory, and unless I’m mistaken, the Americans came to it afterwards. There was immediately a growing desire for commenting the film.
Is it specifically French?
No, obviously, there’s Criterion, but the major studios didn’t care. Warner Bros. has only been providing extensive support for certain releases for maybe three years. There are the new films and those at the low end of the catalog. At the low end of the catalog is international cinema, with the trailer as a bonus and a set of subtitles, the cheapest possible. New films make up the main market, and the desire to add bonuses came from the independent film industry, and more specifically from France. Even now, in the rest of the world, France is one of the few countries to care so much about the releases and the packaging. Look at what comes out in Spain, Portugal and Italy – in cinematic heritage, a niche market, we make the biggest effort here, along with Japan, perhaps, which produces mind-blowing editions with another approach. France is one of the few countries to value DVD content and form.
When were Carlotta’s parent companies created?
Carlotta came first, and several totally independent entities were created afterwards with no link to Carlotta in terms of capital – but which I’m a partner in – with the idea of working more broadly in cinema and in the different professions. There’s a distribution company called Bodega Films, which is a logical result of Carlotta, but which distributes movies on general release and recent films, since Carlotta is established as, and is seen as, a company specialized in cinematic heritage. Bodega handles recent Indian movies, a Mexican movie, a Romanian movie… The company is complementary to Carlotta and helps clarify things, since a new film released by Carlotta might be perceived as being of dubious quality. The two companies work hand in hand. The other companies work on packaging and bonuses, and include Carlotta among their clients, but not exclusively: we simply strive to share our know-how. The common feature among all these companies is that their work in cinema is as broad as possible. Allerton, which designs bonuses, works for several clients: they’re really completely separate from Carlotta, even though they do all our bonuses. I’m one of the partners, in my own name and not as Carlotta. Allerton’s day-to-day work – designing films and organizing manufacturing – is handled by people other than me.
What about unreleased movies?
That’s Carlotta’s sector, which has released, in particular, Ozu’s There Was a Father, Japanese films that couldn’t be released in France, and unabridged and unreleased versions like Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes, which is coming out in theaters and on DVD. It’s just part of the work we do all year long: we don’t specifically tell ourselves we need to put out unreleased films.
Is it the same job to re-release a movie as it is to release a previously unreleased film?
Yes, except that there’s less material available in the latter case, since it’s less well-known, which can be as much an advantage as a disadvantage. When the movie’s really very good, nobody’s seen it and it’s received critical acclaim, we feel it can reach a broader audience than if they’ve already seen the film and wish to see it again.
How did you choose There Was a Father?
People told me about it and I’d heard a lot of good things. We’d bought a lot of Japanese films from Shochiku, the leading Japanese studio, where Ozu shot nearly all his movies. We’d bought a certain number of titles by Ozu and by other filmmakers, and among them we had well-known titles like Good Morning, I Was Born, But… and A Story of Floating Weeds, and also rarer films, some of which were released in France, and others not at all. And there are plenty of Ozu movies that haven’t been released yet, or that came out directly on DVD and have never been shown in France. We weren’t wrong about the film’s success. We concentrate more on the filmmakers’ work as a whole, releasing box sets, etc. The focus is more on the work as a whole than on a single title.
When you bring Fassbinder back into the news, is it because it’s going to happen elsewhere or do you create the phenomenon from scratch?
That depends. There might be current events we’re not aware of because the films have been sold throughout the world without us knowing it. Berlin Alexanderplatz is a little bit different, because the restoration was initiated by the Fassbinder Foundation in conjunction with Bavaria, with the idea of selling it throughout the world. So as the year goes by, it’s becoming topical in the different territories that have obtained the rights. And then the film was projected in Berlin last year with a lot of pomp and circumstance. For both the seller and the distributors, it was handled in a way usually reserved for first runs, and even more so since the movie, which doesn’t fit into any category, hadn’t been seen at all or had been seen very little. In April, we’ll be doing focusing heavily on Japanese cinema with a little-known but fascinating filmmaker from the New Wave named Kiju Yoshida, who’s alive and well and will thus be with us this year. The Pompidou Center will be doing a retrospective of his complete works; we’re releasing a majority of them on DVD in April and two of them in the theaters. The project was more or less brought to me by the Pompidou Center, which was planning to do the Yoshida retrospective, and since we’d done very intelligent work together on Fassbinder, they wanted to continue our relationship with Yoshida, a filmmaker I was relatively unfamiliar with. The event is really very specific to France, which doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done in Japan. But it was their initiative and I don’t believe other countries have released his complete works – we’ll thus be the second to do so. The idea was really to work hand in hand to create an event around this filmmaker. We have the rights to all his films; so the whole adventure will be fun, but a bit crazy. We’re releasing two movies in the theaters, Eros + Massacre and Akitsu Springs, and so we wanted to focus on these two very different movies. Akitsu is a grand, Sirk-like melodrama in color, and the other one, Eros + Massacre, is perhaps his best-known movie, if only by name. The Pompidou Center is showing his complete works and we’re simultaneously releasing two box sets covering two periods, plus Eros + Massacre in a collector’s edition. About a dozen films, the rest will be released later. We’ve gotten Allerton in putting together a 52-minute documentary on him, his wife and the people he’s worked with. It’s a fascinating project, and one really worth discovering.
Do you have the impression there are still a lot of gaps to fill in the DVD sector?
Plenty, yes. I’m not saying it’ll get done, because you have to obtain the rights, but there are plenty of major filmmakers, plenty of Americans similar to Sirk, for whom no real editorial work’s been done on DVD. I’m thinking of Minnelli; even though there are a lot of things out there, nothing specific’s been done on the filmmaker. A Minnelli box set like what we did for Sirk would be a nice project. Even though we manage to work with major studios, which gives us a lot of opportunities, they’re more interested in releasing the films little by little, although they may put them together in a box set at the end of the year. It’s not the same economic or editorial approach as Carlotta. The market’s forever changing, films that people didn’t like ten or fifteen years ago may be successful today, there are a lot of filmmakers who haven’t benefited from sufficient visibility… There are still a lot of things to do, by us and by others.