One of the oldest and most respected independent distribution houses in the United Kingdom, Tartan Films, is taking down its shutter. Plagued by financial difficulties and distribution concerns, Tartan has closed down its offices, dismantled its American arm (Tartan Video USA), released all of its employees, and begun the process of selling off its highly respectable catalogue to other distributors. In recent years, Tartan had been best known for its "Asia Extreme" series, which brought movies like Oldboy and the original Japanese version of The Ring to the West, but the catalog of the 26-year-old company included everything from Bergman's Wild Strawberries to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.
According to Screen Daily, other distributors are rushing to snatch up some of the prestige titles in Tartan's collection (handled currently in the U.S. by Palisades Media); elsewhere, Time Out takes time out to remember some of Tartan's finest releases (ranging from Jodorowsky's El Topo to Verhoeven's The Fourth Man). Although the company had been in dire financial straits for some time, no particular reason has been given by company founder Hamish McAlpine as to why Tartan went out of business so quickly (Geoffrey Macnab speculates in the Guardian, and lays some blame at the foot of McAlpine's desire to produce films himself; his first major effort was the disastrous English-language remake of Michael Haneke's Funny Games). This has no doubt got other indie distributors, especially in the U.K., wondering: who's next?
