As Phil Nugent reported here earlier this week, the venerable New Yorker Films “has ceased operations” and its catalogue of foreign and art house fare is set for auction. At Beyond the Multiplex, Andrew O’Hehir speculates about a potential landing spot for the treasure trove of classic films. “In a broader sense, New Yorker's long-term willingness to defy the marketplace realities of American film distribution never seemed like a sustainable business model. While the films listed above attracted at least some American viewers, New Yorker was worshiped in cinephile circles precisely because it often took on difficult and adventurous cinema that was destined to find almost no audience. Sometimes Talbot and Lopez seemed to be running an educational foundation under the guise of a for-profit business….New Yorker's library would have obvious appeal to "an online distributor, a TV network or a DVD company," Werner continues. Given that IFC is at least two and potentially all three of those things, and in recent years has assumed a commanding position in the distribution of foreign-language and American independent films, it might be the most logical potential bidder.”

At Some Came Running, Glen Kenny celebrates a new DVD release of Vanishing Point (which includes the UK version of the picture, containing an excised scene with Charlotte Rampling) by interviewing director Richard Sarafian.

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Founded in 1965 by Dan Talbot, New Yorker Films has been recognized for some forty years as one of America's premier distributors of foreign films. Talbot originally set the company up when he had his own theater, also called the New Yorker; it was a brainstorm born of frustration over the difficulty he was having programming his own theater, given the haphazard and slovenly way in which even important international movies were then brought into the American market. Beginning in 1965 with its acquisition of Bernardo Bertolucci's Before the Revolution, New Yorker Films took on a life of its own, becoming the support system through which movie lovers in the United States were able to gain access to work by Godard, Fellini, Bresson, Chabrol, Fassbinder, Eric Rohmer, Werner Herzog, Ousmane Sembene, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, and the more recent auteurs of the Iranian New Wave, as well as such homegrown independent directors as Errol Morris, Jim Jarmusch, John Sayles, and Wayne Wang. Now comes word that New Yorker Films "has ceased operations". Reacting to this bland announcement posted on the company's website, Eugene Hernandez posted a fuller report on indieWIRE. After first reporting that neither Talbot nor New Yorker Films' Jose Talbot "have been available for comment", indieWIRE later added the text of an email the site received from Lopez: “I have sad news. The parent company of New Yorker Films has defaulted on a loan. The assets of New Yorker were used as security on the loan. The lender has informed us that it intends to foreclose on these assets. New Yorker stopped doing business yesterday... We are in total shock that after forty three years this has happened.” Rumors that New Yorker Films was in trouble were apparently strong enough to put a damper on the Spirit Awards ceremony this past weekend.

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