New Yorker Films closes

Library to be auctioned to pay parent company's debt

By Laurence Lerman -- Video Business, 2/23/2009

FEB. 23 | New Yorker Films has closed.

The venerable New York-based arthouse film and home entertainment distribution company posted the announcement on its Web site: “After 43 years in business, New Yorker Films has ceased operations. We would like to thank the filmmakers and producers who trusted us with their work, as well as our customers, whose loyalty has sustained us through the years.”

The closing was reportedly due to New Yorker's parent company, Madstone Films, which used the assets of New Yorker as security for a loan from Technicolor that had been defaulted.

New Yorker was informed last week that the lender intends to foreclose on the assets, and the company’s doors closed on Friday, Feb. 20.

According to Technicolor’s legal representation, Lance N. Jurich of Loeb & Loeb LLP, New Yorker’s assets, including its film library, will be on the block in a forthcoming foreclosure sale.

Founded in 1965 by Dan Talbot, New Yorker Films has introduced a number of seminal films and filmmakers to the U.S. during its four-decades-plus run, which began with Bernardo Bertolucci’s second feature, 1964’s Before the Revolution. Other international auteurs whose films were released by New Yorker on film and/or video include Claude Chabrol, Roberto Rossellini, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Louis Malles and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Production company Madstone Films acquired New Yorker in 2002.