I “eeee!”ed too soon. Yet another snag has come up in the distribution future for the film that’s become my most picked scab over the past year, Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light. Just yesterday, Anthony Kufman passed along news that Palisades Media, the company that purchased the back catalogs of both Tartan Uk and Tartan US, were planning a theatrical release for some time in the vague future. But today. Kaufman says he’s been emailed by Camille Neel of Bac Films International, who own worldwide rights on Reygadas’ film.Though Tartan did release the film in the UK, a report in Screen Daily suggesting that they had purchased US distribution rights to the film was apparently erroneous––whether they wanted to or not is unclear, but the distributor apparently never closed a deal before shutting down. Kaufman quotes Neel, italics mine: “The film is still available today for the US and of course, if we have strong interests, we are still looking for distribution [for] all rights in the US.”
Paging all distributors with notoriously strong interests!!!
Today is my 28th birthday (cue self-reflexive old maid joke). I wasn’t even going to mention it here, but Anthony Kaufman has written a blog post with a promise that, if it ends up coming true, would be a pretty fantastic present, for you and me: I’d get to see Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light get a theatrical release, and you’d get a reprieve from me bitching about it.
Here’s what’s going on: yesterday, news broke that Palisades Media had acquired the left-behind library of recently-shuttered distributor art film Tartan. The Variety story on the matter was fairly vague, and didn’t say much regarding the films that had been sitting on Tartan’s shelf awaiting a theatrical release, including Light, Princesses, You the Living, etc. Kaufman exchanged emails with Palisades about the future of Light, and ‘was told it would “absolutely receive a theatrical screening now,’ with, of course, one caveat: ‘but everything is still TBD.’”
So, you know. Don’t get your hopes up or anything, but … eeee!