The company was founded in 1965 by Daniel Talbot as an outgrowth of his legendary movie house, the New Yorker Theater. Unable to obtain several crucial foreign titles, Talbot was obliged to import them himself. Early acquisitions such as Bertolucci's BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, Godard's LES CARABINIERS, and Sembene's BLACK GIRL established New Yorker's still vital tradition of presenting the world's most innovative, artistically significant, and politically engaged films. Controversial and challenging works considered untouchable by other distributors have been regularly taken on by New Yorker (and often turned into surprise hits), including Jacques Rivette's self-reflexive masterpiece CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING, Chantal Akerman's feminist landmark JEANNE DIELMAN...,and Claude Lanzmann's monumental Holocaust documentary SHOAH, to mention just a few. Always on the alert for fresh talent and new trends, New Yorker Films was the primary force in introducing this country to the pioneering postmodernist New German cinema, the politically embattled Latin American cinema, and the postcolonial African cinema. It discovered the early breakthrough works of such now-celebrated filmmakers as Agnieszka Holland, Juzo Itami, Errol Morris, Wayne Wang, and Zhang Yimou. More recent acquisitions have explored exciting new frontiers in the Iranian, Asian, and Eastern European cinemas. In addition to its theatrical premieres, New Yorker's strength is its ability to service the nontheatrical market, catering to the specialized needs of festivals, film society and classroom venues that fall beneath the radar of larger, more monolithic companies. The heart of New Yorker Films is a library of unsurpassed quality and depth. The library's range extends from restored classics to recent causes célèbres, from Oscar winners to offbeat gems. The New Yorker library is a major source for trailblazing works by International women filmmakers such as Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Lisa Cholodenko, Agnes Jaoui, Susanne Bier, Euzhan Palcy, and Margarethe von Trotta. It also features essential titles by leading lights of the American indie renaissance. A distinctive feature of the library is its devotion to accumulating works by important individual directors -- a olicy especially suited to retrospectives and university courses. Here you will find an extensive collection of films by such seminal cinéastes as Alea, Almodóvar, Godard, Herzog, Sembene, Straub, Tanner, and Zhang Yimou. In 1989, New Yorker Films extended its tradition of quality into the video market. An average of twenty new titles per year are released on DVD/Blu-ray, representing a broad selection of the best in classic, foreign, and independent cinema. One of the more exciting recent developments at New Yorker Films is the creation of a new division called Metro Releasing, a genre division with the same discerning sensibilities of New Yorker past/present, that will also appeal to niche audiences. In a time when the term "independent" has been loosely applied to subsidiaries of giant conglomerates, New Yorker stands as one of the most durable, important, and truly independent film distributors. In its fourth decade, New Yorker Films still represents the vanguard of film distribution in the United States.
