Tartan Films.

Filmbrain bids a fond farewell to Tartan Films: "Tartan head Hamish McAlpine liked to push people's buttons, referring to his company's releases as 'cultural hand grenades,' which explains acquisitions of controversial titles from Carlos Reygadas, Catherine Breillat, Gaspar Noé and Ulrich Seidl.... The question now is who, if anybody, will take their place? Is there another company willing to take similar chances, or are UK film-goers about to find themselves with a dearth of edgy, international fare?"

Updated through 7/4.

More from the Guardian's Andrew Pulver: "It wasn't entirely unexpected, but the sudden slide into administration of independent distributor Tartan Films is still a moment to give the British cinema world chills." Even if you're in a hurry, take a moment to look at the films he lists that Tartan brought to the UK.

Jason Gray passes along thoughts from Jaspar Sharp - "the biggest problem I had with Tartan was this whole 'Asian Extreme' thing" - and sparks a discussion.

Update, 7/4: "'It is so easy to bash iconoclastic entrepreneurs like Hamish,' says producer Don Boyd, who founded Tartan in 1984 with McAlpine and veteran Scottish distributor Alan Kean." Geoffrey Macnab offers a good, quick history of Tartan and carries on quoting Boyd, who "bemoans the public money that has been 'put into bureaucracy and shockingly bad British films' when that money could have been used 'much more intelligently to help out people like Tartan and perhaps encourage them to be more involved in European and British film production.'" And Macnab lists six landmark films for Tartan - and UK viewers.

Posted by dwhudson at June 30, 2008 11:52 AM