Zeitgeist Films

Derek Jarman A brief survey of the company's recent DVD releases validates that assessment. Home video releases of esteemed works by Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman recall the famed 2004 Zeitgeist revival of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy's 1964 Palme d'Or-winning musical, which received a full restoration under the guidance of the director's widow, famed New Wave auteur Agnes Varda. "It was so incredible to be able to work on this seminal piece of cinema and be part of the amazing history this beloved film has had," recalls Russo. Viewed in the context of Zeitgeist's general distribution choices, Varda's involvement in the release of Cherbourg makes perfect sense. The company has retained an auteur-friendly stance from the get-go, fostering early efforts from emerging artists whose work eventually developed recognition for specific trademarks. Todd Haynes's Poison, for example, never would have garnered the attention-grabbing controversy of its experimental approach to the AIDS epidemic if Zeitgeist hadn't taken a gamble with it. Years later, Haynes hasn't lost his esoteric tendencies, but fans use Poison as an example to prove the consistency of his style. Zeitgeist recognized it early on. "We're definitely still ‘auteur-driven' in the sense that we still seek out voices in cinema that are distinctive and original, and hopefully, enduring," says Russo. "When we set out to have our own distribution company, the whole point was to take on the films we personally wanted to work on and work with the directors and producers of our choosing." Other auteur careers launched with Zeitgeist's assistance include Atom Egoyan, Christopher Nolan and Guy Maddin, whose 1992 comedy Careful screens at New York City's Museum of Modern Art as part of a June retrospective in honor of the company (Cherbourg is also part of the program). "When Nancy and Emily first burst into my life as discerning but obsessive cinephiles, women living for the love of movies and really waking up to the love of the deal, I felt like I'd been briskly scrubbed awake to the world by two lovely and vigorous movie masseuses," Maddin enthusiastically recalls, singling out the company's interest in his 1990 feature Archangel. "Here were people who really knew their stuff, whose exciting credentials as arbiters and navigators were obvious within a few moments of my first encounter, and not only that, but they liked my movie, too." Maddin emphasizes the amount of personal involvement that Gerstman and Russo had in ensuring his films received a proper release. "I always knew where I should attempt to go next with my films because I could somehow sense Nancy and Emily waiting there for me," he says. "It was an unbelievably personal touch they gave me, and I'm sure other filmmakers had the same experience, at least the living ones." Beyond Zeitgeist's principled aesthetic ambitions, the company has also managed to get some unlikely successes to turn a profit, such as Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot's epic 2003 documentary The Corporation and the Oscar-nominated period piece Nowhere in Africa. Still, Gerstman and Russo don't hesitate to admit some of the mistakes they made in their early years, such as the "sheer stubbornness," as Gerstman recalls, that caused their lack of interest in distributing the first round of Aardman (Wallace and Gromit) shorts, which eventually made a million dollars at the box office. They also nearly passed on viewing Aimee and Jaguar based on bad buzz, but, when the company came around and bought the film, it garnered a Golden Globe nomination in 1999. "That experience showed us that, despite what we hear at industry screenings, if we like it, there is an audience out there somewhere," says Russo. "We have a great track record for understanding our films, giving them the best launch possible and scaling expectations when necessary, but in the beginning we had some bumps in refining our acquisition process."  Lately, Gerstman and Russo have been working on several foreign titles, including the festival sensation Up the Yangtze, but they're not crazy about the state of art-house cinemas. "Most art houses in the U.S. now only play lengthy runs of mainstream independent films, and very few of the larger documentaries and Best Foreign Language Academy Award nominees or winners," Russo complains. "There are specialized films that become surprise ‘hits' only with a lot of hard work by their distributors. With a few exceptions, it's not a beautiful picture right now." Image top: Nowhere in Africa. Images courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.