Veteran French distributor Rezo Films is closing its doors after more than 32 years and nearly 400 films after struggling to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive distribution landscape.
Founded in 1992 by Jean-Michel Rey and Nadia Lassoujade, Rezo Films helped to launch the careers of several French auteurs including Abdellatif Kechiche, Pascal Bonitzer, Catherine Corsini, Xavier Dolan, Gaspar Noé, Stéphane Brizé and Jeremy Clapin.
Several of those films performed well for arthouse titles in the territory including Clapin’s debut feature I Lost My Body in 2019 (225,000 admissions), Brizé’s Mademoiselle Chambon (500,000 admissions) in 2009, and Kechiche’s Games Of Love And Chance (L’Esquive) with 373,618 tickets sold in 2004.
Further box office hits over the years include Philippe Muyl’s The Butterfly (1.14 million admissions) in 2002 and Philippe de Broca’s Viper In The Fist (1.2 million admissions) in 2004.
But more recently, Rezo Films was unable to turn enough profit to continue to stay in business.
The company’s most recent releases were Oury Milshstein’s Wedding Blues (1,931 admissions), Cannes Critics’ Week features Lilah Halla’s Power Alley (5,802 admissions), Vladimir Perisic’s Lost Country (8,756 admissions), and Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson’s SXSW-premiering Northern Comfort (7,257 admissions).
The company’s autonomous production arm Rezo Productions will continue to operate. Rezo’s most recent title under that banner, Antoine Besse’s Ollie, starring Cedric Kahn and Emmanuelle Bercot, is in post-production with no confirmed release date.
Rey said in a statement announcing the official closure of the distribution arm that he is “always driven by the desire to reveal talent and to produce ambitious auteur cinema with a popular vocation.”
Since 2011, Rezo Films and its production arm Rezo Productions have been part of Iris Group. Rezo Films has not yet announced what will become of its catalogue of some 150 titles.
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