 Patchy,
eccentric and very prolific, Tartan was one of the most recognisable and
risk-taking British film distributors. We wave them a fond farewell
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.
Fronted by the enthusiastically eccentric Hamish McAlpine, Tartan had
been going in one form or another since 1984, but began its run as a
major art-film player when it merged with another distributor, Metro, in
1991.
Tartan had been haemorrhaging top staff for some time, and been the
subject of tentative takeover talk - but industry talk suggests that the
outfit was undone when it set up its US arm (which itself closed its
doors and auctioned off its catalogue on June 1 this year). Tartan USA
went big on Red Road to launch itself - a film not likely to sustain any
commercial ambitions in America.
Whatever repercussions develop from all this messiness, McAlpine and
Tartan deserve our gratitude for identifying and capitalising on
specific trends in international cinema - most notably as pioneers, in
this country at least, of J-horror and Korean body-shock cinema, as well
as pushing the envelope in all sorts of ways.
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