The Jerusalem Film Festival, which just ended, paid tribute to mk2, the production and distribution company celebrating its 50th anniversary, with a selection of their new slate of films. The Cinematheque will continue this tribute with ten classic titles produced by the company.
mk2 was established by filmmaker Marin Karmitz. Karmitz, a member of a Romanian Jewish family who immigrated to France after WWII, studied cinema at IDHEC and directed several films documenting the political and cultural unrest of the late 1960s to early 1970s. His distribution company specialized in quality cinema and, over the years, acquired and made available films by some of the most prominent voices in cinema, including the films of Charlie Chaplin, François Truffaut, Agnes Varda, Marcel Pagnol, etc. In addition to their impressive catalog, mk2 owns cinema chains in France and Spain.
In this month's program, we will focus on the films produced by mk2, and express the company's power to support and bring together known and new directors. The company produced Claire Denis' first film, "Chocolat," and most of Claude Chabrol's films since the mid-1980s. At the same time, mk2 gave directors from around the world their breakthrough by supporting their works: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Hong Sang-soo, Michael Haneke, Xavier Dolan, Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon to name a few.
Marin Karmitz was a true friend of Lia Van Leer and the Jerusalem Cinematheque, and his son Nathanaël, who now leads the company, maintains these good ties. This month's program is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy and appreciate mk2's love of cinema.
