TLA Entertainment Group

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TLA Entertainment Group is a privately-held corporation based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1981.

Originally formed to operate a repertory movie theater, the company has expanded to catalogs, retail stores and licensing businesses. The catalog began as an adult mail order business and grew to include gay and lesbian non-adult films and is now supplemented by the website TLAvideo.com.^[1]

1 History
2 Video stores
3 TLAvideo.com
4 Film festivals
5 Film distribution
6 Bibliography
7 References
8 External links

[edit] History

TLA stands for Theater of the Living Arts. Now a concert venue, it was originally founded as an experimental theater group in the 1960's ^[1] under the direction of Andre Gregory (of My Dinner with Andre fame). The group included Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Sally Kirkland and Ron Leibman who performed exclusively in the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street in Philadelphia.^[2] By the mid- to late-60s, funding for the Theater was running out and the theater was converted to a movie house showing an eclectic mix of classic and foreign films.

In 1981 the founding partners of TLA Entertainment Group met and subsequently ran the theater. For the next six years the TLA was a leading repertory art movie theater. In addition, for four of those six years, the partners ran a small, first run art house, the Roxy Screening Room, also located in Center City Philadelphia.^[2]

[edit] Video stores

In 1985, the first video store was opened next door to Theater of the Living Arts and today, there are five TLA Video locations in Philadelphia.

TLA Video stores are known for their knowledgeable staff and varied selection of independent and foreign films, in addition to mainstream titles. The most obscure titles arranged by genre and even by actor to provide a personalized mom-and-pop feel of a neighborhood store, versus the sterile film factory of local competitor West Coast Video.^[1]

TLA is also much beloved for its unusual schedule; 10AM-12AM, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

[edit] TLAvideo.com

TLA Entertainment Group launched TLAvideo.com in 1997. This is one of the largest video websites in the US, and one of the world's leading retailers of Gay & Lesbian films. It also offers American Independent, International, Hollywood Hits and Adult DVDs. It also offers gay and lesbian books on TLAbooks.com.

[edit] Film festivals

In 1994, TLA Entertainment Group President Raymond Murray decided to begin the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. The 12-day festival is the third largest gay/lesbian film festival in the country.

In 2001, TLA Entertainment Group assumed management of the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, now called The Philadelphia Film Festival. The two-week festival shows over 100 feature films from around the world. In order to better fund these events, in August 2001 TLA Entertainment Group spun them off and created the non-profit Philadelphia Film Society. In 2002, with a larger staff and more venues, the Philadelphia Film Festival had over 45,000 attendees, up from 17,000 in 2000.

[edit] Film distribution

TLA Releasing is the licensing division of TLA Entertainment. It is focused on the acquisition of distribution rights of international, independent, and gay and lesbian films to theaters and on DVD/VHS. TLA Releasing currently releases two films a month for the home entertainment market and has several films playing in theaters. The catalog of films is available online.