Palisades Tartan is a US and UK film distribution company, founded by US-based Palisades Media Group to take over the film library of Tartan Films after it folded in Summer 2008.[1]
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Tartan Films, established in 1984,[2] was a UK-based film distributor. Founder Hamish McAlpine is credited with creating the term "Asia Extreme" and making films under this genre accessible to the masses. It also owned the US-based Tartan USA and Tartan Video. It was notable for distributing East Asian films, especially those in the horror and thriller genres, under the brand Tartan Asia Extreme. Between 1992-2003 Tartan Films operated under the name Metro-Tartan Distribution before reverting back to Tartan Films. More recently, it gained a reputation for releasing horror films of other origins, under its Tartan Terror brand. Such films include Battle Royale, the Whispering Corridors trilogy, A Tale of Two Sisters, The Last Horror Movie and Oldboy.[3]
Tartan Films USA released various internationally acclaimed films for the US market, including Oldboy, Triad Election, The Page Turner, 12:08 East of Bucharest, Red Road, 9 Songs, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Cave of the Yellow Dog, and Battle in Heaven. Tartan USA's DVD catalogue was released through Genius Products, which was 70% owned by the Weinstein Company.[4]
In June 2008, Tartan went into administration, laid off its employees, and ceased operations.[5] The US branch was shuttered a month earlier and its library of films was sold to the Palisades Media Group. Shortly after the sale, a representative of the Bryanston Distributing Company made a seven-figure cash offer to buy the company’s film library, but the offer was rejected by Palisades Media.
On September 28, 2008, the newly named Palisades Tartan label released its first UK DVD title (cat. no. PAL001DVD), the horror-thriller P2, directed by Franck Khalfoun.[6]
On January 7th 2009, Palisades Tartan released Silent Light in the United States theatrically; it was the first US theatrical release for the company.
Prior to the take-over, Tartan had originally released all of its films, including its Asia Extreme and Tartan Terror labels on VHS. As DVD became more popular, the company chose to release solely on this format and deleted the VHS back catalogue. The Metro Tartan branch of the company dealt with theatrical distribution.
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