Marin Karmitz
“He was lucky enough to know Rossellini, Beckett, Kieslowski, Duras, Kiarostami and Godard. What did he do with all this luck? Movies.” Stéphane Paoli
Marin Karmitz was born on October 7, 1938.
After graduating from IDHEC (Institut des hautes études cinématographiques) as a cinematographer, he started out as assistant director to filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Jacques Rozier, Yannick Bellon and Pierre Kast. In 1963, he directed the documentary Les Idoles, then in 1964 his first short fiction film, Nuit noire Calcutta, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. In 1965, he worked with Samuel Beckett on the adaptation of Comédie. The film was selected to open the Venice Film Festival that same year, and caused a scandal for its avant-garde form. 40 years later, the film won a prize at the Venice Art Biennale and is now shown in museums around the world. Marin Karmitz’s first feature film, in 1967, was Sept jours ailleurs, with Jacques Higelin, also selected for the Mostra. After May ’68, he made two films: Camarades (1970) and Coup pour coup (1972), which toured international festivals.
In 1974, Marin Karmitz added a distribution structure to his own mk2 Productions, created in 1967. In 40 years, Marin Karmitz produced 108 films and distributed more than 350 theatrically: the Krzysztof Kieslowski trilogy, twelve films by Claude Chabrol, Godard, Resnais, Malle, the Taviani brothers, Angelopoulos, Pintilié, Van Sant, Nossiter, Kerrigan, Loach, Doillon, Lounguine, Kiarostami, Sang Soo, Haneke, Salles, Dolan…
These productions have won over 150 awards and nominations at international festivals, including three Palmes d’Or at Cannes, three Lions d’Or at Venice, a Bear d’Or at Berlin, three Oscar nominations, and twenty-five Césars…
Since May 1, 1974, Marin Karmitz has also been active as a cinema exhibitor, reflecting on the role of the cinema in the city. mk2 is now the third-largest circuit in Paris, with 11 complexes and 65 screens, and 6 custom-built theatres, and the third-largest exhibitor in Spain, with 10 cinemas and 128 screens. mk2 has just established a presence in Canada.
Numerous official events have paid tribute to Marin Karmitz’s work, including La Cinémathèque Française and the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1981, the MoMA in New York in 1989, the Tel Aviv Cinémathèque in 1992, the Madrid Cinémathèque in 1998, the Munich Cinémathèque and the Forum du Cinéma Européen in Strasbourg in 1999, the Cairo Festival in 2002, and the Bologna Cinémathèque in 2003.
His career has been honored by numerous awards, including the Prix Georges de Beauregard for Best Producer, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Producer in Los Angeles, the Career Award at the Cairo International Film Festival, the Federico Fellini Award at the Europacinema Awards, the Taormina Festival Award, and the European Parliament Prize for Cinema, presented by Viviane Reding. Marin Karmitz is Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur, Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier du Mérite de la République de Pologne, Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris.
In parallel with his activities, Marin Karmitz has devoted himself to film industry issues through professional commissions, notably holding the positions of Chairman of the Fédération Nationale des Distributeurs de Films (2001-2006) and Chairman of the Bureau Liaison Industries Cinématographiques (2002- 2003). Chairman of the Cultural Creation, Competitiveness and Social Cohesion group of the XIth Plan in 1992, then member of the Commission for the New Public Television (Copé Commission) in 2008, Marin Karmitz was appointed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy as General Delegate of the Conseil pour la Création Artistique from January 2009 to April 2011.
For mk2’s 40th anniversary in 2014, numerous tributes were paid worldwide to Marin Karmitz and the company he founded: notably the MOMA in NEW-YORK (June 5 -23, 2014) and major international cultural institutions, such as the Cinémathèque Suisse (April 2014), the Istanbul Festival (April 5-20, 2014), the Jerusalem Festival (July 10-20, 2014), the BFI in London (in September 2014), or the Sao Paulo Festival (October 16-29, 2014).
Marin Karmitz also curated the Silences exhibition at Strasbourg’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2009 and at Lisbon’s Berardo Museum in 2010. He presented his photography collection for the first time at Rencontres d’Arles 2010. In October 2017, La maison rouge fondation Antoine de Galbert hosted the exhibition Étranger Résident, around his collection. In 2019, the exhibition Étranger résident, a selection of works from the Marin Karmitz collection, is presented at MUNTREF, Centre d’Art Contemporain et musée de l’Immigration in Buenos-Aires, Argentina, as part of BIENAL SUR 2019.
In September 2023, the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, presents 500 photographs, an exceptional encounter between two collections – the museum’s public collection and Marin Karmitz’s private collection.
Since February 2018, he has chaired the Institut pour la Photographie des Hauts de France.
DISTINCTIONS
Palme d’or d’Honneur, Cannes Film Festival 2018
Prix Chaptal de l’Industrie 2017: Arts of Communication and Training
Best Producer of the Year 1995 (Independent Spirit Award, USA)
Georges de Beauregard Award for Best Producer 1988
Grand Prix Jean Zay 2023 as part of the Festival Récidive
EXHIBITION CURATOR
2009: Silences exhibition, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Strasbourg, and Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon
2010: Traverses exhibition, Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, France
2017: Étranger Résident exhibition, la maison rouge – fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris
2019: Étranger résident exhibition, selection of works from the Marin Karmitz collection, MUNTREF, as part of BIENALSUR 2019, Buenos-Aires, Argentina
2023 : Exhibition Corps à corps, Histoire(s) de la photographie, with Julie Jones, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
PUBLICATIONS
1995 : Bande à part, Grasset
2003 : Profession Producteur, Hachette Littérature
2009 : Silences, Editions des Musées de Strasbourg
2010 : Traverses, Editions Actes Sud
2016 : Comédies, co-auteur Caroline Broué Editions Fayard
2017 : Étranger Résident, Co-édition Fage éditions et La maison rouge
2023 : Corps à corps, Catalogue de l’exposition, Éditions Centre Pompidou
2023 : Corps à corps, Album de l’exposition, Éditions Centre Pompidou
Kristin Thompson
Kristin Thompson is an honorary member of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her PhD. Her books include Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1981), Exporting Entertainment: America’s Place in World Film Markets 1901-1934 (1985), Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (1988), Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (1999), Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (2005), and The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (2007).
Roberto Minervini
Roberto Minervini is an Italian-born film director who lives and works in the US. He is widely considered to be one of the world’s most prominent auteurs of narrative documentaries, which combine dramatized and observational elements. After completing a Master’s Degree in Media Studies at the New School in New York City in 2004, Roberto taught Documentary Filmmaking at the university level in Asia. In 2007, he moved to Texas, where he directed three feature films, The Passage (2011), Low Tide (2012) and Stop the Pounding Heart (2013), a Texas Trilogy that focused on rural communities in the American South. He then went on to direct two feature films set in Louisiana, The Other Side (2015) and What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (2018), shifting to the political realm of American society and touching on social justice. In more recent years, he has begun to produce the work of other visionary filmmakers through his production company Pulpa Film, including Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka (2023) and Payal Kapadia’s first fiction film All We Imagine as Light (2024). Roberto’s latest film, The Damned (2024), is his first fiction film set in the 1860s during the American Civil War, which was awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section.
Jacques Audiard
Since making his directing debut in 1994 with the taut crime thriller See How They Fall, Jacques Audiard has come to be regarded as one of France’s finest filmmakers. From the searing underworld dramas Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet to his Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan, about Sri Lankan refugees living in France, alongside his relationship drama Rust and Bone, the Western The Sisters Brothers and heartbreakingly romantic Paris,13th District, Audiard deftly plays with the conventions of genre, infusing them with new vitality. His latest films, Emilia Perez, won two Awards at Cannes 2024: Prix du Jury and Award for Best Actresses.
Marin Karmitz
“He was lucky enough to know Rossellini, Beckett, Kieslowski, Duras, Kiarostami and Godard. What did he do with all this luck? Movies.” Stéphane Paoli
Marin Karmitz was born on October 7, 1938.
After graduating from IDHEC (Institut des hautes études cinématographiques) as a cinematographer, he started out as assistant director to filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Jacques Rozier, Yannick Bellon and Pierre Kast. In 1963, he directed the documentary Les Idoles, then in 1964 his first short fiction film, Nuit noire Calcutta, based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. In 1965, he worked with Samuel Beckett on the adaptation of Comédie. The film was selected to open the Venice Film Festival that same year, and caused a scandal for its avant-garde form. 40 years later, the film won a prize at the Venice Art Biennale and is now shown in museums around the world. Marin Karmitz’s first feature film, in 1967, was Sept jours ailleurs, with Jacques Higelin, also selected for the Mostra. After May ’68, he made two films: Camarades (1970) and Coup pour coup (1972), which toured international festivals.
In 1974, Marin Karmitz added a distribution structure to his own mk2 Productions, created in 1967. In 40 years, Marin Karmitz produced 108 films and distributed more than 350 theatrically: the Krzysztof Kieslowski trilogy, twelve films by Claude Chabrol, Godard, Resnais, Malle, the Taviani brothers, Angelopoulos, Pintilié, Van Sant, Nossiter, Kerrigan, Loach, Doillon, Lounguine, Kiarostami, Sang Soo, Haneke, Salles, Dolan…
These productions have won over 150 awards and nominations at international festivals, including three Palmes d’Or at Cannes, three Lions d’Or at Venice, a Bear d’Or at Berlin, three Oscar nominations, and twenty-five Césars…
Since May 1, 1974, Marin Karmitz has also been active as a cinema exhibitor, reflecting on the role of the cinema in the city. mk2 is now the third-largest circuit in Paris, with 11 complexes and 65 screens, and 6 custom-built theatres, and the third-largest exhibitor in Spain, with 10 cinemas and 128 screens. mk2 has just established a presence in Canada.
Numerous official events have paid tribute to Marin Karmitz’s work, including La Cinémathèque Française and the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1981, the MoMA in New York in 1989, the Tel Aviv Cinémathèque in 1992, the Madrid Cinémathèque in 1998, the Munich Cinémathèque and the Forum du Cinéma Européen in Strasbourg in 1999, the Cairo Festival in 2002, and the Bologna Cinémathèque in 2003.
His career has been honored by numerous awards, including the Prix Georges de Beauregard for Best Producer, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Producer in Los Angeles, the Career Award at the Cairo International Film Festival, the Federico Fellini Award at the Europacinema Awards, the Taormina Festival Award, and the European Parliament Prize for Cinema, presented by Viviane Reding. Marin Karmitz is Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur, Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier du Mérite de la République de Pologne, Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris.
In parallel with his activities, Marin Karmitz has devoted himself to film industry issues through professional commissions, notably holding the positions of Chairman of the Fédération Nationale des Distributeurs de Films (2001-2006) and Chairman of the Bureau Liaison Industries Cinématographiques (2002- 2003). Chairman of the Cultural Creation, Competitiveness and Social Cohesion group of the XIth Plan in 1992, then member of the Commission for the New Public Television (Copé Commission) in 2008, Marin Karmitz was appointed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy as General Delegate of the Conseil pour la Création Artistique from January 2009 to April 2011.
For mk2’s 40th anniversary in 2014, numerous tributes were paid worldwide to Marin Karmitz and the company he founded: notably the MOMA in NEW-YORK (June 5 -23, 2014) and major international cultural institutions, such as the Cinémathèque Suisse (April 2014), the Istanbul Festival (April 5-20, 2014), the Jerusalem Festival (July 10-20, 2014), the BFI in London (in September 2014), or the Sao Paulo Festival (October 16-29, 2014).
Marin Karmitz also curated the Silences exhibition at Strasbourg’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2009 and at Lisbon’s Berardo Museum in 2010. He presented his photography collection for the first time at Rencontres d’Arles 2010. In October 2017, La maison rouge fondation Antoine de Galbert hosted the exhibition Étranger Résident, around his collection. In 2019, the exhibition Étranger résident, a selection of works from the Marin Karmitz collection, is presented at MUNTREF, Centre d’Art Contemporain et musée de l’Immigration in Buenos-Aires, Argentina, as part of BIENAL SUR 2019.
In September 2023, the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, presents 500 photographs, an exceptional encounter between two collections – the museum’s public collection and Marin Karmitz’s private collection.
Since February 2018, he has chaired the Institut pour la Photographie des Hauts de France.
DISTINCTIONS
Palme d’or d’Honneur, Cannes Film Festival 2018
Prix Chaptal de l’Industrie 2017: Arts of Communication and Training
Best Producer of the Year 1995 (Independent Spirit Award, USA)
Georges de Beauregard Award for Best Producer 1988
Grand Prix Jean Zay 2023 as part of the Festival Récidive
EXHIBITION CURATOR
2009: Silences exhibition, Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Strasbourg, and Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon
2010: Traverses exhibition, Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, France
2017: Étranger Résident exhibition, la maison rouge – fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris
2019: Étranger résident exhibition, selection of works from the Marin Karmitz collection, MUNTREF, as part of BIENALSUR 2019, Buenos-Aires, Argentina
2023 : Exhibition Corps à corps, Histoire(s) de la photographie, with Julie Jones, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
PUBLICATIONS
1995 : Bande à part, Grasset
2003 : Profession Producteur, Hachette Littérature
2009 : Silences, Editions des Musées de Strasbourg
2010 : Traverses, Editions Actes Sud
2016 : Comédies, co-auteur Caroline Broué Editions Fayard
2017 : Étranger Résident, Co-édition Fage éditions et La maison rouge
2023 : Corps à corps, Catalogue de l’exposition, Éditions Centre Pompidou
2023 : Corps à corps, Album de l’exposition, Éditions Centre Pompidou
Kristin Thompson
Kristin Thompson is an honorary member of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her PhD. Her books include Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1981), Exporting Entertainment: America’s Place in World Film Markets 1901-1934 (1985), Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (1988), Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (1999), Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (2005), and The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood (2007).
Roberto Minervini
Roberto Minervini is an Italian-born film director who lives and works in the US. He is widely considered to be one of the world’s most prominent auteurs of narrative documentaries, which combine dramatized and observational elements. After completing a Master’s Degree in Media Studies at the New School in New York City in 2004, Roberto taught Documentary Filmmaking at the university level in Asia. In 2007, he moved to Texas, where he directed three feature films, The Passage (2011), Low Tide (2012) and Stop the Pounding Heart (2013), a Texas Trilogy that focused on rural communities in the American South. He then went on to direct two feature films set in Louisiana, The Other Side (2015) and What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (2018), shifting to the political realm of American society and touching on social justice. In more recent years, he has begun to produce the work of other visionary filmmakers through his production company Pulpa Film, including Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka (2023) and Payal Kapadia’s first fiction film All We Imagine as Light (2024). Roberto’s latest film, The Damned (2024), is his first fiction film set in the 1860s during the American Civil War, which was awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section.
Jacques Audiard
Since making his directing debut in 1994 with the taut crime thriller See How They Fall, Jacques Audiard has come to be regarded as one of France’s finest filmmakers. From the searing underworld dramas Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet to his Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan, about Sri Lankan refugees living in France, alongside his relationship drama Rust and Bone, the Western The Sisters Brothers and heartbreakingly romantic Paris,13th District, Audiard deftly plays with the conventions of genre, infusing them with new vitality. His latest films, Emilia Perez, won two Awards at Cannes 2024: Prix du Jury and Award for Best Actresses.
