Tom Bernard is an American film distributor specializing in art cinema and is one of the co-founders of Sony Pictures Classics (SPC).[ citation needed ] Bernard and fellow Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker have worked together for approximately four decades and have won 41 Oscars. [1]
An alumnus of the University of Maryland, [2] Bernard was hired in 1981 by Nathaniel Troy Kwit Jr. to revamp the United Artists repertory division into the first modern-day specialized distribution company, then called United Artists Classics (1981–1983) He served as Division Director and Head of Sales until 1983. That is where he first worked with long-time collaborator Michael Barker. [3] Bernard and Barker left UA to create Orion Classics in February 1983. They attended the Cannes Film Festival hoping to buy their first title and picked up Eric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach when they were "in a desperate position". [3] Looking back 30 years later, Bernard remembered the class of people was "very, very different then", "the only thing you can say is the same is they always have the best movies." [4]
Bernard, with Barker, "oversaw United Artists Classics and Orion Classics, two studio arthouse divisions that served as the template for SPC, which they launched in 1992 as an autonomously run unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment....Since its inception, Sony Pictures Classics has been profitable every year except for one. Consequently, the co-presidents run the shingle without any interference from their corporate bosses, and are also protected by a longtime provision in their contracts." [5]
Bernard is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Sundance Advisory Board, the Tribeca Film Festival Advisory Board and the Monmouth University Communication Board. [6]
Bernard has "...distributed more Oscar winners than any other company in history when it comes to two categories: best documentary feature (1995’s Anne Frank Remembered, 1999’s One Day in September, 2003’s The Fog of War, 2010’s Inside Job and 2012’s Searching for Sugar Man) and best foreign language film (1992’s Indochine, 1993’s Belle Epoque, 1994’s Burnt by the Sun, 1997’s Character, 1999’s All About My Mother, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2006’s The Lives of Others, 2007’s The Counterfeiters, 2009’s The Secret in Their Eyes, 2010’s In a Better World, 2011’s A Separation, Amour and 2015’s Son of Saul." [7]
Bernard has released films that have won "41 Academy Awards (37 of those at Sony Pictures Classics) and have garnered 181 Academy Award nominations (155 at Sony Pictures Classics)including Best Picture nominations for The Father, Call Me By Your Name, Whiplash, Amour, Midnight in Paris, An Education, Capote, Howards End, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." [8]
In 2002, Tom Bernard, along with his Co-Presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, was honored by the Directors Guild of America. [9] Subsequently, in 2014, Tom Bernard was "presented with France’s highest military and civilian honor, the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, at a ceremony at the French Consulate in New York." [10] In addition, in 2014, Tom Bernard was honored by the Los Angeles Film Festival when he was presented with the Spirit of Independence Award. [11]
The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Special Awards to Kukan and Target for Tonight. They have since been bestowed competitively each year, with the exception of 1946. Copies of every winning film are held by the Academy Film Archive.
Orion Releasing, LLC is an American film production and distribution company owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon. In its original operating period, the company produced and released films from 1978 until 1999 and was also involved in television production and syndication throughout the 1980s until the early 1990s. It was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and three former senior executives at United Artists. From its founding until its buyout by MGM in the late 1990s, Orion was considered one of the largest mini-major studios.
Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom. It distributes, produces and acquires specialty films such as documentaries, independent and arthouse films in the United States and internationally. As of 2015, Barker and Bernard are co-presidents of the division, which is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Alejandro González Iñárritu is a Mexican filmmaker. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the human condition. His projects have garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades including four Academy Awards with a Special Achievement Award, three Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Directors Guild of America Awards. His most notable films include Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015), and Bardo (2022).
Participant Media, LLC is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change. The company finances and co-produces film and television content, as well as digital entertainment through its subsidiary SoulPancake, which the company acquired in 2016.
Thomas Edgar Rothman is an American businessman, film producer, film executive and current chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group. In this role, Rothman oversees all of the studio's motion picture production and distribution activities worldwide, including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures Animation, Sony Pictures Classics, 3000 Pictures, Sony Pictures International Productions, Stage 6 Films, AFFIRM Films. Rothman joined Sony Pictures in late-2013 as chairman of TriStar Productions and in 2015 was promoted to Chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, followed by the release in 2017 and 2018 of titles such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Venom, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Peter Rabbit, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Under Rothman's leadership, the Motion Picture Group was returned to strong profitability and experienced several of its most profitable years in history with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Little Women. Driven by tentpoles such as Spider-Man: Far From Home, Jumanji: The Next Level, and Bad Boys For Life, fiscal year 2020 was the film studio's best in over a decade in terms of both ultimate profitability and operating income.
Orion Classics started in 1982 as the distribution label for the then independent film production company Orion Pictures, now owned by Amazon MGM Studios. It was relaunched in 2018.
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Amour is a 2012 French-language romantic drama film written and directed by the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert. The narrative focuses on an elderly couple, Anne and Georges, who are retired music teachers with a daughter who lives abroad. Anne has a stroke that paralyses the right side of her body. The film is a co-production among the French, German, and Austrian companies Les Films du Losange, X-Filme Creative Pool, and Wega Film.
The 65th Cannes Film Festival was held from 16 to 27 May 2012. Italian film director Nanni Moretti was the President of the Jury for the main competition and British actor Tim Roth was the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section. French actress Bérénice Bejo hosted the opening and closing ceremonies.
Gabe Polsky is an American film director, writer and producer.
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The Red Turtle is a 2016 animated fantasy drama film directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit who co-wrote the film with French screenwriter Pascale Ferran. The film is an international co-production between Studio Ghibli and several French companies, including Wild Bunch and Belvision. The film, which has no dialogue, tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and meets a giant red female turtle.
Elle is a 2016 psychological thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven from a screenplay by David Birke, based on the novel Oh... by Philippe Djian. Djian's novel was published in 2012 and received the Prix Interallié. The film stars Isabelle Huppert as a businesswoman who is raped in her home by a masked assailant and decides not to report it due to her past experience with police.
Happy End is a 2017 drama film written and directed by Michael Haneke, and starring Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant, who had also played daughter and father in Haneke's 2012 film Amour.
The Truffle Hunters is a 2020 documentary film directed and produced by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw. It follows a group of aging men hunting in the woods, for a prized quarry, the Alba truffle. Luca Guadagnino serves as an executive producer under his Frenesy Film Company banner.
Mothering Sunday is a 2021 British romantic drama film directed by Eva Husson, from a screenplay by Alice Birch, based on the novel of the same name by Graham Swift. The film stars Odessa Young, Josh O'Connor, Olivia Colman and Colin Firth. The film also marks the first appearance of Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson in a theatrical release in over 30 years, having last appeared in King of the Wind (1990), as well as the penultimate film role of her lifetime.
Compartment No. 6 is a 2021 drama road movie co-written and directed by Juho Kuosmanen, starring Seidi Haarla and Yuri Borisov, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Rosa Liksom.
Michael Barker is an American film executive who has been co-president of Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) since 1992. Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom, after working together at Orion Classics, founded SPC in 1992 as co-presidents. Barker and Bernard have now been co-presidents of SPC for over 30 years, producing, acquiring and/or distributing over 400 films there.