TLA founders sell most of DVD distribution arm
Film producer Derek Curl and investors have bought a 75 percent interest in TLA Releasing, the DVD distribution arm of TLA Entertainment, Philly's homegrown home entertainment and film festival purveyors, the company announced on Tuesday. Curl also will control the company's catalog of more than 200 titles.
Film producer Derek Curl and investors have bought a 75 percent interest in TLA Releasing, the DVD distribution arm of TLA Entertainment, Philly's homegrown home entertainment and film festival purveyors, the company announced on Tuesday. Curl also will control the company's catalog of more than 200 titles.
Curl, whose producing credits include Stake Land, Hatchet II and The House of the Devil, has been acquisitions director at TLA Releasing since 2009.
TLA co-founders Ray Murray and Claire Brown Kohler will control TLA's other properties, including its TLA Video home entertainment web sites, catalogs and its two remaining video stores, in Center City and Bryn Mawr.
Curl, based in New York, said his background in production uniquely qualifies him to "understand the market both from the production and distribution side."
He said he plans to resurrect TLA's horror film label, Danger After Dark, and expand the company's collection of international titles, but said he is committed to the company's mainstay lesbian and gay titles.
Curl, who began his producing career a decade ago with music videos and TV ads, became friends with Murray and Kohler six years ago.
In a phone interview, Kohler said she and Murray feel the aquisition will benefit the company. "We think that Derek brings a fresh perspective and energy," she said.
Kohler and Murray founded their local film empire nearly 30 years ago, when they began offering a repertory film program at the Tower Theater in the summer of 1981. A few months later, they converted the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street into a repertory movie house. In 1984, they took over the Roxy Theatre, which offered new releases. The video stores, mail-order catalogs and websites followed in the next 15 years.
Kohler and Murray also founded the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in 1995 and the Philadelphia Film Festival (now known as the Philadelphia Cinefest) five years later. Kohler said they'll continue to run both.