Tartan Video USA, the US division of the UK-based, art-house distributor Tartan Films, has been shut down. As of June 1st, Tartan shut their doors and auctioned off the US distribution rights to their library of approximately 100 films to Palisades Media Corp, an advertising financial firm based out of New York.
In order to successfully handle the newly gained assets, Palisades formed "Palisades Tartan Film Acquisitions" which will work to begin distributing their films in US using the pre-existing marketing expertise of the parent company. They expect to have operations up and running by July 1st, and are even considering hiring some of the displaced employees from Tartan Video USA.
Ken Burns, Palisades co-manager, commented, "We want to get Tartan back to where it was a few years ago. [Titles] have not being properly marketed or presented for a significant amount of time."
Tartan had yet to release any films on Blu-ray or DVD this year, with one of their last releases being the November 6th Blu-ray release of '
Oldboy'. It was to be their first and last Blu-ray release.