One of the special guests of the tenth edition of TIFF is the Romanian-born producer, Marin Karmitz. Distinguished with the Special Award of the 10th Transilvania IFF, Karmitz will attend the screening of Copie conforme / Certified Copy, directed by Abbas Kiarostami, starring Juliette Binoche, William Shimell, Jean-Claude Carrière, Agathe Natanson. Present in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival, Certified Copy brought Binoche the Best Actress award on the Croisette.
On Saturday, June 11, at 12.00, at TIFF Lounge – Unirii Square, Marin Karmitz will hold a masterclass during which he will share some of the secrets behind film production.
In addition to Certified Copy, another film in the TIFF Programme produced by Marin Karmitz is La Cérémonie / The Ceremony, directed by Claude Chabrol, which brought actresses Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire the Coppa Volpi Trophy at Venice Film Festival in 1995 and a nomination at the César Awards, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Jacqueline Bisset. The Ceremony will be screened at TIFF on Saturday, June 11, at 6.00 p.m., at Florin Piersic Cinema, in honour of actress Jacqueline Bisset – recipient of the Special Award for the Contribution to the World Cinema.
Marin Karmitz was born in Bucharest, Romania, on the 7th of October 1938, but a few years later his family left the country to avoid the oppressions inflicted on the Jew communities. Living in Paris, he graduated from the famous film school IDHEC, better known today as La Fémis.
In 1967 he founded the production company MK2, initially specialized in short films. Confronted with distribution shortcomings, he decided to screen his own productions and thus opened his own cinema in Paris, on the 1st of May 1974.
Marin Karmitz has produced and co-produced approximately 100 films, distributed more than 300 and created a circuit of ten multiplexes in Paris, the third most important in the city, with approximately 60 screens and an audience of over five millions people per year.
MK2 is rated today among the four most important cinema groups in France, and is present in many audio-video fields. Its catalogue contains more than 400 titles, among which there are films directed by Charlie Chaplin, François Truffaut, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Claude Chabrol, Abbas Kiarostami, Gus Van Sant, and Romanian Lucian Pintilie.
19 films produced by MK2 received awards in Cannes, three of them even grabbing the craved Palme d’Or. Martin Karmitz’s productions received multiple awards at festivals all over the world, including the prestigious Venice and Berlin festivals, or Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. In 1966, Martin received an Oscar nomination himself, for the short documentary Adolescence, -directed with Vladimir Forgency.
In 2005 he leaves his son Nathanaël in charge of MK2, and in 2009 is appointed general delegate of the Artistic Creation Council, founded by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in order to promote French culture around the world.
