In 1974, the 14-Juillet-Bastille cinema was born in Paris, the first stone of what would become, under the acronym MK2, the main French independent film circuit, combining production, distribution and exhibition. Jean-Luc Godard, Yilmaz Güney, Claude Chabrol, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Abbas Kiarostami, Gus Van Sant owe part of their careers to this structure. On the occasion of the jubilee of this exceptional artistic and business adventure, the tributes celebrate its creator, Marin Karmitz, a Jewish boy born in 1938 in Bucharest, destined for crematoriums and miraculously landing in Nice, ten years later.
A biography of Antoine de Baecque, Marin Karmitz. Another story of cinema(Flammarion, 464 p., €24)), a selection of fifteen films produced by MK2 at the Cinémathèque française (until October 12), two exhibitions at the Lumière Festival in Lyon and a documentary dedicated to her by Romain Goupil (Remember the future!October 23). At 86 years old, retired from business and at the head of an exceptional collection of photographs, Marin Karmitz maintains a keen vision of the world.
This year we celebrate the 50thmy Anniversary of the creation of the MK2 group. Between the joy of having created it and the sadness of abandoning it twenty years ago, what feeling does it inspire in you today?
First I have to tell you that I don’t like birthdays at all. It is an approach to the past rather than the future, and it has always bothered me a lot. Rather, these events mark a succession of coincidences and proposals that were made to me. Today I can only talk about MK2’s past; It would be up to my children to talk about the future of the company.
Your eldest son replaced you in 2005. Was that when you jumped ship?
Not quite. Admittedly, I started thinking about streaming a long time ago. I became chairman of the supervisory board, but I admit that it took me a while to leave the position. I encountered a parenthesis in 2009, when I accepted the mission that Nicolas Sarkozy had entrusted to me to direct the Council for Artistic Creation. Apart from my long-standing interest in cultural politics, one of the reasons for accepting this job that earned me not only praise, I can say it today, was to have another job and not stay in MK2. And then, at the same time, I started organizing exhibitions, especially of photographs. In the end, all this helped me overcome my anxiety and relax little by little.
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