Eurociné

Following “EL REY” nominated for the Spanish GOYAS and selected for the OSCARS, EUROCINE partners in a animated movie “IN THE ATTIC, who has a birthday today?”.

Historia:

Founded in 1937, EUROCINE is managed by Marius Lesoeur whose involvement with EUROCINE goes back to its origins with the shooting of “Mr Breloque has Disappeared”.

During the late 1930’s, Lesoeur was involved with the carnival industry and rented equipment, such as carousels, to the early Eurocine productions. After the war, his experience with equipment rental led him to create Studios Mobiles de France, working on such films as “Fanfan la Tulipe”.

Eventually, Marius began producing popular movies for Eurocine. He drew on his passion for traveling theater and cinema to provide stories for the films. One such movies was “Les Vagabonds du Rêve”, which related the life of a troupe of itinerant comedians. Similarly, “Une Belle Garce” was set in a circus.

From producing films for Eurocine, Lesoeur eventually took ownership of the company in 1957. With a change in the French film industry and distribution, Lesoeur sought funding and resources in other European countries. He made many co-productions with Spanish producers, such as Juan Fortuny, Sergio Newman and Eduardo Manzanos.

In the midst of the Franco government’s censorship of Spanish cinema, Marius convinced his Sapnish partner to shoot a Zorro movie. The move was a dare one, considering that no European had previously made a film set in the American West. Within the success of the Zorro movie, Lesoeur and Manzanos co-produced a string of westerns. Italis producer, Alberto Grimaldi, joined them for the production of a second Zorro film. These first European westerns were the forerunners of what became known as the “spaghetti western”.

In the early 1960′ Marius’ son, Daniel, brought a new generation of Lesoeur involvement to the activities of Eurocine. To date, Daniel remains a principal force in Eurocine.

With greater permissiveness in cinema at the end of the 1960′, Eurocine began to produce erotic movies. But when hardcore films were legalized, the market for erotic films disappeared and Eurocine turned to producing horror and fantasy movies.

As the 1980’s brought yet another change in the international film market, Eurocine began producing movies with American actors and distributed these films to the US market.

In recent years, Eurocine licenses its own catalogue of over one hundred in-house productions and distributes quality movies form Central Europe, many of which have been presented in prestigious film festivals throughout the world. The Eurocine archive contains many films that have developed a cult following. These movies are often screened at retrospectives in cinematheques. Recently, a tribute to Eurocine was presented during the Brussels Festival within the “7th Parallel”.

“The Awful Dr; Orloff”, one of the most famous Eurocine production, is in pre-production with the original director, Jess Franco, collaborating to the remake.