Donald Krim
Encyclopedia
Donald Barron Krim was an American film distributor
. He bought Kino International in 1977 and thereafter served as the company's president until his death of cancer in Manhattan at the age of 65 in 2011.
As the President of Kino International, Krim helped introduce some of the world's most revered film directors to American audiences; among many others, Wong Kar-Wai
(Happy Together; Fallen Angels
); Michael Haneke
(The Piano Teacher
); Amos Gitai
(Kippur
; Kadosh
); Aki Kaurismäki
(The Match Factory Girl
; Ariel
); Julie Dash
(Daughters of the Dust
); and Andrei Zvyagintsev (The Return).
Krim received his Bachelor's degree in American History from Columbia University
in 1967 and obtained his law degree, also from Columbia, in 1971. After law school, he began his career at United Artists
, first becoming head of the 16mm nontheatrical film rental division, then working on the formation of United Artists Classics, the first major studio-owned, art house division—and the model for today's Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics
.
In 2000, Krim received the Mel Novikoff Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival
, for his work to "enhance the filmgoing public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema;" and in 2006, he was the recipient of the prestigious William K. Everson Award for Film History, given by the National Board of Review. On that same year, the Anthology Film Archives
bestowed Krim with a Film Preservation Honors Award. In 2009, he received "The Visionary Award" at the 24th Annual Israel Film Festival
.
In addition, Krim was personally responsible for all aspects of two nationwide re-releases of two different restorations of Fritz Lang
's Metropolis
—one in 2002, marking the film's 75th anniversary, and the other in 2010, triggered by a major archival discovery. Other classic reissues he helped to make viable include Alexander Korda
's The Thief of Bagdad
; the first reissue of Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl
; Von Stroheim's Queen Kelly
; the 50th anniversary restoration of The Bicycle Thief; and recent high-def restorations of Sergei Eisenstein
's Battleship Potemkin and Albert Parker
's The Black Pirate
.
It was announced in December 2009 that Kino International had merged with Lorber HT Digital to form a new corporate entity, Kino Lorber, Inc. Together with Lorber President Richard Lorber, Krim served as Co-President of the new company until his death in 2011.
Film distributor
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...
. He bought Kino International in 1977 and thereafter served as the company's president until his death of cancer in Manhattan at the age of 65 in 2011.
As the President of Kino International, Krim helped introduce some of the world's most revered film directors to American audiences; among many others, Wong Kar-Wai
Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...
(Happy Together; Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels (1995 film)
Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong movie written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Michelle Reis, Charlie Yeung and Karen Mok.Fallen Angels can be seen as a companion piece to Chungking Express...
); Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
(The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher is a 2001 film directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert and Benoît Magimel. The film is based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.- Plot :...
); Amos Gitai
Amos Gitai
Amos Gitai , born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israel, is an Israeli filmmaker and director. He is mainly known for making documentaries and experimental / minimalist feature films...
(Kippur
Kippur
Kippur is a 2000 Israeli drama war film directed by Amos Gitai. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Gitai and Marie-Jose Sanselme; based on Gitai's own experiences as a member of a helicopter rescue crew during the 1973 Yom Kippur War...
; Kadosh
Kadosh
Kadosh is a 1999 film by Israeli director Amos Gitai. It was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:Kadosh is a bleak drama about the plight of women in Haredi society. In the opening scene, Meir , a young Talmudic scholar, thanks God in his morning prayers for not being born a woman...
); Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Kaurismäki
-Career:After studying Media Studies at the University of Tampere, Aki Kaurismäki started his career as a co-director in the films of his elder brother Mika Kaurismäki. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment , Dostoyevsky's famous crime story set in modern-day Helsinki...
(The Match Factory Girl
The Match Factory Girl
The Match Factory Girl is a 1990 Finnish/Swedish comedy-drama film written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki. The film is about a match factory worker who lives a dull and uneventful life. She is picked up by a man at a nightclub and she sleeps with him. He gets her pregnant then wants nothing to do...
; Ariel
Ariel (film)
Ariel is a Finnish 1988 film directed and written by Aki Kaurismäki. The movie tells the story of Taisto Kasurinen, a Finnish coal miner who must find a way to live in the big city now that the coal mine has closed....
); Julie Dash
Julie Dash
Julie Dash is a United States filmmaker. She directed Daughters of the Dust, which in 1991 became the first full-length film with general theatrical release in the United States by an African American woman...
(Daughters of the Dust
Daughters of the Dust
Daughters of the Dust is a 1991 independent film written, directed and produced by Julie Dash. It tells the story of three generations of Gullah women at the turn of the 20th century and focuses on the family's migration from the Sea Islands to the American mainland.Featuring an unusual narrative...
); and Andrei Zvyagintsev (The Return).
Krim received his Bachelor's degree in American History from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1967 and obtained his law degree, also from Columbia, in 1971. After law school, he began his career at United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, first becoming head of the 16mm nontheatrical film rental division, then working on the formation of United Artists Classics, the first major studio-owned, art house division—and the model for today's Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics is an art-house film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment founded in December 1991 that distributes, produces and acquires specialty films from the United States and around the world. Its co-presidents are Michael Barker and Tom Bernard...
.
In 2000, Krim received the Mel Novikoff Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...
, for his work to "enhance the filmgoing public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema;" and in 2006, he was the recipient of the prestigious William K. Everson Award for Film History, given by the National Board of Review. On that same year, the Anthology Film Archives
Anthology Film Archives
__notoc__Anthology Film Archives is a film archive and theater located at 32 Second Avenue on the corner of East Second Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City devoted to the preservation and exhibition of experimental film. It is the only non-profit organization of its...
bestowed Krim with a Film Preservation Honors Award. In 2009, he received "The Visionary Award" at the 24th Annual Israel Film Festival
Israel Film Festival
The Israel Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in the United States in three cities: Los Angeles, New York and Miami. It is the largest showcase of Israeli cinema in the United States. Founded in 1982 by Meir Fenigstein, a former drummer for the Israeli rock band, Kaveret,...
.
In addition, Krim was personally responsible for all aspects of two nationwide re-releases of two different restorations of Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
—one in 2002, marking the film's 75th anniversary, and the other in 2010, triggered by a major archival discovery. Other classic reissues he helped to make viable include Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
's The Thief of Bagdad
The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film)
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British fantasy film produced by Alexander Korda, and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, and Tim Whelan, with contributions by Korda's brothers Vincent and Zoltán, and William Cameron Menzies...
; the first reissue of Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl
Diary of a Lost Girl is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the American silent star Louise Brooks. It is shot in black and white, and various versions of the film range from 79 minutes to 116 minutes in length. This was Brooks' second and last film with Pabst, and...
; Von Stroheim's Queen Kelly
Queen Kelly
Queen Kelly is the title of an American silent film produced in 1928-29 and released in 1929, originally by United Artists. The film was directed by Erich von Stroheim, starred Gloria Swanson in the title role, and also starred Walter Byron and Seena Owen. It was produced by Joseph P...
; the 50th anniversary restoration of The Bicycle Thief; and recent high-def restorations of Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's Battleship Potemkin and Albert Parker
Albert Parker (director)
Albert Parker was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. He directed 36 films between 1917 and 1938. In the early 1930s Parker left Hollywood for England where he continued to direct films and also opened an actors' agency office...
's The Black Pirate
The Black Pirate
The Black Pirate is a 1926 silent adventure film shot entirely in two-strip Technicolor about an adventurer and a "company" of pirates. It stars Douglas Fairbanks, Donald Crisp, Sam De Grasse, and Billie Dove.-Plot:...
.
It was announced in December 2009 that Kino International had merged with Lorber HT Digital to form a new corporate entity, Kino Lorber, Inc. Together with Lorber President Richard Lorber, Krim served as Co-President of the new company until his death in 2011.