About

“[a] left-field distribution house.”
- Wired Magazine

“Cinema Purgatorio has taken Christmas on Mars to places we never thought possible! And we dream big! Thanks for everything!”
– Scott Booker, Manager, The Flaming Lips

“Ray is a great, hard worker. He has helped us on a lot of movies, and it’s time for us to team up in public instead of him just slaving away in the dark.”
– Larry Fessenden, Producer and Director, Head of Glass Eye Pix Studio

Founded in fall 2007, Cinema Purgatorio has quickly become a significant ally for filmmakers and distributors whose projects require and reward special care.  We function principally as a “theatrical / semi-theatrical” and DVD distributor, but also have extraordinary reach as publicists and sales agents, and in educational, television, and “digital” markets.

For colleague filmmakers, and on retainer deals with other labels, we have set up and / or closed deals with some of the largest and many of the smallest film companies and institutions around the world, a few television stations, dozens of libraries, and hundreds of movie theaters and cinematheques including hundreds of venues in the United States and Canada, the national cinematheques of Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, and Italy, and select locations in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as thousands of individuals via our e-commerce activities and at events we set up and staffed ourselves.

Meanwhile, Cinema Purgatorio has also negotiated and continues to negotiate rights sales, video sales to educational institutions, and administered movie theaters, DVD authoring, and publicity campaigns.  We close multiple deals every day, constantly propelling our collaborators’ films, and the world, upward to something greater.

On this website, you won’t find evidence of all our work.  That’s because we prefer efficiency and execution to self-promotion.  We study the past, incarnate the present, and create the future for many different kinds of moving images.  To that end, we book, show, and get interesting moving images covered in the press, and sell rights and goods.

Film distribution projects have included:

Music Movies

  • Christmas on Mars, by the Flaming Lips.  70+ city release across the U.S. and Canada, including three month run in a custom cinema constructed inside a former Socialist meeting hall in New York City.
  • Voltaic, by Bjork.  30+ city release across the U.S., including sold out, capacity crowd at the new School of Visual Arts Cinema in New York City.  Exclusive poster release.  Television rights sales to UK and Icelandic television stations.
  • R.E.M. THIS IS NOT A SHOW, directed by Vincent Moon and Jeremiah.  25 city U.S. release, as “This Is Not A Theatrical Release,” limited sneak preview screenings of R.E.M.’s un-concert documentary.
  • Gogol Bordello Non-Stop, set up worldwide rights sale; orchestrated U.S. theatrical release

“Arthouse” movies

  • Tony Manero (Chile, Cannes Film Festival Critics’ Week) directed by Pablo Larrain, 30+ cities (while on retainer)
  • Theater of War (U.S., Tribeca Film Festival) starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, about Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, directed by John Walter, 20+ cities (while on retainer)
  • groundwork for theatrical releases of The Sun (Russia, Berlin Film Festival) directed by Alexander Sokurov; and Home (Switzerland, Cannes Critics’ Week) directed by Ursula Meier and starring Isabelle Huppert
  • Long-term consultant to Lech Majewski, whose work was featured in a rare mid-career retrospective at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, then four titles were subsequently released on DVD in conjunction with International Film Circuit and Kino International

Documentaries

  • Daniel Kraus: The Work Series, long term consultant
  • The Awkward Kings: A Stand-Up Comedy Feature, consulted on television sale to Comedy Central and DVD sale to New Video

Glass Eye Pix and Scareflix, from Larry Fessenden’s acclaimed film studio

  • I Can See You, written and directed by Graham Reznick, limited theatrical release and mass DVD release with 3d short “The Viewer”
  • Trigger Man, written and directed by Ti West, limited theatrical and mass DVD release
  • Kelly Reichardt Retrospective touring to Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, and beyond (River of Grass, Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, etc.)

… and many others.

Ray Privett established Cinema Purgatorio / RCP Media in 2007.  For ten years, Privett has helped filmmakers, producers, and venue administrators execute shows and find unconventional ways of reaching today’s film audiences. For four years, he was distribution coordinator at Chicago’s Facets Multi-Media, as that company’s exclusive distribution line exploded from 6 to 60 titles per year.  Then for four years he was Programmer, Co-General Manager, and Technical Director of New York City’s Pioneer Theater, during its most successful period.  At the Pioneer, Privett found, booked, exhibited, and shipped over a thousand films, generating thousands of articles in press coverage, and spurring the DVD and television sales of countless movies.  In March 2008, after successfully executing and paying for all shows he had booked there, Privett chose to leave the Pioneer, to develop Cinema Purgatorio / RCP Media and other performing arts projects.

(We are in no way affiliated with RCP Media of South Africa, nor are we affiliated with the supplier on ioffer.com using our name.)

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