In 1988, Nancy Gerstman with Emily Russo co-founded Zeitgeist Films Ltd, a highly successful film distribution company based in New York City. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Zeitgeist, which specializes in films for more “adventurous and discriminating” filmgoers.
Over the years, Zeitgeist has released numerous features that anyone with a love for film will easily recognize, including Academy Award-winner Nowhere in Africa and Academy Award-nominated Sophie Scholl: The Final Days and My Country, My Country. Zeigeist is also known for such distinguished documentaries as The Corporation, Ballets Russes, and Into Great Silence.
Their newest releases include Manufactured Landscapes and Jellyfish. Here Nancy talks candidly about Zeitgeist and her career in the film industry.
KJK: What inspired you to go into film? And what drew you to film distribution specifically?
NG: I grew up a classic film nerd. Every film I saw—in the movies, on TV—brought me into a new, thrilling world. When I was a kid in NYC. there were fabulous theaters (including Radio City Music Hall) in which to indulge those fantasies.
I just loved film and everything about it, but I wasn’t sure what the film jobs were if you weren’t going to be a filmmaker (which I wasn’t). I was in publishing first, but I moonlighted taking tickets at the Carnegie Hall Cinema. As my interest switched to working in film, I had a lot of different jobs, but distribution seemed like the area where you could make the most difference, especially in working hands-on to market a film. Then when I had an opportunity to start my own company (twenty years ago!), my interest deepened significantly.
KJK: What do you think differentiates Zeitgeist Films from others?
NG: We don’t try to compare ourselves to other companies, but being a Zeitgeist film means that you are only one of five theatrical releases we take per year, and that translates into a lot of personal attention and care for the film and the filmmakers. We only take on what we love, and what we think we can sell to audiences and critics, and we work very hard to achieve the latter. We still give films the best theatrical release possible, but we also have very successful educational, TV, and DVD divisions and are beginning to get into Electronic Distribution in a significant way. We are a totally independent company and I think that if you look at our cumulative box office for the year, you’ll find that on a per-film basis we can hold our own with a lot of the larger companies (who are owned by other entities).
KJK: Which film was a surprise hit for you?
NG: There are no surprise hits for us. If we take something, we assume it’s going to do well because we work it so hard, and the surprise part comes if it doesn’t (and that does happen, to everyone in this business!). We’ve been especially pleased by the success of films like The Corporation, Into Great Silence, Ballets Russes, Sophie Scholl, The Gleaners and I and naturally (because it won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film) Nowhere in Africa, which was the highest-grossing foreign language film of its year.
KJK: What is your advice for women interested in a film career?
NG: We need more of you! It’s good to have a mentor—someone you respect whom you can watch one the job, or can be available to you for advice since it’s a complicated business.
There will be bumps in the road—don’t expect that what you start out doing is what you’re going to end up doing, because there are many different aspects of this business. Be flexible and fearless!
