PAMELA ENGEL

(12 November 1934 - 15 July 2017)

The global film industry has much to be grateful for in Pamela Engel, the film distributor who has died aged 82. Based in London, Pam and her first husband Andi Engel were responsible for distributing major foreign films that may not otherwise have been seen in the UK and elsewhere, were it not for their vastly enterprising company Artificial Eye. Pam only ever distributed titles that she liked, whether or not they had commercial possibilities. Leaving school she obtained a job at the British Film Institute, later becoming assistant to Richard Roud, the National Film Theatre’s programmer. She met her future husband Andi at a film festival and, after she worked for Derek Hill’s New Cinema Club, they set up PolitKino, a company specialising in the avant-garde. By 1976 they had founded Artificial Eye, and had also acquired cinemas including London’s Lumière, the Camden Plaza and the Chelsea Cinema. Their record of films they distributed included works by Bertolucci, Tarkovsky, Bresson, Chabrol, Rohmer, Wajda, Herzog, Resnais, Kieslowski, Sorrentino, Marguerite Duras, Michael Haneke, Wim Wenders, Ousmane Sembene and Ken Loach, among many others. Their greatest success was Paul Rappeneau’s Cyrano de Bergerac, with Gérard Depardieu, which made over two million pounds. Although Pam and Andi divorced, they continued to work together. Eventually they sold the company to Curzon and, following Andi’s death in 2006, Pam and Robert Beeson started New Wave Films together and subsequently married.

MICHAEL DARVELL