Margaret Menegoz, ‘Amour,’ ‘The White Ribbon’ Producer, Dies at 83

Margaret Menegoz, the top of French manufacturing firm Les Movies du Losange, who produced the flicks of Michael Hanke, Wim Wenders and Éric Rohmer, amongst others, has died. She was 83.

The corporate issued a press release confirming that Menegoz died in Montpellier on August 7. They cited her “love of movies and work, and her loyalty to her filmmakers which have turn out to be the hallmarks of Les Movies du Losange,” describing Menegoz as “open-minded in direction of Europe and the worldwide scene, which she notably cherished.”

Menegoz led Les Movies du Losange for near 50 years, taking up on the firm in 1973. She produced greater than 60 movies, together with Haneke’s Amour, The White Ribbon and Cache, Wenders’ 1977 characteristic The American Good friend, Volker Schlöndorff’s Swann in Love (1984), Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990), Rohmer’s A Story of Springtime (1990) and A Story of Winter (1992), amongst many others.

Amour obtained 5 Oscar nominations in 2013, together with a nomination for Menegoz for greatest characteristic. It received for greatest worldwide characteristic. The White Ribbon picked up two Oscar nominations.

The German and French movie producer was born in Hungary in 1941 however was expelled from the nation alongside together with her household, which was of German origin, within the wake of the 1945 Siege of Budapest. She grew up in Germany. Menegoz joined Les Movies du Losange in 1975, the corporate based by Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder in 1962. She was initially employed as an assistant on Rohmer’s 1976 German-language movie Marquise Of O, starring Edith Intelligent and Bruno Ganz. With Schroeder busy prepping his 1975 characteristic Mistress, Menegoz got here in to handle the corporate and stayed.

In her lengthy tenure at Les Movies du Losange, Menegoz would work with a era of influential European auteurs, from Wenders, Rohmer and Haneke, Andrzej Wajda, Lars Von Trier, Margarethe von Trotta, Christian Petzold and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She started her collaboration with Austrian director Haneke on his 2001 characteristic The Piano Instructor, and produced all of his following German- and French-language options together with Amour, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert; and, most not too long ago, Completely happy Finish, additionally that includes Huppert.

Menegoz launched a theatrical distribution label for Les Movies du Losange in 1986, and a global gross sales division within the early 90s. In 2021, she organized the sale of the corporate to Alexis Dantec and Charles Gillibert, guaranteeing the storied agency would proceed.

Menegoz was additionally a tireless promoter of French cinema and headed up cinema export physique Unifrance as president, taking up after the sudden loss of life of predecessor and buddy Daniel Toscan du Plantier on the Berlin Movie Pageant in 2003. She remained till 2009.

“Margaret didn’t work internationally, she embodied it,” present Unifrance managing director Daniela Elstner, who began her profession in worldwide gross sales at Les Movies du Losange, wrote in a press release. “Her productions will converse for her, for her mind-set and loving the world. She was an instance for a lot of younger ladies. I used to be one in all them; Margaret taught me every little thing on this world of cinema that is aware of no boundaries and invitations us to suppose exterior the field. Thanks Margaret, we are going to miss you terribly.”