Will Clarke - Independent Cinema Distributor

Two year old Indy distributors OPTIMUM RELEASING have carved a niche with red hot Mexican dog fighting flic Amores Perros, intelligent horror pic Ginger Snaps and a slate of exciting films promised in the pipeline.

CV
Will did a film related course at Greenwich University, then took a year off. He spent a year trying to get into the business, running, making tea etc. Then offered a job as an assistant to Rupert Preston and Mick Southworth at independent film distributors The Feature Film Company in Feb 1995. Preston left to set up Metrodome film distributors and Southworth parted for FilmFour leaving Clarke at 23 running the company. Over the next four and half years he acquired, marketed and distributed 35 films including My Son the Fanatic,Hoop Dreams and the successful re-releases of Withnail and I and It's a Wonderful Life. Clarke set up Optimum Releasing two years ago.

How would you describe your company?
A small dynamic 'all rights' distributor. All rights means we buy your film and handle the cinema, TV, airlines, video and DVD, sell through and rental and now video on demand.

How many staff do you have?
Four. Operations executive John Rodden, Liz Hills who looks after publicity and Danny Perkins who does the marketing. I manage TV and cinema sales, acquisitions and the day to day running of the company. I am very hands on so rather than contracting out the marketing and PR I plan all the strategy and campaigns in house.