Carlotta Takes Artcraft's Silent Classics for France, Starting With Clara Bow's 'It'
French distributor Carlotta Films will handle the Artcraft Pictures catalogue across all rights in France, covering cinemas, television, streaming and physical media, according to Variety.
The deal centres on Hollywood classics from the silent and early sound eras, films made before synchronised dialogue became standard, and is intended for French theatres and home entertainment.
The partnership is being launched at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon with a newly restored version of Clarence G. Badger's It (1927). The restoration will screen on Oct. 17 at the city's Auditorium with live organ accompaniment by Gabriele Agrimonti.
It was the breakout that made Clara Bow a star. She played a shopgirl with charm and nerve, and the role fixed her in public memory as Hollywood's original "It girl."
That nickname has travelled a long way. Taylor Swift paid tribute to Bow with a song named after her on The Tortured Poets Department, which has introduced the silent-era star to a new generation.
The new restoration was carried out by Paramount Archive and Artcraft Pictures in collaboration with SFSFF, according to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
The wider catalogue coming to France includes Herbert Brenon's desert adventure Beau Geste (1926) starring Ronald Colman, and Cecil B. DeMille's society drama The Affairs of Anatol (1921) starring Gloria Swanson.
It also includes William C. deMille's Miss Lulu Bett, adapted from Zona Gale's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and Lionel Barrymore's His Glorious Night (1929) starring John Gilbert, a late silent-era leading man navigating the arrival of sound.
Artcraft Pictures was founded by film preservation specialists James Mockoski and Robert A. Harris, who work on the repair and reissue of older titles.
Carlotta plans to release the Artcraft titles in France theatrically and on Blu-ray, with individual release dates yet to be announced, according to Variety. The 2026 Lumière Film Festival runs in Lyon from Oct. 10 to Oct. 18.
What makes this stand out is the route these films are taking back to screens. Festivals such as Lumière pair public screenings with a rights market where distributors pick up older films for re-release. For fans, this means restored prints in cinemas first, then discs for the home shelf.
