“We are thrilled to have found a unique partner who shares our goals and beliefs for the development and distribution of the entire COLT Studio Group brand across Europe,” CSG CFO Tom Settle said. “We are doubly excited to have found that partner in Bruno Gmünder Verlag - a team that believes in the same ideals we set for ourselves in the United States.”
COLT moved to San Francisco from North Hollywood in 2003, having been founded by photographer Jim French in New York City in 1966. Bruno Gmunder Verlag GmbH, which acquired the rights to “Spartacus” and publishes the gay guide around the world, also produces calendars, magazines and “coffee table erotica.”
Bruno Gmunder Verlag entered the DVD market when it began distributing the work of Kristen Bjorn Productions.
“Having a company like Bruno, with a president like Michael Taubenheim, is part of fully marketing our product,” CSG president John Rutherford told XBiz. “And COLT is such an established name that what we do is part of being gay in America.”
Rutherford and Taubenheim met when the former was president of San Francisco neighbor Falcon Studios. CSG had previously marketed its product in Europe through a Parisian firm but, Rutherford said, “Bruno has shelf space in every gay outlet in the world.”
CSG owns distribution rights to the Bel Ami, Buckshot and AMG lines, and is in the process of archiving 39 years’ worth of the photographs shot by its founder. “Jim French started shooting movies to finance his photography,” Rutherford said. “I’m astonished by the amount of images this man took. There are hundreds of thousands of them.”
Rutherford said the company has two staff members working full time to transfer to digital decades of chromes, photographs and VHS art and tape.
