Bernard Natan was one of the fathers of French cinema whose name has since been forgotten. Merging his own film company to form Pathé-Natan, he experimented with early color, sound and widescreen processes, worked with some of the greatest filmmakers of the era, and produced over 60 feature films. Born in Romania but eventually becoming a French citizen, Natan’s status as Jew and ‘foreigner’ along with a dubious early association with pornography became the fodder for his downfalI.

NATAN made its North American bow at Telluride and makes its regional premier at the Santa Fe Jewish Film Festival. The directors will fill in more of the intriguing story of this important figure in film history in a post-film Skype interview.