The Art Theatre Guild (ATG) was a Japanese film production and distribution company which started in 1961, releasing mostly Japanese New Wave and art films.[1][2] From the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, it also often acted as producer.[1][2] In 2018, ATG merged with its parent company Toho.[3][4][5]
ATG began as a distributor for foreign art films in Japan,[2] with the Toho studio being its main financier and one of its initiators.[1] By 1967, ATG was assisting with production costs for a number of new Japanese films.[2] Some of the early films released by ATG include Shōhei Imamura's A Man Vanishes (1967), Nagisa Oshima's Diary Of A Shinjuku Thief (1968) and Death by Hanging (1968), Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), and Akio Jissoji's Mujo (1970).[2][6]