Irwin Young, DuArt Chairman and Champion of Independent Film, Dies at 94
variety.comPat Saperstein Deputy EditorIrwin “Butch” Wallace Young, the chairman of DuArt Film Laboratories who supported New York filmmakers for decades, died Jan.
20 in Manhattan. He was 94.An important part of New York City’s film scene, DuArt was founded by his father, Al Young, in 1922 and is the oldest continually operating film lab in the country.Irwin Young worked with filmmakers including Spike Lee, Joel and Ethan Coen and Barbara Kopple.
Much of the history of independent film “could not have happened without him,” Ira Deutchman wrote in an Indiewire remembrance.“During the ‘80s and ‘90s, DuArt was doing so much of this work that an enormous percentage of films that premiered at Sundance were going through the lab at the same time with the same deadlines.
It became part of the job to prioritize the films so that none of them missed their premiere dates,” Deutchman remembered. “In the early years of Sundance, Irwin threw condo parties that were perhaps the largest gatherings of indie filmmakers, both above and below the line, anywhere — certainly larger than any official Sundance party.
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