Cahiers du Cinema, the film journal that practically launched the French New Wave, has a new backer.

The monthly, founded in 1951 by noted critic/theorist Andre Bazin and once home to the critical writings of Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, has been sold (by newspaper Le Monde) to art book publisher Phaidon Press.

“I am positive that Cahiers can once again become relevant to our times and speak to a new generation of cinephiles,” Phaidon publisher Richard Schlagman said in a statement.

As James Mackenzie writes for Reuters, “The title became synonymous with the ‘New Wave’ cinema of Truffaut, Godard and others, who cut their teeth in its pages championing gritty American “film noir” dramas, then critically neglected, against the conventional French cinema of the time.”

The journal sells to the tune of 20,000 to 25,000 copies per month in France.

The journal is available in English online, and a print version is in the works, and expected to launch in the next year, a Phaidon spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times.

Given the journal’s importance, historically, to film culture, this is encouraging news, particularly as it comes on the heels of a report about dangerously sagging fortunes for magazine publishers.

For more, see the following pieces:

Reuters

New York Times

Los Angeles Times

The Guardian (UK)