We were founded in Paris in 1979 by our very own Jean Karakos. Initially we specialized in imports releases of European hits within the French market. In 1981, the second phase of Celluloid began when Jean relocated to New York. The label then began to focus on experimental music & cross-cultural fusion sounds. Shortly after, we began a long & fruitful relationship with Bill Laswell who produced many of our recordings in the first half of the 80's.
The 80's were good years for us, we produced a large amount of records which to this day are regularly quoted as having significant cultural influence. Our default position of "way ahead of the time" was great for our souls but not always great for our bank balance. In 1988 Jean left Celluloid & returned to Paris. Celluloid then became Celluloid NY with a temporary new owner. Meanwhile, after years of breadline-indie-label-toil Jean's ship finally came in when he found, signed & released the only pop release of his career "The Lambada".
