a privately held corporation based in philadelphia pennsylvania . it was founded in 1981 . originally formed to operate a repertory movie theater the company subsequently moved into catalog and online sales retail stores film festivals and film distribution . the catalog began as a pornographic mail order business and grew to include also gay and lesbian non pornographic films and books and mainstream films . 1 contents 1 history 2 video stores 3 online sales 4 film festivals 5 film distribution 6 bibliography 7 references 8 external links history edit tla stands for theater of the living arts . now a concert venue it was originally founded as an experimental theater group in the 1960s 1 under the direction of andre gregory of my dinner with andre fame . the group included danny devito judd hirsch sally kirkland and ron leibman who performed exclusively in the theater of the living arts on south street in philadelphia . 2 by the mid to late 60s funding for the theater was running out and the theater was converted to a movie house showing an eclectic mix of classic and foreign films . in 1981 the founding partners of tla entertainment group met and subsequently ran the theater . for the next six years the tla was a repertory art movie theater . in addition for four of those six years the partners ran a small first run art house the roxy screening room also located in center city philadelphia . 2 the theater of the living arts is no longer affiliated with tla entertainment group . video stores edit in 1985 the first video store was opened next door to theater of the living arts . the stores expanded into a chain and by 2005 there were four stores in philadelphia and one in new york . the nyc store was in a building previously occupied by the 8th st. playhouse . starting in 2007 the stores began closing with the new york store closing first followed by the chestnut hill and society hill locations in 2009 3 and the rittenhouse square location in 2011 . the final store tla bryn mawr remained open until october 2012 . 4 online sales edit tla entertainment group launched the tlavideo website in 1997 . the site sells gay and lesbian american independent international hollywood and pornographic dvds and books . film festivals edit in 1994 tla entertainment group president raymond murray started the philadelphia international gay & lesbian film festival . in 2001 tla entertainment group assumed management of the philadelphia festival of world cinema now called the philadelphia film festival . the two week festival shows over 100 feature films from around the world . in order to better fund these events in august 2001 tla entertainment group spun them off and created the non profit philadelphia film society . film distribution edit tla releasing is the licensing division of tla entertainment . it is focused on the acquisition of distribution rights of international independent and gay and lesbian films to theaters and on dvd and vhs . tla releasing releases two films a month for the home entertainment market . the catalog of films is available online . bibliography edit tla entertainment group has published two books bleiler david a 2004 . tla video & dvd guide 2005 the discerning film lover s guide . st. martin s griffin . isbn 978 0 312 31690 7 . murray raymond 1996 . images in the dark an encyclopedia of gay and lesbian film and video 2nd rev ed . . plume . isbn 978 0 452 27627 7 . references edit a b kim annie . tla s unconventional titles hit homes . the wharton journal . retrieved 2007 11 04 . epic fail tube . a b about us tla entertainment group . retrieved 2007 11 04 . south street tla video closes tla video still holding on in bryn mawr external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title tla entertainment group & oldid 743597608 categories companies based in philadelphiaentertainment companies of the united states navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 october 2016 at 10 00 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view