Ilya Lopert

Ilya Lopert (May 1, 1905 – February 27, 1971) was an American film producer and distributor. He was renowned for distributing foreign films for both arthouse and mainstream release in the United States. He was often credited as I. E. Lopert. Lopert studied electrical engineering after the First World War in Switzerland, in Belgium at the University of Ghent, and the University of Grenoble from 1930 to 1933. He held a variety of jobs in France and the French Sudan. Fluent in French, German, Italian, Russian, Polish and English as well as his native Lithuanian, he found himself employed by Paramount Pictures studios in Paris where he dubbed American films into Spanish. He accompanied his wife to the United States in 1936, and found work in Hollywood preparing American films for the South American market.