In 1938 the French film industry was booming, and Renoir was at the height of his career. He had had three consecutive hit films and "La Grande Illusion" had won awards from the New York Film Critics, the National Board of Review and the Venice Film Festival. The financial success of "La Bête Humaine" made it easy for Renoir to secure enough financial backing to form his own production company. In 1938 he founded Nouvelle Édition Française (NEF) with his brother Claude Renoir, together with André Zwobada, Oliver Billiou and Camille Francois. All five invested 10,000 francs into the company and intended to produce two films per year. The company was modeled after the American film production company United Artists, which was formed in 1919 as a film distribution company for independent artists by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford. Renoir rallied his friends in the film industry around the company and got financial support from René Clair, Julien Duvivier, Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. NEF's headquarters on the Rue la Grange-Batelière was sublet from Marcel Pagnol's production company. On December 8, 1938 Georges Cravenne published a press release in "Paris-Soir" announcing that Renoir and Pagnol were about to sign an agreement to procure a large theatre where they would publicly screen "the films that they would direct from then on." "The Rules of the Game" was the only film produced by the company.