Il Cinema Ritrovato

[Minkin]

So, no Zatoichi, Shoah, Investigation of a Citizen, World Cinema Project, Marketa Lazarova, but hey:

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD
(USA/1963) di Stanley Kramer
The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray, Dvd)

[domino harvey]

At least they nominated the fascinating Cinerama Holiday. Hopefully more people give it a try, it's a pretty unique experience

[TMDaines]

GRUPPO DI FAMIGLIA IN UN INTERNO
(Italia/1974) di Luchino Visconti
RaroVideo (Dvd)

How on earth?!

[antnield]

The winners have just been announced...

Best Special Features (Blu-ray) – LATE MIZOGUCHI (Eureka/MoC)
Best Special Features (DVD) – PINTILE CINEASTE (Transylvania Film)
Best Rediscovery – IKARIE XB-1 (Second Run)
Best Blu-ray Boxed Set – 3 FILMS BY ROSSELLINI (Criterion)
Best DVD Boxed-Set – JEAN EPSTEIN COFFRET (Potemkine)
Best Publishing Strategy by a Label – ARROW FILMS
Best Blu-ray – UNDERGROUND (BFI)
Best DVD – DZIM SVANTE and GVOZD’ V SAPOGE (Edition Filmmuseum)

[MichaelB]

...and here's the full press release:

DVD AWARDS 2014: XI edition

Jurors: Lorenzo Codelli, Alexander Horwath, Mark McElhatten, Paolo Mereghetti and Jonathan Rosenbaum, chaired by Peter von Bagh

BEST SPECIAL FEATURES ON BLU-RAY: LATE MIZOGUCHI – EIGHT FILMS, 1951-1956
(Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan) – Eureka Entertainment

The publication of eight indisputable masterpieces in stellar transfers on Blu-Ray is a cause for celebration. If Eureka is not exclusive in offering these individual titles, what makes this collection especially praiseworthy and indispensable is the scholarship, imagination and care that went into the accompanying 344-page booklet. Over 60 rare production stills are included, many featuring Mizoguchi at work. Striking essays by Keiko I. McDonald, Mark Le Fanu, Mori Ogai, and Nakagawa Masako are anthologized along with extensively annotated translations of some of the key sources of Japanese literature that inspired some of Mizoguchi’s late films. The volume closes with tributes to the great director written by Tarkovsky, Rivette, Godard, Straub, Angelopoullos, Shinoda, and others. Tony Rayns provides spoken essays and some full-length commentaries.

BEST SPECIAL FEATURES ON DVD: PINTILIE, CINEAST
(Lucian Pintille, Romania) – Transilvania Films

An impeccable collection devoted to eleven films by an important and neglected maverick Romanian filmmaker, with invaluable contextualizing extras concerning his life, work, and career drawn from ten separate sources. Among the remarkable and ambitious features are Reconstruction (1968), The Oak (1992), and An Unforgettable Summer (1994).

BEST REDISCOVERY: IKARIE XB1
(Jindřich Polák, Czechoslovakia, 1963) – Second Run Features

An almost forgotten gem, inspired by a Polish novel by Stanislaw Lem and originally butchered in the West, is rightly considered by Joe Dante “a groundbreaking celestial saga”. It had a strong impact on major SF works of the 60s and 70s such as Kubrick's 2001, and Second Run offers a stunning restoration of the uncut version, plus some scholarly essays.

BEST BLU-RAY BOX SET: 3 FILMS BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI STARRING INGRID BERGMAN
(Stromboli, Europe '51, Journey to Italy, 1950-1954) – Criterion

A superb, definitive edition of three very personal masterworks, with a good many critical, biographical, and historical supplements by many of the best Rossellini scholars and critics, including Adriano Aprà, Richard Brody, Fred Camper, Elena Dagrada, Tag Gallagher, Dina Iordanova, Laura Mulvey, James Quandt, and Paul Thomas, not to mention pertinent contributions by Guy Maddin, Martin Scorsese, and both Rossellini and Bergman and many family members.

BEST DVD BOX SET: JEAN EPSTEIN COFFRET
(Le Cinematheque Francaise, Potemkine Films) (TK, PM)

Produced by Potemkine Film, the Cinémathèque française and agnès b. DVD, for the first time the «Jean Epstein» box set offers an opportunity to follow the cinematographic path of the french director. With the films made under the Film Albatros label (1924-1925) as a starting point, the review continues with Epstein's own productions (1926-1928) and those directed in the period from 1928 to 1948, a series of registrations characterized by the freedom and careless of financial or narrative constraints. Every film included has been restored and musical comments, written specially for the edition, accompany the selection of mute films. A series of supplements and a profusely illustrated 160-page book complete the eight DVDs set.

BEST PUBLISHING STRATEGY BY A LABEL: ARROW VIDEO

Arrow Video, an excellent new label in the U.K., has already given us exemplary editions, with many thoughtful and valuable extras, of several features, including Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Donald Cammell's White of the Eye, Don Siegel's The Killers, and many Brian De Palma films.

BEST BLU-RAY: UNDERGROUND
(Anthony Asquith, U.K., 1928) – BFI

Young Anthony Asquith's “story of ordinary workaday people,” conceived near the end of the silent era, is getting a well-deserved second breath due to a gorgeous BFI restoration. This dual format edition, in both high definition and standard definition, offers many background materials, including rare shorts tracing a cultural history of the British underground train system.

BEST DVD: DZIMN SVANTE (SOL'SVANETII & GVOZD' V SAPOGE
(Michail Kalatozov, USSR, 1930-32) - Edition Filmmuseum (PM, TK)

As part of the series edited under the collection «filmmuseum», the Cineteche of Monaco and the Filmmuseum of Vienna in association with the National Archives of Georgia at Tbilisi have join efforts to rescue from l'oubli two unknown films of Michail Kalatozov, whose cinematographic path has still some parts that remain in the dark. The first film, Džim Švantė (Salt for Svanetia) directed in 1930, is a reconstruction of the harsh daily life conditions of the Caucasus mountains peasants. The second title, Gvozd’ v sapoge (A nail in the boot) from 1932, is a parable about the lack of responsiveness in times of war, that constitutes a dreadful anticipation of the Stalin regime purges. Both films were ristored for the occasion and additioned with a musical comment and subtitles in German and English. The edition is accompanied by a 16-page bilingual booklet (German-English).

The jurors would like to stress that none of us is in a position to know all the important DVD releases, even though all of us have encountered important examples, some of which were not nominated for awards but deserve in any case to be far better known so each of us has selected one or more personal favorites that he would like to recommend.

Lorenzo Codelli's personal choice is an innovative online museum organized by the city of Valencia which allows visitors to enjoy the complete works of Luis Garcia Berlanga: berlangafilmmuseum.com.

Alexander Horwath's personal pick is POD ZNAČKOU BAT'A, a 3-DVD box set copublished by the Czech National Film Archive with a huge number of shorts made by the BAT’A Corporation in the City of Zlin. It's a wonderful example of a non-cinema company making public their archive of films.

Mark McElhatten wants to cite the ongoing devotion shown in publishing the extraordinary films of Werner Schroeter in DVD releases by Edition Filmmuseum Munich. Recent releases have included WILLOW SPRINGS paired with DAY OF THE IDIOT and DER BOM BERPILOT with NEL REGNO DI NAPOLI, both releases with many extras. He also wishes to recognize the importance of the underexposed films of Peter Thompson made available through the valiant efforts of Chicago Media Works

Paolo Mereghetti has selected Alberto Cavallone’s BLUE MOVIE, released on Raro Video.

Jonathan Rosenbaum would like to cite two releases: PETER THOMPSON: 6 CINEMATIC ESSAY& 2 INTERVIEWS (Chicago Media Works, U.S., 1981-2012) and Alain Resnais and David Mercer's PROVIDENCE (Jupiter Film, France, 1977). He hastens to add that while he helped to conduct both of the two interviews with the late Peter Thompson included in this set, he originally became friends with Thompson because of his enthusiasm for the passionate originality and beauty of his work. The belated release of one of Resnais' greatest features includes both the English and the French-dubbed versions (which Resnais supervised), and many fascinating extras, with English subtitles.

Finally, Peter von Bagh has selected FRITZ LANG & L‘AMÉRIQUE – 2 FILMS DE FRITZ LANG: WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, a DVD box set from Wild Side that includes a 120-page book by Bernard Eisenschitz, La nuit américaine de Fritz Lang.

[Bikey]

A great surprise and an unexpected honour for us! Totally delighted!
Congratulations also to Eureka Entertainment, The Criterion Collection, Arrow Films & Video, and BFI who have also received deserved recognition!

[colinr0380]

Rosenbaum also mentioned the Peter Thompson set (along with the Bergman-Rossellini set and Ikarie XB-1) in this edition of his regular Global Discoveries on DVD article for Cinema Scope Magazine:

It’s customary for this column to focus on items that I know are currently available. But sometimes there are important potential or upcoming releases whose release dates remain uncertain when my column is written, and there are two of them I want to signal for this quarter, both of which I already possess copies of although they still weren’t commercially available when I wrote most of the following.

The first of these, the four-disc Peter Thompson: 6 Cinematic Essays + 2 Interviews + …, is to my mind the most important DVD release of the year—and this even in a year that has seen the final, long-delayed, and triumphant releases of Jacques Rivette’s Out 1 and the films of Pere Portabella (both discussed in previous columns)—because it represents the most flagrant discrepancy I know between work that is staggeringly powerful and important on the one hand and almost completely unknown on the other. For me, the late Peter Thompson (1944-2013) is the greatest of all Chicago filmmakers, living or dead, but it seems that the only reason why you haven’t heard of him is that he didn’t know how to hustle. Around October 31, the box set finally became available on Amazon; in the case of Far from Afghanistan (2012)—a collective film by John Gianvito, Jon Jost, Soon-Mi Yoo, Minda Martin, Travis Wilkerson, and Afghan Voices, overseen by Gianvito—there’s a URL listed on the DVD (farfromafghanistan.com), but it couldn’t be accessed the last time I checked. However, Gianvito has informed me that “inquiries about purchasing DVDs can be sent to farfromafghanistan@gmail.com, $15 per disc plus shipping.” (For writing that I’ve already published about the films on these releases, go to (Peter Thompson) and (Far From Afghanistan).

Are there conflict-of-interest issues here? Not really, or at least not exactly: Thompson was a dear friend, and so is Gianvito, but in both cases these friendships developed because of my enthusiasm for their work. For the record, I helped to conduct both of the “2 interviews” on the Thompson set (proceeds of which will go towards a scholarship named after Peter at Chicago’s Columbia College, where he taught photography for many years), but I had no such involvement in the slim single-disc Gianvito package.

[htshell]

DVD AWARDS 2014: XI edition
Alexander Horwath's personal pick is POD ZNAČKOU BAT'A, a 3-DVD box set copublished by the Czech National Film Archive with a huge number of shorts made by the BAT’A Corporation in the City of Zlin. It's a wonderful example of a non-cinema company making public their archive of films.

Does anyone know anything about this? NFA website and google have turned up nothing.

[vertovfan]

It's distributed by Filmexport Home Video and available on their website. Also available here. I'd second the recommendation!

[htshell]

Thanks, vertovfan!

[JimmyTango]

Has anyone tried to place an order from cinestore.cinetecamilano.it ? I'm finding it quite difficult. Firstly I'm from the U.S so therefore I don't require a VAT and upon contacting various people throughout every aspect of the institute and receiving mixed replies to my inquiry I was finally notified to send wire transfer using their IBAN information. That didn't seem to work either. If only cinetecamilano would offer their titles through Amazon or Ebay it would be so much easier. A similar issue occurred in trying to order from the National Film Archive of India. You would think that in 2015 it shouldn't be this much of a hassle but yet again there are plenty of more important things to worry about I suppose.

[TMDaines]

Are you sure they ship overseas? I'm unable to select a mode of delivery if I attempt to order anything to the UK.

[JimmyTango]

Are you sure they ship overseas? I'm unable to select a mode of delivery if I attempt to order anything to the UK.

According to my e-mail correspondence they ship worldwide but as of current it is unnecessarily complicated due to an error in the checkout process of the site. I tried Western Union and to no avail. The Luigi Liberio Pensuti DVD is indispensable to the purpose of animation studies but apparently not readily available anywhere else.

[Numero Trois]

Firstly I'm from the U.S so therefore I don't require a VAT.

Have you tried "00000" or some random numbers for that field?

[JimmyTango]

Firstly I'm from the U.S so therefore I don't require a VAT.

Have you tried "00000" or some random numbers for that field?

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I thought of that also but it didn't work.

I'll provide an update if I can successfully place the order at some point.

[JAP]

With Peter von Bagh's passing the festival has created a stellar artistic committee (with the likes of Kevin Brownlow, Jean Douchet, Aki Kaurismäki, Dave Kehr or Thelma Schoonmaker; even Peter Becker is there) to assist/be assisted by the new programming committee, as stated here.
Program highlights for this year:
- The Keaton Project
- Seriously Funny: The Films of Leo McCarey
- Ingrid Bergman, the early years
- Jazz Goes to Movies
- Colors of Japan
- Peter Forever, homage to Peter von Bagh (curated by Olaf Möller)
- Looking for Colors in Film: from Pochoir to Technicolor (curated by Gian Luca Farinelli and Mariann Lewinsky)
- The Soviet Thaw: 1953-1957 (curated by Olaf Möller and Peter Bagrov)
Hope to (finally!) get there.

[MichaelB]

Yes, fingers crossed I'll finally make it there too - I wanted to go last year but was stymied by overruns on Arrow's Borowczyk project.

[jsteffe]

Sadly, it doesn't look as if I will be able to get to the festival this year.

Congratulations to those who frequent this board and who won awards!

Does anyone know where on earth one can obtain the PINTILIE, CINEAST box set? I very badly want to order a copy for my library.

[L.A.]

Does anyone know where on earth one can obtain the PINTILIE, CINEAST box set? I very badly want to order a copy for my library.

Carturesti ships overseas, ordered my copy from there. The only downside is that the set appears to be OOP(?).

[jsteffe]

Thanks, L.A. I checked that company months ago, and it was already O.P., apparently. Very frustrating!

[JAP]

Full list of films is now available here (direct link for the pdf file).

[perkypat]

Hi all,
Going to this for the first time. Ill have a festival pass, how easy is it to get to see what you want? Queueing? I assume most things are English friendly?
Cheers

[Marwood]

Having attended for several years I can say that I have rarely not been able to se a film I wanted to. If you turn up 10 minutes before the film starts you will most likely be able to get a good seat. The only exceptions have been the two venues at the cinemateque (Sala Mastroianni and Scorcese) that do not seat very many people and therefore can get full.

With a festival pass you do not need to get tickets for each screening. You just show your pass at the theatre entrance. There is no way to reserve a seat in advance and the seats are not numbered. All screenings are English friendly with one major caveat. Screenings at the cinemateque are not subtitled unless the print itself has English subtitles. Other venues have facilities for projecting digital computer subtitles, but the cinemateque does not. Instead you are given an earpiece where a translator will spontaneously try to translate the dialogue to English, often with variable results. This can diminish ones appreciation and comprehension of films that are very talky

I remember watching one French silent film some years ago where the interties simply said the one word, “misère”. Instead just saying “misery”, the translator struggled to find the right word and in broken Italian-accented English chose instead “Is-a very sad. Is-a not good.” She managed to change the film from a drama to a comedy.

Other events apart from the films, like introductions, talks and debates are generally translated, but not always. People from northern Europe tend to all speak English but southern Europeans do not. Often long speeches in Italian are translated to one or two sentences in English. French speakers are sometimes only translated to Italian.

Anyway, I hope you find your way around the different venues in Bologna and have an enjoyable festival.

[TMDaines]

I remember watching one French silent film some years ago where the interties simply said the one word, “misère”. Instead just saying “misery”, the translator struggled to find the right word and in broken Italian-accented English chose instead “Is-a very sad. Is-a not good.” She managed to change the film from a drama to a comedy.

Laughing so much it hurts.

Like an idiot I'm going to Bologna this year (then Rimini) but in August/September time. I'm desperate to go one day.

[david hare]

Is anyone else trying to firm up on next year? Don't even know dates for it yet but I assume they will be similar to the usual. I am definitely homing in on a plan for Europe and Turkey next June through August. We intend to make Berlin a base for first half of the trip with sides to Bologna for week to ten days depending on Cineteca dates, and other sides. Then Turkey then home.