Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection

[MichaelB]

With 29 fundraising days still to go, I'm delighted to confirm that Goto, Isle of Love will be getting a HD upgrade.

Many, many thanks to everyone who contributed - you've guaranteed that all five features will be in glorious 1080p.

But since the Kickstarter campaign is still running for almost another month, our next plan is to raise enough additional funds to restore the five Argos shorts that were already going to be included, but which currently exist only in SD video masters: Les Astronautes (1959), Une Collection Particulière (1973), L'Escargot de Venus (1975), L'Amour "Monstre" de Tous les Temps (1977) and Scherzo Infernal (1984).

Clearly, these won't cost anything like as much as Goto - their combined running time is only around 45 minutes, and 35mm materials should hopefully be in decent condition, so upgrading at least some of them to HD looks like a very realistic prospect.

[swo17]

Sounds great! Will there be a concrete goal set up to restore the Argos shorts, i.e. if total pledges reach £25,000 or whatever, these shorts will be presented in HD?

[MichaelB]

Sounds great! Will there be a concrete goal set up to restore the Argos shorts, i.e. if total pledges reach £25,000 or whatever, these shorts will be presented in HD?

We need to look at the logistics first, but Argos seems very keen to cooperate (unsurprisingly!).

Basically, now that we've guaranteed that all five features will be in HD, the next stage is to make sure that all fifteen shorts get the same treatment. Ten already exist in HD masters, so it's not a huge challenge.

[EddieLarkin]

I'd be willing to make my pledge at least £100 if I figured there was a good chance of it actually happening, so making it an official stretch goal would be great.

[knives]

Congrats, hopefully you can at least get those shorts restored. It's bare, but Venus in HD is something I hope for. Those colours are a delight.

[mrmarbach]

I've never participated in Kickstarter before so don't know about "stretch goals" but just increased my contribution to £150. If they manage to do the extra shorts as well it'll be good value.

I felt bad about paying under what the RRP would be. But I guess that's a bit weird...

[MichaelB]

I felt bad about paying under what the RRP would be. But I guess that's a bit weird...

There's no rational reason for feeling bad - you're doing us a massive favour by letting us have your money sufficiently early so that it can be ploughed into the production budget.

So we're inordinately grateful to you and to everyone else who's pledged - you'll be making a measurable and all too visible difference.

[Calvin]

The BFI 2014 preview reveals a planned Borowczyk retrospective in May at the BFI Southbank and ICA.

[MichaelB]

The BFI 2014 preview reveals a planned Borowczyk retrospective in May at the BFI Southbank and ICA.

Indeed - the BFI has been wanting to do this for years, but they'd been constantly stymied by the appalling condition of existing 35mm/16mm prints, especially of the pivotal early work. But now that Arrow and Argos have created spanking new 2K restorations for the Blu-rays, this is no longer an issue.

It's been great seeing this all coming together - the Polish Cultural Institute in London couldn't have been more helpful or enthusiastic, in stark contrast to the generally pretty negative attitude towards Borowczyk expressed by cultural organisations within Poland itself.

[MichaelB]

Boro's Dictionary reaches E is for... Erotic - and so you won't be surprised to hear that some illustrations might be considered NSFW (although they're pretty mild when you consider what I could have used...).

[EddieLarkin]

A Private Collection is one of the Argo shorts right? Presumably it will be the shorter version that appears in the set? Or do the BBFC make exceptions for unsimulated beastiality if it's non-pornographic?

[MichaelB]

A Private Collection is one of the Argo shorts right? Presumably it will be the shorter version that appears in the set? Or do the BBFC make exceptions for unsimulated beastiality if it's non-pornographic?

There is no chance of the Oberhausen version being featured intact on any UK release. The footage of the dog falls squarely within the current legal definition of "extreme pornography", so the BBFC will have no choice but to cut it - and even if the Video Recordings Act wasn't an issue, I suspect Arrow would want to err on the side of caution.

It's worth noting that the footage was pixilated to the point of incomprehensibility in the German release - again, for legal reasons.

And it is most definitely pornographic -please don't click on this description if you're in any way squeamish!

Spoiler

We're talking full-on penetrative sex between a large dog and a woman, culminating in a clearly genuine canine cumshot, filmed in such a way that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.

[EddieLarkin]

Your description does sound rather...excessive. You describe it as vintage, as in it was taken from another source and put into the film rather than being made for it? If that's the case part of me still feels an adult should be allowed to view the film uncut, but I guess the law's the law.

Interesting point: if Arrow submitted the uncut version to the BBFC couldn't they be investigated for possession of extreme pornography? If the BBFC receive such material do they hand it over to the police?

[MichaelB]

Your description does sound rather...excessive. You describe it as vintage, as in it was taken from another source and put into the film rather than being made for it? If that's the case part of me still feels an adult should be allowed to view the film uncut, but I guess the law's the law.

Context does not provide a defence. I've no idea when the footage was shot, or by whom, but that doesn't matter. I don't think Borowczyk ever seriously intended this cut of the film to get commercial distribution - it was designed purely to shock film festival audiences.

Interesting point: if Arrow submitted the uncut version to the BBFC couldn't they be investigated for possession of extreme pornography? If the BBFC receive such material do they hand it over to the police?

If such a scenario resulted in a prosecution, I suspect it would be the distributor rather than the BBFC who'd be on the receiving end, for obvious reasons - I doubt you could make a "possession" charge stick if somebody else sent it to you unsolicited, and this would be easy enough to prove. But there's really very little point making a formal submission of the dog scene to the BBFC, since we know exactly what they'd say - the footage is clearly completely indefensible in the context of current British law, and so the BBFC would be legally required to cut it regardless of the examiners' own personal views.

[richard_t]

Hmmm...MichaelB, could you possibly please check something for me?

I backed this (at the £60 level) right back when it was first launched. However I've just been looking at the Kickstarter site and for some reason I appear to have dropped off the list (I was definitely there previously), and my Account section says that I've not backed anything - which I hadn't until this.

Have you got access to any further information regarding backers or should I just get hold of Kickstarter support? Would hate to think that this is happening to other people without them realising and you guys not getting all the support you should.

Cheers.

[MichaelB]

Hmmm...MichaelB, could you possibly please check something for me?

I backed this (at the £60 level) right back when it was first launched. However I've just been looking at the Kickstarter site and for some reason I appear to have dropped off the list (I was definitely there previously), and my Account section says that I've not backed anything - which I hadn't until this.

Have you got access to any further information regarding backers or should I just get hold of Kickstarter support? Would hate to think that this is happening to other people without them realising and you guys not getting all the support you should.

Cheers.

All I personally have is the list that's publicly available - I assume more details are made available when the campaign finishes. It sounds to me like a Kickstarter glitch.

But thanks for letting me know - this might explain the occasional tiny fluctuations that I've spotted.

[richard_t]

Ah okay. I'll see what the guys at Kickstarter have to say then. Hopefully it'll just be a case of backing the project again, but as much as I can think of worse things to potentially be charged twice for I'll of course be happier knowing this won't happen.

Will let you know.

EDIT - Hmm...this is odd...just looking again and I'm now back on the list (unless there's another Richard Thomas that signed up in Nov 2013 and backed this) but it's not showing my photo and the Account section still says I've not backed anything.

EDIT 2 - Okay...I'm an idiot. Turns out I'd managed to somehow sign up to Kickstarter twice and the account that I'd back the Project with isn't the same account that I was logging in with recently. Logged in with the correct account and all is well. Apologies for the false alarm

[swo17]

So there's now a week left on this project, and it's currently sitting at a respectable but not earth-shattering £22,320. Is there any new information about how much would need to be raised to restore all of the Argos shorts? Any other potential plans that might induce people to donate more during the final stretch?

[RossyG]

112% of target is a great result, I'd say. Perhaps psychologically, once you crack the 100% barrier then things seem less urgent.

EddieLarkin's £23,000 prediction is starting to look quite accurate, though. I'm guessing that's enough to restore a couple more shorts, which is nice.

[MichaelB]

So there's now a week left on this project, and it's currently sitting at a respectable but not earth-shattering £22,320. Is there any new information about how much would need to be raised to restore all of the Argos shorts? Any other potential plans that might induce people to donate more during the final stretch?

We're working out a plausible budget right now - unfortunately, we had to wait until all the various interested parties were back at work and contactable, which is why there hasn't been any news up to now.

But a fresh update should be published very shortly.

[Emak-Bakia]

And here's the update:

Happy New Year!

We just wanted to say thanks again for the huge show of support you've given towards our Walerian Borowczyk project. It's been a tremendous honour for us to work on these films, and to play a part in making them available for audiences to see again, after being unavailable for so many years. Thanks to you, we're now scheduling the new restoration work of Borowczyk masterpiece Goto, l'île d'amour to begin very soon!

We also wanted to say that although we reached our initial goal of 20K, exceeding that figure has had the extraordinary benefit of allowing us to consider the restoration of the short films Borowczyk made for Argos Films. This wasn't part of our initial plan, but your overwhelming show of support has now made doing this a real possibility.

For those unfamiliar with this part of Borowczyk's oeuvre, these films are short, provocative pieces that provide vital insights into the filmmaker's world as well as important context to his features already produced and those still to come. And as with everything Borowczyk produced, these short films are masterworks in their own right that demand to be seen.

A bit of history is necessary here. Throughout his career, Borowczyk had a special relationship with Polish born French producer Anatole Dauman and his company, Argos Films. It was Dauman who co-produced Borowczyk's first non-Polish film, Les Astronautes.

What is more, it was thanks to Dauman that Borowczyk was introduced to a range of artists associated with the Parisian 'Left Bank': filmmakers like Chris Marker and Mario Ruspoli, painters like Max Ernst and the Serbian surrealist Ljuba Popović , the writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues and his artist wife, Bona.

Chris Marker played a minor, yet crucial role in Les Astronautes, while de Mandiargues provided the commentary for Borowczyk's spectacular 'documentary' on antique pornography, Une Collection Particulière.

Dauman also produced two of Borowczyk's award winning short documentaries on artists: Escargot de Venus (concerning Bona de Mandiargues' erotic snail drawings) and L'Amour monstre de tous les temps (which follows Ljuba putting the final touches to one of his giant, baroque and sexually bizarre canvases).

Argos also produced Borowczyk's final animation, Scherzo Infernal - that puts paid to the idea that animation and erotic are two mutually exclusive components of the director's career.

What we've now decided to do is assign any funds we raise over the initial goal of 20K towards the restoration of these seminal short films. We've set an unofficial goal for ourselves of 30K to make this possible, so we're hoping in the limited time we have left (Our Kickstarter campaign ends on January 11th) that this can be achieved. The terms are still the same, as are the benefits in contributing. The good news is that what you'll receive from contributing (whether you've already pledged or still plan to) will be an even richer and more comprehensive Borowczyk collection.

Help us reach £30,000 in pledges to restore the following short films:

Les Astronautes

Une Collection Particulière

Escargot de Venus

L'amour monstre de tous les temps

Scherzo Infernal

(and subject to availability of appropriate material’s Borowczyk’s short film of La Bête)

Thanks again!

Daniel Bird & James White

[swo17]

Long story short: They need to raise about £7,500 more in the next four days to be able to restore the Argos shorts and present them in HD on the upcoming set. Let's make this happen, people!

[tenia]

I haven't backed this yet, but will now happily do it (fortunately, I still have a bit of finances left from Christmas and despite this incredibly loaded November 2013).

[neilist]

Is restoring these short films an all or nothing deal? I very much hope we can hit the £30, 000 mark, but if it gets to, for instance £28, 000, could we have three of them restored?

[MichaelB]

Absolutely - it's certainly not an all-or-nothing deal. Argos would be only too happy for any of the shorts to be restored: they're certainly not going to kick up a fuss if we can't afford the lot. And of course Goto is being restored come what may - arrangements are already being made to ship the 35mm materials to Deluxe in London so James White can start work a.s.a.p.

Based on the current total, I reckon it's now pretty likely that at least one short will definitely be restored, most likely the historically important Les Astronautes (Borowczyk's first French film, and one of his most accessible/delightful). Although the final selection will depend on the condition of the 35mm materials as much as anything else.