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MichaelB wrote:

rollotomassi wrote:BTW, MichaelB, that Witches Hammer you mention that isn't Facets. My Czech sites (eg. www.hil.cz) always listed the Czech DVD as 4:3, and I was never sure whether it was a full 2:35 print within the 4:3 transfer or not. Can you confirm, as I have the Facets which is only 1.85 and awful.

Definitely 2.35:1, and infinitely superior. I also seem to recall that it's anamorphic - I'll check when I get home tonight.

Here's a visual comparison of the 2 versions (Bonton vs. Facets)...

Cheers!

Peto

Many thanks, Peto, that's great. Come pay day I shall treat myself to the Czech release...

rollo

Well, since my request for 'Valerie and her Week of Wonders' was granted I'll give it another try...
I would love to see quality releases of Juraj Herz's 'Morgiana' and Vera Chytilová's 'Daisies' ('Sedmikrasky') pretty please...

Daze73 wrote:I would love to see quality releases of Juraj Herz's 'Morgiana' and Vera Chytilová's 'Daisies' ('Sedmikrasky') pretty please...

I know it's on Facets, and has compulsory subtitles, but their Daisies isn't bad at all. It's a lot better than their The Fruit of Paradise, which is in rather greater need of remastering.

As posted on the Czech DVD thread, Daisies is due for release this summer in the Czech Republic by Bonton. It seems this increases the chances of aSecond Run release by quite a stretch.

I agree with Solaris that a DVD of 'Keeper of Promises' would make a great addition to the collection. I would also like to see 'The Mother and the Whore' as a possibility for the secondrundvd catalogue. And since this is just speculation, why not include an italian film since there are none in the collection currently! I was thinking 'The Spider's Strategem'. =P~

Yol by Serif Görein and Yilmaz Güney would be an ideal film for Second Run to publish on dvd - somehow I can't imagine any other company doing it. It's certainly an important film and Turkish cinema in general needs to be noticed more (no jokes about Tarkan the Viking or 3 Dev Adam now...).

Hey Bikey, I think it was mentioned somewhere (by brunosh) that you were seen at a recent screening of A. Tanner's La Salamandre. Is this a possible future release for Second Run (he asks with fingers crossed)?

Lamourderer wrote:Yol by Serif Görein and Yilmaz Güney would be an ideal film for Second Run to publish on dvd - somehow I can't imagine any other company doing it. It's certainly an important film and Turkish cinema in general needs to be noticed more (no jokes about Tarkan the Viking or 3 Dev Adam now...).

I have an Artificial Eye vhs of Yol and have lost count of the e-mails I have sent them about this (and Best Intentions) to no avail.

^ I can very well imagine. But now, when Histoire(s) de Cinema is finally getting released, I'm not losing hope for seeing this one day. One day...

Wilna Zona (Villa Zone) (1975, Bulgaria, Eduard Sachariev)

This is considered one of the best films to come out of Bulgaria. Any chance of Second Run releasing it?

carax09 wrote:Hey Bikey, I think it was mentioned somewhere (by brunosh) that you were seen at a recent screening of A. Tanner's La Salamandre. Is this a possible future release for Second Run (he asks with fingers crossed)?

Since there was no take up on this can I add whether it would be possible to get the Berger/Tanner collaborations through Second Run ?
A John Berger/Mike Dibb set would also be a great addition but since they were made for BBC or C4 I suppose that would rule it out of the question. Is there scope for BFI to do anything there since a pretty comprehensive Berger season was put together a couple of years back.
Michael B ? Perhaps you could put me straight as to how feasible something like that is/isn't?

A fair few of Second Run's output are of quite political films, so would it be insane to suggest releasing Salt of the Earth at some point (if possible?)

Very excited about Daisies, keep up the great work

I'd love to see Second Run release Eden & After (1970) or really any Alain Robbe-Grillet films but that's never going to happen so I'm hoping for more Czech fairy tale/surreal/horror films (ala Valerie/Daisies) in sparkling quality specifically:

Morgiana (Juraj Herz, 1972)
Birds, Orphans & Fools (Juraj Jakubisko, 1969)
Fruit Of Paradise (Vera Chytilová, 1969)
The Ninth Heart (Juraj Herz, 1978)
The Feather Fairy (Juraj Jakubisko, 1985)

Instead of the Feathered Fairy (I guess this means Perinbaba), a release of Deserter and the Nomads is way more important. (See you in Hell, Friends and The Thousand Year Old Bee, should also have higher priorities in the Jakubisko canon.)
As for Juraj Herz, while it is not very surreal, his Sweet Games of Last Summer is lovely, impressionistic, totally un-Herz actually.

I would be very keen to see more from Herz, absolutely loved Cremator. I have been chasing early Jakubisko for a while. I have heard Tisícrocná vcela aka A Thousand-year-old Bee (1983) is very good (not sure of the most common translation). This thread was a real eye opener on the Jakubisko front.

Well Kristove Roky is now available in Slovakia, certainly highly recommend it, even though I enjoy his other 60s films more.

I have to admit that the more Czech and Slovak films I see (often without subs) the more I realize how sad it is, that they do not and possibly will not get a release. Lots of films made for TV are also very great and the chances for them to get a release are even slimmer than for the "normal" films.

After finally watching Red Psalm, I'm eagerly waiting for more Jancso releases and SecondRun have a good record with them. Next to Egi Barany, Sirokkó and Magyar rapszódia, I'd be glad to see his Italian films also.

Any Czech stuff would be great, and although SR is UK-based, I wish they'd release some Menzel, since the only source for his films in the US (aside from Criterion's Closely Watched Trains) is Facets. So, although SR surely doesn't put too much stock into what American dvd-buyers think, anything by Menzel would be welcome.

Also, I recall that the Smithsonian had an exhibit on Czech modernism a couple of years ago, in which they screened films by Vladislav Vančura (the author of Marketa Lazarová). It'd be wonderful if SR could release some of those.

jbeall wrote:Any Czech stuff would be great, and although SR is UK-based, I wish they'd release some Menzel, since the only source for his films in the US (aside from Criterion's Closely Watched Trains) is Facets. So, although SR surely doesn't put too much stock into what American dvd-buyers think, anything by Menzel would be welcome.

There's loads of Menzel available in the Czech Republic, and most of it with English subtitles. I think my list of Menzel DVDs is still broadly up to date.

Thanks for the tip. Incidentally, Sony Classics is releasing I Served the King of England in R1 on Feb. 17.

I guess with the economy as it is, it is getting increasingly difficult for Second Run to release new titles.

For them, or for Criterion, there are a number of great films and filmmakers, many of which have already been mentioned here, which remain sadly out of reach.

I especially look forward to a release of the works of Slobodan Sijan, especially the great Who Sings Over There? Has anybody seen this film? It's hilarious and disturbing, recounting the oddissey of a disparate group making a journey on a rundown buss in the former Yugoslavia. The trip is a tragicomic disaster and it's an eerie harbinger of the things which were to come. Dark but very humane humour. It's a masterpiece. He has other films which I have not seen but look forward to, including The Marathon Family and How My Life was Systematically Destroyed by an Idiot. These DVDs are availabe in the You4You website, but they have no English subtitles.

A film I greatly want to see is The Forest of the Hanged, by Liviu Ciulei, it's a Romanian film which was screened last year in New York, and is said to be the best Romanian film of all time. It's one of the films picked by restoration in the Fund Martin Scorsese has created with other filmmakers to rescue some great works of world cinema.

Most Romanian and Bulgarian filmmaking remains, sadly, practically unknown, as well as Greek Cinema, with the exceptions of Theo Angelopoulos and Michael Cacoyannis.

My Friend Ivan Lapshin, from the former Soviet Union, would also be great.

Four words: Mysterious Object at Noon.