criterionforum.org

Confirmed as a 27 February 2012 release.

More details here.

I believe the films are also being released individually, so here are links to the relevant threads:

• Eroica (Andrzej Munk, 1958)
• Night Train (Pociąg, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1959)
• Innocent Sorcerers (Niewinni czarodzieje, Andrzej Wajda, 1960)
• Goodbye, See You Tomorrow (Do widzenia, do jutra, d. Janusz Morgenstern, 1960)

Thank god. I was about to purchase the Facets Night Train. Can't wait to see more films from the old country.

I've just smiled my whole face off.

I have the Facets version of Night Train. It's a really great film. Great news on more Polish classics though.

Awesome

Fantastic news. And it's great that the box set is announced before the individual titles so we can avoid having to double-dip.

thirtyframesasecond wrote:I have the Facets version of Night Train. It's a really great film.

Yes, I'm really looking forward to watching it again (third time) for booklet-writing purposes.

It's also a good excuse to catch up with Kawalerowicz's career in general - I've seen virtually everything by Has, Munk, Polanski and Wajda from this period (including several documentaries), but only two Kawalerowiczes, and none of the five features that he made before Night Train. Handily, four seem to be available with English subtitles.

Amazon now have this box set up for 27 February. Does anyone know if the separate DVD editions will follow soon or will they be available on the same day?

terrific news indeed. my fave among those has to be 'goodbye, see you tomorrow'. definitely going to purchase the box

Amazon UK just informed that new release date is march 12th.

I've just heard that shrinkwrapped final copies have arrived at Second Run, and should be entering retailers' supply chains over the next few days. So it's a pretty safe bet that they'll start being delivered round about Friday 9th/Saturday 10th if precedent is any guide.

Full details are now up at our website

I've just added full specs to the individual DVD pages:

• Eroica
• Goodbye, See You Tomorrow
• Innocent Sorcerers
• Night Train

...and each of those includes links to framegrabs, though you can sample the lot here. If you're familiar with the older Polart and Best Film Co releases, these restorations will be close to unrecognisable.

I can also confirm that the presentation is identical to the other Second Run box sets - a cardboard sleeve housing four individually packaged discs with their own booklets and spine numbers: my understanding is that these will come out as separate releases later in the year, although dates haven't been set yet. The spine number for Eroica is 46 versus 64-67 for the others, a legacy of the time when it was supposed to come out a couple of years ago (and was even up for preorder on Amazon et al) before being withdrawn at the last minute after Second Run found out that it was being restored.

'Why I love Polish cinema' by Alexei Sayle.

The Arts Desk.

Kawalerowicz's NIGHT TRAIN screens as part of the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival on Tuesday 13th March at 8.30pm at London's Prince Charles Cinema - and at Edinburgh Filmhouse on Friday March 16 at 6.15pm and at Queen's Film Theatre Belfast on Tuesday 20th March at 6.30pm.

Andzrej Wajda's INNOCENT SORCERERS also screens at Kinoteka on Wednesday 21st March at 8.30pm at Whirled Cinema, London.

Daaaamn, those covers look great! The caps Beev chose also look good. The sense of composition is so many of then is quite intriguing. I can hardly wait until my copy arrives.

Michael Ewins at E-Film Blog has reviewed the four discs individually:

• Eroica
• Goodbye See You Tomorrow
• Innocent Sorcerers
• Night Train

Any word on individual release dates? I'd love to buy this, but the price of the box is high enough that I would probably get dinged for customs.

My understanding is that they're definitely coming out as individual releases later this year (and the discs in the box already have the individual spine numbers to prove it), but exact dates haven't been fixed yet.

New reviews in from The Word and Total Film

An excellent review, though I've added a comment to clarify the aspect ratio issue.

Unlike the situation in the Soviet Union or Czechoslovakia (where films from the 50s, 60s and later seemed to be either 4:3 or 2.35:1, with next to no exceptions), Poland and Hungary seem a fair bit more flexible with regard to aspect ratios, and 4:3 and 1.66:1 productions were released in tandem for years.

So it's not at all unusual for a 1.66:1 film like Goodbye, See You Tomorrow to be followed by a 4:3 film like Innocent Sorcerers - and in any case, these new restorations were approved by the original cinematographers (in three cases) and the director (in the case of Innocent Sorcerers), so I think we can safely regard them as definitive.