criterionforum.org

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:10 am**

Damn this is a tough film to search for. Anyway has this been picked up in the US?

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:40 am**

It's playing in the local theater here, so yeah. Don't know how wide release it is, though.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:05 am**

knives wrote:Damn this is a tough film to search for.

I feel your pain - I'm researching a DVD booklet biography of Ana Torrent. She might as well change her name to Ana Warez or Ana Megaupload for all the help Google's giving me.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:18 am**

It's in the usual places on the Internet.

Edit: Oh, I see MichaelB made the same point much more stylishly.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 10:55 am**

As a lawyer, I once had to research when "and" could be read as "or" in a contract under NY State law. Try searching Lexis/Nexis for the word "and" in court opinions.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:23 pm**

The film has beens showing around the US since it opened in New York at the end of Feb. Despite what are easily the best reviews of any film of 2012 ( a perfect 100% in Rotten Tomatoes) business has been soft at best. You appear to be in San Diego where it played one day to a large crowd at the Museum of Art. Sadly this is not a film any commercial theater in San Diego would play. It has been showing in art theaters, museums, colleges, fests etc. It just finished this week in Portland ME, Northampton MA & Sedona AZ. There are many dates coming up including Pittsburgh, Berkeley,Cleveland (bring back) Minneapolis etc. Anyone in Honolulu can go tonight to see it at the Museum of Art.

I have worked in independent film booking for 25 years and this is one the top 5 films I have ever worked on and while it is not
so much a "visual" film I think it is very important to see it on the big screen with an audience. I actually worked on for two months BEFORE I watched it waiting for the first press show and I was totally blown away. For whatever reason despite the extraordinary raves ( check the New York Times for one) the film has received, audiences just don't come out in good numbers. More could have been spent on advertising & marketing but I don't think it would have made a significant difference beyond losing a lot of money. I am sorry you did not know about the show in San Diego ( which was in May). One of your local critics is a HUGE fan and tried on his own to get a theater to give it a run but the art theaters there are fairly mainstream.

Jessica
Palisades Tartan
DVD/blu ray should be out in October.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:59 pm**

Thanks for the info. I'm sorry that this film isn't picking up traction. The film was going to play at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa back in May but was mysteriously listed as TBA on its expected play date. Do you know if there is a reschedule in the works?

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:38 pm**

I will check but alas I think the Circle just got cold feet. It is hard to blame the small venues as they need a certain box office.
This weeks depressing stat , despite two rave reviews the film did under $500 in this past week in Portland OR which is good
place for arts films. On the over hand it did $1,000 in 3 days in Sedona AZ where the local film group really pushed hard. People read the 4 star raves and I do mean raves, but somehow think it is a "difficult" or "dull" film and it is neither. I hate to brag but here is a quote from The Times review which addition to being a rave is truly insightful .
“A subtle, strange and haunting work of art…a masterpiece in a form that does not yet exist.”--A.O. Scott, The New York Times

I admit that if you have never heard of Panahi or have no clue what is going on in Iran in terms of cracking down on artists the film might seem odd but every single review contains a few sentences of background. which is all you need A friend of mine in the business who loves the film said that basically people don't really read past the first sentence of a review or description and write it off as " a film about a guy in his living room". Might have had better luck pushing it as a film about animals ( there is a star turn by an iguana and yappy dog that plays a crucial role in the story).

Jessica

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:58 pm**

MichaelB wrote:
knives wrote:Damn this is a tough film to search for.
I feel your pain - I'm researching a DVD booklet biography of Ana Torrent. She might as well change her name to Ana Warez or Ana Megaupload for all the help Google's giving me.

Even putting quotes around the name doesn't help enough? "ana torrent"

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:21 pm**

cdnchris wrote:
MichaelB wrote:
knives wrote:Damn this is a tough film to search for.
I feel your pain - I'm researching a DVD booklet biography of Ana Torrent. She might as well change her name to Ana Warez or Ana Megaupload for all the help Google's giving me.
Even putting quotes around the name doesn't help enough? "ana torrent"

Of course, but that does rather spoil the joke.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:49 pm**

lilycarver wrote:The film has beens showing around the US since it opened in New York at the end of Feb. Despite what are easily the best reviews of any film of 2012 ( a perfect 100% in Rotten Tomatoes) business has been soft at best. You appear to be in San Diego where it played one day to a large crowd at the Museum of Art. Sadly this is not a film any commercial theater in San Diego would play. It has been showing in art theaters, museums, colleges, fests etc. It just finished this week in Portland ME, Northampton MA & Sedona AZ. There are many dates coming up including Pittsburgh, Berkeley,Cleveland (bring back) Minneapolis etc. Anyone in Honolulu can go tonight to see it at the Museum of Art.

Thanks for the unfortunate info. Would it be rude to ask if you knew of a US home video release?

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:51 pm**

lilycarver wrote:DVD/blu ray should be out in October.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:52 pm**

That's what I get for not reading the sign off.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:17 pm**

Did you read the sign off?

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:20 pm**

domino harvey wrote:Did you read the sign off?

Did yopu read his most recent post. ;~}

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:27 pm**

This is not a post:

knives wrote:That's what I get for not reading the sign off.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:56 pm**

I'm intrigued as to why a Blu-ray is on the cards - wasn't this "film" shot on a mobile phone and smuggled out of Iran on a memory stick? Mind you, I suppose some phones can handle 1080p these days.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:01 pm**

I'm sure saying Blu ray is just a thing at this point. Considering it isn't happening with the UK release I doubt it will happen anywhere else.

Posted: **Fri Jun 08, 2012 11:52 pm**

Excited to see this. The R4 DVD has been out from Madman for a few weeks, but it's pretty expensive for what appears to be a barebones DVD of a 75-minute piece, so it will be nice to pick up a UK/US edition dependent on price and availability.

Hopefully, someone could include some Panahi shorts on a version (though I don't know if that could get him in more trouble), as extras.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:29 am**

Honestly I could be wrong on the blu ray. I have come to assume all new releases are released on blu ray and in fact the film is
screened in many venues on blu ray. I am old fashioned and pretty much in the wrong forum as I basically do not watch DVDs (or blu rays) . I will try to check and follow up but if you live somewhere where it is playing try to see it on a real screen because in fact it is a film.

FYI the film is also being shown in the US in venues that want it in 35mm, mostly for logistical rather than visual reasons but still somewhat rare.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:17 am**

The film is truly incredible. It takes the entire thesis of much of Iran's world cinema output, the blurring of the lines between fiction and "reality" in cinema, and pushes it to its greatest extreme. It is a triumph, a work of art. I was lucky enough to see it on the screen here in Boston - and let me tell you, a Blu-ray would certainly be worthwhile, because much of what Panahi is saying here has to do with the consistent shifts of image quality occurring throughout.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:15 pm**

lilycarver wrote:Honestly I could be wrong on the blu ray. I have come to assume all new releases are released on blu ray and in fact the film is
screened in many venues on blu ray. I am old fashioned and pretty much in the wrong forum as I basically do not watch DVDs (or blu rays) . I will try to check and follow up but if you live somewhere where it is playing try to see it on a real screen because in fact it is a film.

FYI the film is also being shown in the US in venues that want it in 35mm, mostly for logistical rather than visual reasons but still somewhat rare.

If there are 35 mm prints, then by default you should have a source that's good enough for Blu-ray, unless those prints look very, very bad. And I say that with the understanding that at least some of the film would not look "good enough" for Blu-ray. And at the very least, if we could get a Blu-ray edition, then we would have a version with subtitles on Blu-ray, as I've grown to greatly prefer the higher resolution PGS subtitles that the format uses--they are much easier on the eyes than DVD subtitles.

This is interesting now, as I had assumed the best elements for the film would max out at 720x576 (PAL DVD) resolution.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:25 pm**

McCrutchy wrote: If there are 35 mm prints, then by default you should have a source that's good enough for Blu-ray, unless those prints look very, very bad.

It depends entirely on the original source. The BFI prematurely announced a Blu-ray release of Of Time and the City, presumably based on the assumption that they could work from the 35mm prints. But when it transpired that the original film was assembled on SD Digibeta and that all the 35mm prints were sourced from that master, it became clear that a Blu-ray would be pointless. Not least because 35mm-to-BD would conceivably look worse than a direct Digibeta-to-DVD transfer, if only because there's an extra generation of duplication involved.

But I haven't seen This Is Not A Film yet, and I don't know if the entire piece was derived from the clandestine mobile phone footage. If there's actual 35mm or HD-sourced footage in there, the situation obviously changes somewhat.

And at the very least, we would have a version with subtitles on Blu-ray, as I've grown to greatly prefer the higher resolution PGS subtitles that the format uses--they are much easier on the eyes than DVD subtitles.

I agree, but from a production point of view it's harder to justify the significantly higher cost of authoring and pressing a Blu-ray if that's the only improvement you're getting.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:52 pm**

It's primarily HD-sourced footage.

Posted: **Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:03 pm**

JMULL222 wrote:It's primarily HD-sourced footage.

In which case a Blu-ray is eminently justified, and I'll be first in the queue to buy one - thanks!

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