criterionforum.org

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:49 am**

Amazon pre-order here

* New filmed interview with director Pedro Costa (Second Run exclusive)
* Joao Bénard on Pedro Costa (16 mins)
* Trailers
* All-new HD transfer with restored picture and sound
* Optimal quality dual layer disc
* Booklet featuring new essays

Posted: **Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:05 pm**

Excellent. With various UK and US Costa releases waiting in the wings, it's great to see perennial little battler Second Run be first cab off the rank. And that September release date, if it's correct, is the icing on the cake.

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:30 am**

Oh, Casa de lava. I see. Does anybody actually think of the title as The Blood?

Very glad to see this emerge at last, guys - presumably you're aiming for Sept to tie in with the Tate Modern retro? Shall I put off pre-ordering and buy one from you there?

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:59 am**

foggy eyes wrote:Oh, Casa de lava. I see. Does anybody actually think of the title as The Blood?
Very glad to see this emerge at last, guys - presumably you're aiming for Sept to tie in with the Tate Modern retro? Shall I put off pre-ordering and buy one from you there?

Hello Matthew - the film we are releasing first is called BLOOD (O SANGUE) and it's Pedro Costa's amazing debut feature from 1989, made about five years before Casa de lava. As you rightly surmise, the September release date is to co-incide with the Tate Modern's Costa retrospective.

But, even more than that, and as a very early bit of news for the Forum and still TBC, we are arranging a special screening of the film at the Curzon Soho on Wednesday 23rd September at 9pm with Pedro Costa in attendance for a Q+A!
Please put that in your diary, and we hope that many of you will come to that screening. We'll post more details as soon as they are confirmed.

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:47 am**

Great release guys - preordered it immediately. Would love to see more Costa films released if it's possible (I don't know what the UK rights situation is like). Is anyone ever going to release Colossal Youth (with English subtitles)?

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:50 am**

Oedipax wrote:Is anyone ever going to release Colossal Youth (with English subtitles)?

Word on the street has it this'll be a MoC release next year... (see their 'Random Speculation' thread)

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:22 pm**

antnield wrote:
Oedipax wrote:Is anyone ever going to release Colossal Youth (with English subtitles)?
Word on the street has it this'll be a MoC release next year... (see their 'Random Speculation' thread)

... and having it on MoC would make all of us here very happy.

Posted: **Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:01 pm**

Bikey wrote:Hello Matthew - the film we are releasing first is called BLOOD (O SANGUE) and it's Pedro Costa's amazing debut feature from 1989, made about five years before Casa de lava. As you rightly surmise, the September release date is to co-incide with the Tate Modern's Costa retrospective.

But, even more than that, and as a very early bit of news for the Forum and still TBC, we are arranging a special screening of the film at the Curzon Soho on Wednesday 23rd September at 9pm with Pedro Costa in attendance for a Q+A!
Please put that in your diary, and we hope that many of you will come to that screening. We'll post more details as soon as they are confirmed.

Woops - sorry, temporary mental lapse. I was thinking of the fact that you were rumoured to be releasing Casa de lava first, and went and wrote that instead of O Sangue. Need a good slap (or two, preferably in frontal shot-reverse shot). Still, it surprised me to hear the English alternative for some reason - no doubt because these earlier films don't get talked about as much as Vanda or CY...

Screening sounds great, although I'm thinking of going up to FACT in Liverpool then - for obvious reasons!

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:26 am**

Amazon lists some extras.

Posted: **Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:34 am**

Thanks for that - I was about to email Second Run to ask what they were!

I watched a checkdisc last night - it's hard to assess with any real accuracy as it was clearly transferred at a much lower bitrate than the final release will be. But the underlying source materials seem to be in superb shape (Martin Schaefer's black-and-white cinematography is sometimes distractingly stunning), so this should be well worth waiting for.

Posted: **Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:44 pm**

How does this rank with the rest of his work? I've never seen a Pedro Costa movie.

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2009 5:27 am**

james wrote:How does this rank with the rest of his work? I've never seen a Pedro Costa movie.

It's a masterpiece, and quite different from his other films — all masterpieces. But as in the later films, every shot is a revelation / an image. One of the most beautiful black-and-white films ever made. The tonality: think of THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, CLASS RELATIONS (but inkier), MALA NOCHE, or (later) the first hour of ELOGE DE L'AMOUR.

Posted: **Sun Aug 30, 2009 1:54 am**

Cover art is up at Moviemail.

Posted: **Sun Aug 30, 2009 10:52 am**

The listings for the Costa retro are also up on the Tate Modern website. Unfortunately I won't be able to make more than one or two screenings (it would be nice if they showed things more than once, like a real cinema), so I hope more DVDs (esp. of the 90s stuff) are forthcoming.

Posted: **Sun Aug 30, 2009 4:56 pm**

Gropius wrote:The listings for the Costa retro are also up on the Tate Modern website. Unfortunately I won't be able to make more than one or two screenings (it would be nice if they showed things more than once, like a real cinema), so I hope more DVDs (esp. of the 90s stuff) are forthcoming.

Woah:

Programme Six (Friday 2 October 2009, 19.00)

Ne change rien, Portugal/France, 2009, 98 min

Programme Seven (Saturday 3 October 2009, 15.00)

This programme presents two films by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, whom Costa has previously filmed. Itinéraire de Jean Bricard (France 2008, 40 min) is an evocative telling of the Loire region’s recent history. In Sicilia! (Italy/France 1999, 66 min) a man becomes reacquainted with his native Sicily after having lived in New York.

Programme Eight (Saturday 3 October 2009, 19.00)

In 2001 Costa filmed Straub and Huillet at work editing Sicilia! Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (Portugal/France 2001, 104 min), a revealing insight into the working dynamic of two legends of cinema. As an encore 6 Bagatelas (Portugal/France 2003, 18 min) presents six unused scenes from Hidden Smile.

Programme Nine (Sunday 4 October 2009, 12.00)

Jean-Luc Godard, Puissance de la parole, 1988, 25 min / Andy Warhol, Beauty #2, 1965, 66 min / DW Griffith, The Struggle, 1931, 84 min

Programme Ten (Sunday 4 October 2009, 15.00)

Jean-Eustache and Jean-Michel Barjol, The Pig, 1970, 50 min / Jean-Pierre Gorin, Routine Pleasures, 1986, 81 min

...Jean Bricard is ace. I was complaining the other day that the programme wasn't up yet, so thanks for letting us know, Gropius!

Posted: **Sun Aug 30, 2009 6:18 pm**

I think The Blood might be the only screening I might be able to make; perhaps Colossal Youth too.

I'll miss Ne Change Rien, but presumably another cinema in London will screen it at some point.

Posted: **Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:20 am**

Gropius wrote: Programme Ten (Sunday 4 October 2009, 15.00)

Jean-Eustache and Jean-Michel Barjol, The Pig, 1970, 50 min / Jean-Pierre Gorin, Routine Pleasures, 1986, 81 min

Off-topic I know, but this is one of the most bizarre and unmissable double features I've ever heard of. Actually, with a couple of obvious exceptions, screening just about anything alongside Le Cochon would make for a bizarre double-feature.

Posted: **Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:51 am**

zedz wrote:Off-topic I know, but this is one of the most bizarre and unmissable double features I've ever heard of. Actually, with a couple of obvious exceptions, screening just about anything alongside Le Cochon would make for a bizarre double-feature.

I know - it's staggering. For one thing, neither of these films have ever been available on video (as far as I'm aware), and to say that they're rarely screened would be quite an understatement...

Posted: **Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:46 am**

We also have a screening of Blood on Wednesday 23rd September- with Pedro Costa in attendance followed by a discussion with critic Jonathan Romney.

Blood (O Sangue)
9pm Wednesday September 23rd, Curzon Soho Cinema, Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1

Posted: **Sun Sep 06, 2009 4:15 pm**

A lovely review from Hannah Lack in this month's Dazed & Confused:

Posted: **Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:19 am**

Received this email from Amazon today:

We regret to report that the release of the following item has been cancelled:

Pedro Costa "The Blood [DVD] [1989]"

Bikey, say it ain't so!

EDIT: Just checked Amazon, and Blood is still available for pre-order. What's going on here?

Posted: **Tue Sep 22, 2009 2:59 am**

I got the same email. This is the second Costa DVD that's been cancelled on me after CinemaScope cancelled the promised Colossal Youth DVD. Where is that Criterion box?

Posted: **Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:09 am**

Jesus, this is terrible! It's my second time around as well, since the Cinema Scope incident. Is Costa impossible to work with on this kind of thing? Or the people controlling his films' distribution? Or just some cruel conspiracy of bad luck...?

Seems to have vanished off the Second Run DVD site as well.

Posted: **Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:31 am**

This is from the Une femme marie(MOC) thread

George Kaplan wrote:And, from the downloadable pdf now up on the website:

#093 MAN HUNT Fritz Lang 1941
#101 NO QUARTO DA VANDA Pedro Costa 2000
#102 COLOSSAL YOUTH Pedro Costa 2006

Could MOC be releasing The Blood?

Posted: **Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:43 am**

Amazon seems to have just pushed the item back a week, to the 28th. And, unless I'm mistaken, I never saw a listing for it on Second Run's website at the time I placed the original order.

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