Foreign Film Preorder List (1 Viewer)

[Pascal A]

Updated.
Added the following New Yorker film announcements for 1/23:
City of Women (Federico Fellini)
Loulou (Maurice Pialat)
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Strictly Film School

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

I suppose it is out in Sweden, but I do need english subs

It sure is, http://discshop.se:80/ds/product_body.asp?pf%5Fid=30676

 

[Pascal A]

Updated. No word on the status of Mother and Son .

Added:
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (Francois Girard, Canada) (2/20)
Butterfly (Jose Luis Cuerda, Spain) (2/20)
Wonderland (Michael Winterbottom, UK) (2/20)
Nightwatch (Ole Bornedal, Denmark) (2/27)
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, UK) (2/27)
Pixote (Hector Babenco, Brazil) (3/13)
Some silent films woth noting:
It (Clarence Badger, Josef Von Sternberg) 2/20
Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith) 2/20
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Strictly Film School

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

Pascal,
Any word on the chances for a Region 1 DVD release of Pedro Almodovars' 1997 Carne Tremula (Live Flesh)? I would really like to get more of his works available here...VHS is just not gonna cut it.
Bruce
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"Oh, I never take heavy halucinagetics...I took a puff about five years ago and tried to take my pants off over my head."

 

[Pascal A]

Live Flesh is an MGM title, but wasn't among the first wave of the World Films collection announced for release on January 23rd. At the rate that the studio is planning to release films from this collection though, I would suspect that it's just a matter of time.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Pascal A]

Updated.
Added:
3/16 It's Raining on Santiago (Helvio Soto, Chile)
Also worth noting, is the Image Entertainment triple feature release on one DVD of Cecil B. DeMille's : Carmen and The Cheat and the Chaplin short Burlesque On Carmen on 3/6/01.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Pascal A]

Updated list with several foreign and independent films:
1/23 Bitter Sugar (Leon Ichasco)
1/30 Jesus's Son (Alison Maclean)
3/6 Short: International Release, Vol. 3 {no info on content}
3/13 Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder)
4/10 Roma and Satyricon (Federico Fellini)
5/8 Diva (Jean-Jacques Beinix) {Anchor Bay release}
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[DonaldB]

I found this good news reported on 1/10 from DVDFile.com.

, due 3/20. The disc is pretty feature packed, sporting an audio commentary Lars Von Trier and another commentary with Bjork, two new featurettes "Film Factory: An Exploration of DV Filmmaking in Lars Von Trier's Creative Infrastructure" and " Creating the Modern Musical: An Exploration of the Music and Dance", cast filmographies and the trailer. DVD-ROM features include the complete theatrical website and the new "New Line Hot Spot." The disc also sports an anamorphic widescreen transfer, and is also New Line's second DTS-encoded title, with English Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround tracks. Retail is $24.95.

 

[Pascal A]

Updated the list to add von Trier's Dancer in the Dark and the 3/13 release of The Wisdom of Crocodiles (Immortality) by Leong Po Chih.
Also noted the delays of several World Artists releases (Begotten, A Place Without Limits, Women).
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Strictly Film School

 

[Rich Malloy]

DANCER IN THE DARK!!!
Although I guess these aren't 'foreign films' (depending on where you're reading this thread), New Line is releasing Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy and Gummo with some extras.
More exciting to me personally is some news that I wonder if anyone can confirm(?). I was surfing around yesterday and found a 3/27 release date for Raul Ruiz' surrealist adaptation of Proust's Time Regained. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find this announcement again and so can't confirm it - but I'm sure I saw it!
[UPDATE: found that release notice at Digitally Obsessed here confirming the 3/27 release date.]

 

[CharlesD]

*Pelle the Conqueror (August, Sweden)

Amazon.com listed this as being released yesterday (Jan 16 2001) I contacted Anchor Bay about it and they said it is actually slated for an April 2001 release. Amazon now lists it as April 10 2001 release.
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-- Will Work for Five Million Dollars

 

[Rich Malloy]

New info in Digitally Obsessed (and yet more proof that Kino On Video is certainly one of the best, up-and-coming DVD producers):
From: Kino on Video
For Immediate Release, January 15, 2001
Deluxe Edition of Eisenstein¹s QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO! and Paradjanov features on DVD from Kino on Video
On April 3rd, 2001 KINO ON VIDEO will release four important films on DVD from two legendary filmmakers: the father of Soviet montage, Sergei Eisenstein, and Armenian lyrical folklorist Sergei Paradjanov. After a difficult stint in Hollywood, Eisenstein went south of the border and started work on a documentary celebrating the people and culture called QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO! (1931). Grigoriy Alexandrov, Eisenstein¹s chief collaborator, later cut the film and it had its first proper release in 1979. MÉXICO! will be available in an exclusive ³Deluxe Edition² containing two shorts from the same period: ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE (1930), and an amazing rediscovery, MISERY AND FORTUNE OF WOMAN (1929).
Never an icon of the Soviet tradition like Eisenstein, Sergei Paradjanov was an auteur in his own right. His film on Armenian poet Sayat Nova THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES (1969) is a complex series of painterly tableaux recalling Byzantine mosaics: an ode to the great poet. This DVD contains the documentary PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM (1994) as an added bonus. Finally, Kino is releasing Paradjanov¹s last two features on one DVD at $34.95: The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985) and Ashik Kerib (1988). Both bold and exotic period pieces on love and war, these unique films blossom and celebrate tales from Pardjanov¹s native land. All three DVDs will pre-book on March 6, 2001 for a street date of April 3, 2001. QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO! will have an SRP of $29.95 whereas the Paradjanov films will be at $34.95.
QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO!
In 1930 Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein emigrated west in hopes of testing the capabilities of the American film industry. Quickly ostracized from Hollywood, and inspired by documentarian Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North) and leftist author Upton Sinclair (The Jungle), Eisenstein, Grigory Alexandrov and photographer Eduard Tissé wandered south of the border where they began filming a highly stylized documentary on the people and volatile social climate of Mexico. Unfortunately, a lack of funds prohibited the films completion and the famed director was unable to edit the film. In 1979, by referring to Eisenstein¹s extensive notes and sketches, Alexandrov assembled the most definitive version of the film as close to Eisenstein¹s vision as one is ever likely to come.
A blend of the ethnographic, the political, the scenic and the surreal, QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO! is nothing short of brilliant and remains superior to the legion of films it strongly influenced: Welles’ IT¹S ALL TRUE, Jodorowsky¹s EL TOPO and the works of Sergio Leone. With sequences devoted to the Edenic land of Tehuantepec, the savage majesty of the bullfight, the struggles of the noble peon and the hypnotic imagery of the Day of the Dead, QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO! is a vivid tapestry of Mexican life which thanks to Alexandrov¹s careful restoration takes its rightful place alongside Eisenstein¹s other legendary works. Also included on this DVD are ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE (1930), and an amazing rediscovery, MISERY AND FORTUNE OF WOMAN (1929).
Eisenstein¹s first sound film, ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE is an attempt to apply Soviet montage theories to sound/visual editing. It is a dazzling symphony of images and sounds, made in collaboration with Alexandrov and Tissé. Intended to encourage legal and sanitary birth/abortion clinics in Europe, MISERY AND FORTUNE OF WOMAN is a stunning dramatization of the plight of working class women, displaying all the earmarks of Soviet montage and the distinctive genius of Eisenstein.
QUÉ VIVA MÉXICO!
Mexico/U.S.S.R./U.S. € 1931/1979
Black & White € 85 min.
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Produced by Grigory Alexandrov
Photographed by Eduard Tissé
Reconstructed by Grigory Alexandrov and Nikita Orlov
with ROMANCE SENTIMENTALE (France, 1930, 20 min.)
and MISERY AND FORTUNE OF WOMAN (Switzerland, 1929, 20 min. excerpt)
UPC# 7 38329 02022 4 SRP $29.95
PREBOOK: MAR. 6 STREET: APR. 10
THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
Sergei Paradjanov (1924-1990) has been acclaimed as the greatest Russian filmmaker to appear since the golden age of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko. His baroque masterpiece, THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, was banned in Russia for its religious sentiment and nonconformity to ³Socialist realism²; its director, a tirelessly outspoken campaigner for human rights, was convicted on a number of trumped up charges and sentenced to five years of hard labor in the gulag. A wave of protest from the international film community led to his release in 1978.
Aesthetically the most extreme film ever made in the USSR, POMEGRANATES, his hallucinatory epic account of the life of the 18th century Armenian national poet Sayat Nova, conveys the glory of what a cinema of high art can be like. Conceived as an extraordinarily complex series of painterly tableaux that recall Byzantine mosaics, the film is a dreamlike icon come-to-life of astonishing beauty and rigor.
It evokes the poet¹s childhood and youth, his days as a troubadour at the court of King Heraclius II of Georgia, his retreat to a monastery, his old age and death. There has never been a film like this magical work. It fully justifies critic Alexei Korotyukov¹s remark: Paradjanov made films not about how things are, but how they would have been had he been God.
PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM
An absorbing portrait of one of the most colorful and revered figures in world cinema, PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM offers an affectionate and insightful look at the tumultuous career of the late Sergei Paradjanov‹artist, dissident, romantic and iconoclast.
From his early years as a protege of silent film legends Dovzhenko and Eisenstein, REQUIEM charts the evolution of the controversial director¹s artistry, which culminated in the creation of brilliant, hallucinatory film fantasies of Ukrainian poetry and folk legends. Rather than being celebrated for this mesmerizing work, the Armenian director was branded a ³surrealist² by Soviet authorities and imprisoned for his artistic and intellectual challenges to the reigning dogma of socialist realism.
Rare, extensive interviews with the outspoken director are laced with clips from Paradjanov¹s filmic seductions of the eye and imagination, including ASHIK KERIB, THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS, SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS. Scenes from the director¹s earlier films, unavailable in the west (such as ANDRIESH, THE FIRST LAD, UKRAINIAN RHAPSODY), can be seen for the first time. Drawings, photographs and fragments of uncompleted films coalesce to make PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM a revealing account of an unforgettable artist.
Special Feature: HAGOP HOVNATANIAN (1965, 10 min) An early short directed by Sergei Paradjanov about the eponymous Armenian painter.
The COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
Armenia € 1969 € Color € 88 min.
Directed by Sergei Paradjanov
In Russian with English subtitles
with PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM
Germany/U.S. € 1994 € Color € 57 min.
In English and Russian with English subtitles
and HAGOP HOVNATANIAN (1965, 10 min.)
UPC# 7 38329 02012 5 SRP $29.95
PREBOOK: MAR. 6 STREET: APR. 10
THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS/ASHIK KERIB (on one DVD)
THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS
Based on ancient legend, this dazzling film by visionary director Sergei Paradjanov is a surreal ode to the Georgian warriors throughout the ages who died for their country. Repeated efforts by the Georgian people to construct a defensive stronghold continually fail. The building collapses until a fortune teller remembers an old prophecy that the son of her erstwhile lover must be bricked up alive in order for the fortress to stand. The young man is faced with the prospect of sacrificing himself to save his country.
ASHIK KERIB
From Sergei Paradjanov, one of the most acclaimed experimental directors of the Soviet cinema, comes Ashik Kerib, a 19th century romantic tale evocatively brought to life. In recounting Lermontov’s fable of a wandering minstrel, trying to earn enough money to marry the girl he loves, Paradjanov dispenses with conventional storytelling devices in order to present a boldly unique cinematic experience. Glorious tableaux, exquisitely composed, choreographed and photographed, are combined with intertitles, images of early Russian artwork and a haunting blend of traditional and contemporary musical forms, to create an enthralling and utterly unforgettable film.
THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS
U.S.S.R. € 1985 € Color € 89 min.
Directed by Sergei Paradjanov
Georgian dialogue with English subtitles
with ASHIK KERIB
U.S.S.R. € 1988 € Color € 75 min.
In Russian with English subtitles
UPC# 7 38329 02032 3 SRP $29.95
PREBOOK: MAR. 6 STREET: APR. 10

 

[KurtE]

I don't know how reliable this is, but within the Cover Arts section of The Digital Bits site for April 10th, covers of the following films are shown:
King of Hearts (Phillippe de Broca, France, 1966)
How I Won the War (Richard Lester, UK, 1967)
Live Flesh (Pedro Almodovar, Spain, 1997)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Almodovar, Spain, 1988)
Haven't been able to find any other confirmation of these titles for 4/10, but having cover art is sure encouraging. The page with the covers is here.
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DVD's

 

[Pascal A]

Great, just as I figured...I'm sent out to teach a course, and everything happens.

I must say, I'm shocked to see the Paradjanov films being released by Kino way before Criterion has even planned to release Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. It bodes very well for Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Blue Kite and Horse Thief, which are also Kino's.
Thanks for everyone's input. I'll update the list accordingly.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Pascal A]

Updated.
Added to the list:
3/20 A Passage to India (David Lean)
4/10 The Adjuster (Atom Egoyan)
5/15 Tora! Tora! Tora! (Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Richard Fleischer)
Also, Black Narcissus and Double Suicide are now shown as 1/30 releases.
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Strictly Film School

 

[Pascal A]

Updated.
The big news on this update is Kurosawa's Madadayo, to be released on 3/13.
On 4/3 comes Stefan Ruzowitzky's horror film, Anatomie (a.k.a. Anatomy), with Franka Potente of Run Lola Run
6/26 is the date for the next wave of Anchor Bay/Werner Herzog films: Fata Morgana, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, and Stroszek.
Lastly, Enzo Castellari's spaghetti western Keoma (a.k.a. Desperado or The Violent Breed) will also be released on 6/26.
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[Pascal A]

Updated with two more 3/13 releases:
The Stars' Caravan (Arto Halonen) - Unclear whether this one is a documentary or feature film, but the premise is the story of a projectionist who continues to bring cinema to the remote areas of Kyrgyzstan, even after the Soviet Union has discontinued funding for the showing of propaganda films.
Bridge (Gerard Depardieu & Frederic Auburtin) Depardieu directed effort about a wife’s infidelity. The film also stars Too Beautiful for You co-star, Carole Bouquet, and Charles Berling (L'Ennui, Love Etc.)
Lastly, does anyone have an updated status for I Know Where I'm Going!? Most sites still list the 1/23 release date.
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[Rich Malloy]

The Image site has I Know Where I'm Going moved back to 2/27.
BTW, does anyone know who holds the distribution rights to Chris Marker's documentary on Andrei Tarkovsky, Une journee d'Andrei Arsenevitch? Or Sans soleil?
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"Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere."

Al's DVD Collection
Al's Criterion Collection

 

[Pascal A]

My VHS copy of Sans Soleil is New Yorker Video. I don't know about the Marker documentary though.
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[Rich Malloy]

New Yorker Video - that's promising!