BFI (British Film Institute)

[MichaelB]

Amazing! 28 hours of Mitchell & Kenyon films!

I spent a chunk of August and September writing 400-character blurbs for the BFI Player - towards the end I was dealing with films with such unpromising titles as [Unidentified Park] (c. 1901).

In fact, this is where putting this material out in toto can be very helpful - although many comments on the BFI's YouTube channel range somewhere along the "inane" to "flagrantly racist" spectrum (pretty much any footage of early 20th-century British life will attract the "See? Look how much nicer it was before the darkies moved in" brigade), there have also been some incredibly useful contributions that help identify places and people.

For an excellent example, look at the discussion here, where the teacher in John Krish's 1962 documentary Our School is not only identified by a former pupil, but his son later popped up to offer more concrete biographical details, such as the fact that he died six years ago. Researchers could spend weeks on stuff like this in the past, often with less success.

[zedz]

Amazing! 28 hours of Mitchell & Kenyon films!

Is the sublime Tram Rides through Nottingham (1902) included? That's a really beautiful film that didn't make it onto any of the released compilations.

EDIT: Well, it looks like it's ALL the Mitchell and Kenyon films , so I guess the answer is yes!

[Gregory]

The way that piece says the service will be available "nationwide" has me bracing myself for being unable to use it, at least for now. I wonder if the BFI plans to make it available everywhere.

[MichaelB]

The BFI Player has gone live.

It's currently restricted to UK residents and desktop/laptop PCs and Macs, but they promise other platforms (phones, tablets, etc.) very soon.

[tenia]

I'm currently trying to see what I can watch in France. I've been able to play Miranda Jluy masterclass, and the shorts Kill The Day and Calisthenics.
So it seems that the free material is not UK restricted.

[knives]

I do remember last spring seeing a primitive version of this with The Falls and Frear's The Burning available to Americans for free. The Masterclass also works for me so I don't think at least the free stuff is region coded.

[L.A.]

Any possibility that BFI would release Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray?

[Stefan Andersson]

Does the BFI still have rights to Mizoguchi´s Taira Clan Saga? Any interest in a Blu release?

[MichaelB]

Does the BFI still have rights to Mizoguchi´s Taira Clan Saga?

Very, very unlikely, I'd have thought. They released it on VHS in 2000, so the rights would definitely have come up for renewal several years ago - so why would they pay to renew them without at least bumping it up to DVD?

[peerpee]

There was a strange problem with TAIRA CLAN when I tried to licence it for the UK along with all the others for MoC in 2007. Can't remember the exact details, but Kadokawa were unable to offer it to us due to some kind of problem at their end (and it wasn't to do with the materials).

Like Teshigahara's THE MAN WITHOUT A MAP, another title tied up in some kind of red tape.

[antnield]

The BFI's Sam Dunn and Rhidian Davis discuss BFI Gothic with Diabolique magazine.

[antnield]

The BFI have announced Electric Shadows 2014, which promises to "encompass the BFI’s full range of exhibition, archive, digital, education, theatrical and DVD distribution and publishing initiatives, opening up previously hard to see Chinese cinema to UK audiences and making UK film accessible to what will soon become the world’s biggest box-office nation."

(The link takes you to the full announcement. No details yet as to what the DVD releases will be.)

[MichaelB]

This has been in the works for a very long time - I seem to recall preparatory trips to Beijing happening before I left the BFI, which was nearly three years ago.

[EddieLarkin]

If there's one era of filmmaking that I've been desperate to become more familiar with, it's the Chinese Golden Age. I've heard a lot about Ruan Lingyu but never seen any of her work. I hope most of everything they screen finds its way to Blu-ray in the near future.

[ZizouJuve]

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news ... ummer-2014

- Limited Edition Blu-ray SteelBookTM editions of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) and Nosferatu the Vampire (1979) (May)
- The Werner Herzog Collection – mammoth Blu-ray and DVD box sets compiling 17 of the legendary German director’s films from late 1960s to the early 1980s, with extras including Jack Bond’s long-unseen South Bank Show on Herzog from 1982 (July)
- Seven Samurai – digitally remastered 60th anniversary SteelBookTM and DVD editions of Kurosawa’s world-renowned classic (April)
- The Children’s Film Foundation Collection: Runaways – three classic British films including Hide and Seek (1979) (starring a teenage Gary Kemp) and Bond director Lewis Gilbert’s early film Johnny on the Run (1953) (April)
- Alain Robbe-Grillet: Six Films 1964-1974 – Blu-ray and DVD box sets making the controversial French director/writer’s enigmatic and sexually-charged films available for the very first time. Digitally remastered presentations of all films, including Trans-Europ Express (1966) and Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974), as well as interviews and exclusive audio commentaries by world-renowned cult cinema authority, Tim Lucas (June)
- Eyes Without a Face – Dual Format Edition of George Franju’s notorious 1960 arthouse horror with extensive extra features (July)

Exciting summer from BFI coming it seems.

[chatterjees]

BFI just made my day. KUDOS to BFI Now I can totally forget about MoC's announcement.

[Black Hat]

Interesting that they went with a box set for Robbe-Grillet after the initial announcements last year. Suppose that explains the delay. Has anybody heard any buzz bout the American releases? Was going to pick those two up but I'm thinking I'll hold off until the BFI box comes out. They definitely took the wind out of Redemption's sails announcing this just before their first two releases.

[knives]

I think by virtue of having more films, though missing out on four, the BFI is going to be the way to go unless some big upset happens.

[antnield]

MovieMail speak to Sam Dunn, head of BFI DVD.

[Stefan Andersson]

Any hopes of seeing Bill Forsyth´s BBC TV fantasy Andrina on DVD?

[Forrest Taft]

I asked the same question the day before you, in the thread for That Sinking Feeling. Since it's not an extra on the Sinking Feeling disc, I'm hoping it will appear as a future Flipside title. Has anyone seen it? I can find practically no information about this movie. Comfort and Joy should get a new release too. I never picked up the now OOP UK disc which is going for silly prices on amazon.

[MichaelB]

I saw it when it was broadcast, but remember very little about it.

[GaryC]

I saw it when it was broadcast, but remember very little about it.

Same here. It still exists in the archive, though that's not surprising for a production from 1981.

[MovieMail]

MovieMail speak to Sam Dunn, head of BFI DVD.

Cheers for posting our interview with Sam, some interesting hints at the release of "long-unseen but eagerly-awaited BBC titles and at least one Blu-ray premiere of a British cinema classic" as part of their upcoming sci-fi season.

Also the good news that That Sinking Feeling is being released with the original soundtrack.

[TMDaines]

The Chaplin Mutuals on the Divisa Blu-ray, over at Beaver.

Presumably we can expect a release of this from the BFI, especially as their current Chaplin Mutual DVDs have gone OOP?