The British Film Institute will add various new titles to its Blu-ray catalog between May and June. Amongst them are Maurice Hatton's
Long Shot (1978), Alan Clarke's
Rita, Sue and Bob (1987), and Mark Cousins'
Stockholm, My Love (2016).
Long Shot
Synopsis: Rarely seen in the last 40 years our latest Flipside marks the release of this important and funny slice of Scottish cinema. A budding Scottish film producer tries to get his ambitious Aberdeen-set western financed, and while he attracts some major stars and directors to the film, he finds that with their support come more and more script changes...
Filmed around the 1977 Edinburgh Film Festival, Long Shot is a deadpan satire about the trials and tribulations of British independent filmmaking, with terrific cameos from Wim Wenders, Susannah York, Stephen Frears, Alan Bennett and John Boorman.
Special Features:
- Scene Nun, Take One – 26 minute short from 1964 starring Suzannah York and directed by Maurice Hatton
- Sean Connery's Edinburgh – 28 minute short from 1982 starring the iconic actor. The film was sponsored by the City of Edinburgh District Council and aimed at increasing tourist trade
- Hooray for Holyrood – a 1986 Scottish Television short presented by Robbie Coltrane celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Edinburgh Film Festival
- Booklet with new writing from Vic Pratt and Dylan Cave, plus full film credits
- And More...
STREET DATE: JUNE 26.
Stockholm My Love
Synopsis: The latest film by British auteur Mark Cousins (I am Belfast, The Story of Film). Stockholm My Love follows the footsteps of Alva Achebe (Neneh Cherry), a Swedish architect fascinated by the way buildings influence lives, but haunted by a tragic event from her past.
Filmed on the streets of the Swedish capital by Cousins and acclaimed cinematographer Christopher Doyle (best known for his work with Wong Kai Wai on In the Mood for Love), Stockholm My Love is a visually stunning essay film about loss and rejuvenation. The films marks the acting debut of acclaimed musician and singer Neneh Cherry.
Special Features:
- Behind-the-scenes making of featurette (2016)
- Mini films of key locations that feature in the film (2016)
- Filmed bus tour around Stockholm with Mark Cousins, produced by the Swedish Film Institute (2016)
- Theatrical and teaser trailers
- Fully illustrated booklet with new writing on the film by film critic Ian Christie and full film credits
STREET DATE: JUNE 26.
Daughters of the Dust
Synopsis: At the dawn of the 20th century, a multi-generational family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina – former West African slaves who adopted many of their ancestors' Yoruba traditions – struggle to maintain their cultural heritage and folklore while contemplating a migration to the mainland, even further from their roots.
This is a new 25th anniversary restoration of director Julie Dash's landmark film.
The first wide release by a black female filmmaker, Daughters of the Dust was met with wild critical acclaim and rapturous audience response when it initially opened in 1991.
Casting a long legacy, Daughters of the Dust still resonates today, most recently as a major influence on Beyonce's video album Lemonade. Restored (in conjunction with UCLA) for the first time, complete with the correct colour grading overseen by cinematographer Arthur Jafa, audiences will finally see the film exactly as Julie Dash intended.
STREET DATE: JUNE 26.
Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith
This meditative, immersive film from Stuart A. Staples and David Reeve is a tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith.
Smith worked in the early years of the 20th century, developing various cinematographic and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action.
Minute Bodies is an interpretative edit that combines Smith's original footage with a new contemporary score to create a hypnotic, alien yet familiar dreamscape that connects us to the sense of wonder Smith must have felt as he peered through his own lenses and seen these micro-worlds for the first time.
Features new score by Tindersticks (
Bastards) with Thomas Belhom and Christine Ott.
Special Features:
- Bonus short films from the BFI National Film Archive:
- The Birth of a Flower (F Percy Smith, 1910)
- The Strength and Agility of Insects (F Percy Smith, 1911)
- The Wonders of Harmonic Designing (1913)
- Plants of the underworld/Down Under (1930)
- Nature's Double Lifers (Mary Field, 1932)
- He Would a Wooing Go (Mary Field, 1936)
- Lupins (Mary Field, 1936)
- The Life Cycle of the Newt (Mary Field, 1942)
STREET DATE; JUNE 12.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Synopsis: Following an acclaimed career in TV drama (much of which was made available in last year's BFI box set release, Dissent and Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC 1969-1989), director Alan Clarke achieved a box-office hit with the much loved raunchy comedy Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
Adapted by Andrea Dunbar from her own play, based on her upbringing on Bradford's Buttershaw estate, Rita, Sue and Bob Too contrasts bawdy laughs with astute social commentary.
30 years on and newly restored by the BFI, the film is released on Blu-ray for the first time in a Dual Format Edition. Extras include a newly filmed documentary, Having a Ball: The making of Rita, Sue and Bob Too, with extensive cast and crew interviews.
Bradford teenagers Rita (Siobhan Finneran) and Sue (Michelle Holmes) regularly babysit for Bob (George Costigan) and Michelle (Lesley Sharp), whose comfortable suburban lifestyle contrasts with the girls' bleak life on a council estate. One evening when Bob is taking them home, he smooth-talks the girls into a three-way sexual relationship. At first it is all a bit of fun, but tempers flare once the affair is out in the open.
Special Features:
- NEW 2K restoration by the BFI from the original Super 16mm camera negative
- Having A Ball: The making of Rita, Sue and Bob Too (Jon Robertson, 2017, 69 mins): a newly filmed documentary with extensive cast and crew interviews
- Textless opening sequence
- Stills and Collections Gallery
- Theatrical trailer
- 36-page illustrated booklet with writing by David Rolinson, Andrea Dunbar and Max Stafford-Clark, and full film credits
STREET DATE: MAY 22.
FILM / NOTFILM
Synopsis: FILM (Alan Schneider,1965, 22 mins) is the Nobel prize winner Samuel Beckett's only screenplay, starring the legendary Buster Keaton. Made in 1965 this short has been recently restored by Ross Lipman and the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
In his extensive Kino-Essay, NOTFILM (2015, 129 mins), Ross Lipman explores the literary, cinematic and personal history surrounding the production. Citing clips from the work of Buńuel, Vertov, Vigo and Eisenstein, and featuring interviews with cinematographer Haskell Wexler, Billie Whitelaw and the film's producer Barney Rosset, NOTFILM examines the project's themes and legacy in an original, creative and dynamic fashion.
Also included is the rare 1979 British remake of FILM starring the comedian Max Wall.
Special Features:
- The Street Scene (6 mins): A Lost Scene Reconstruction from the Film Outtakes
- The Dog and Cat takes (9mins): outakes from the 1965 version of Film
- "What if E's Eyes Were Closed?" (7 mins): Audio Recordings of Beckett, Kaufman and Schneider (7 mins, with English captioning)
- Buster Keaton and Film: James Karen in Conversation (42 mins)
- Memories of Samuel Beckett: An Afternoon with James Knowlson (8 mins)
- Jeanette Seaver: Beckett and Godot (4 mins)
- Stills and photo Gallery (TBC mins)
- Photographing Beckett (7 mins)
- The Music of NOTFILM: Downloadable MP3 Recordings by Mihály Víg (DVD only)
STREET DATE: MAY 22.
Madame de...
Synopsis: When, beset by debt, the titular Countess Louise (Danielle Darrieux) decides to sell a pair of earrings that were a wedding gift from her husband André (Charles Boyer), she unwittingly sets in motion a chain of events that will have serious consequences not only for the Parisian couple but for André's mistress and for an Italian Baron (Vittorio De Sica) who purchases the, by then, much-travelled jewellery.
Featuring nuanced performances by all three lead actors and directed by celebrated auteur Max Ophuls, this intricately constructed and elegantly designed drama is a searing study of fateful passion wound up in deceits, deals and desires.
STREET DATE: MAY 22.