Radiance Films Announces June Releases
HomeRadiance Films Announces June Releases
Posted March 6, 2024 08:45 AM by Webmaster
Radiance Films has announced its June batch of Blu-ray releases. They are: Sympathy for the Underdog (1971), Bandits of Orgosolo (1961), and The Agitator: Three Provocations from the Wild World of Jean-Pierre Mocky (1982-1987).
Sympathy for the Underdog
Description: Returning from a ten-year prison sentence, former gang leader Gunji (Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss) finds that his turf has been taken over by his former enemy, now a large crime syndicate with a legal corporate front. Looking for new opportunities, he gathers his old crew and heads for the island of Okinawa, a legal grey zone ripe for the taking. Made just before Kinji (Yakuza Graveyard) Fukasaku's 1970s streak of yakuza movie masterpieces, Sympathy for the Underdog is a key film in the development of this director's unique style and themes.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
UK STREET DATE: JUNE 24.
Bandits of Orgosolo
Description: A Sardinian peasant is suspected of murder following an encounter with bandits. In order to survive, he has no option but to turn to banditry himself. Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, Bandits of Orgosolo continues the traditions of Visconti and De Sica yet with his own style and rhythms Vittorio De Seta musters just as much power as the earlier masters. Despite awards and plaudits on release this incredible film only now makes its debut on home video. Upon release, Bandits moved Martin Scorsese to observe: "It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet."
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Bandits of Orgosolo + The Lost World
Description: A Sardinian peasant is suspected of murder following an encounter with bandits. In order to survive, he has no option but to turn to banditry himself. Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, Bandits of Orgosolo continues the traditions of Visconti and De Sica yet with his own style and rhythms Vittorio De Seta musters just as much power as the earlier masters. This release includes De Seta's remarkable short film programme 'The Lost World' comprising his Cannes Film Festival award-winning short film Islands of Fire and others which survey Italy's poorest communities. Despite awards and plaudits on release these incredible films only now make their English language debut on home video. Upon release, Bandits moved Martin Scorsese to observe: "It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet."
Special Features and Technical Specs:
DISC ONE
The Agitator: Three Provocations from the Wild World of Jean-Pierre Mocky
Description: Jean-Pierre Mocky was a prolific icon in French cinema. Actor, director, novelist, and in-demand raconteur, Mocky made mainstream films with an independent spirit, even owning a cinema to help the distribution of his films. Yet those films had a specific style, unmistakably his, often with controversial and outlandish themes, and he came to be known as a wild and untameable force, acting as an uncompromising agitator within the French film industry for over six decades. Three of his wild cinematic adventures from the 1980s are collected in this new boxset. Cult horror sensation Litan, hooligan horror Kill the Referee and Hitchcockian mystery Agent Trouble are presented from new 4K restorations on Blu-ray for the first time outside of France.
Worried by a disturbing dream, Nora wakes to find her husband missing during a trip to Litan. She goes out to find him but encounters one bizarre event after another taking place at the village festival, including uncanny acts and a masked marching band. As Nora and Jock attempt to escape the village, a series of strange murders take place against the backdrop of a mad doctor performing experiments on the recently deceased. Jean-Pierre Mocky's Litan is a classic cult Euro-horror and a Kafkaesque fever dream of surrealist imagery, arrestingly shot by Edmond Richard (The Trial, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).
When a referee calls a penalty that causes a French football team to crash out of the championship, their ultra-dedicated hooligan fans vow to track him down and murder him by the end of the evening, as Inspector Granowski (played by director Jean-Pierre Mocky) attempts to stem the carnage. With an unrelenting one-night narrative recalling After Hours and Green Room, Kill the Referee mixes black humour with horror as its escalating sense of dread builds toward a shattering climax.
A bus of fifty French tourists lay dead. While the driver makes a call, a wanderer, Victorien (Tom Novembre, Denti), boards the bus and robs all the passengers. Returning home he visits his aunt Amanda (Catherine Deneuve, The Hunger), and lets her in on his secret, unwittingly bringing her to the attention of icy hitman Alex (Richard Bohringer, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover). A conspiracy thriller reminiscent of Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Mocky's wonderfully eccentric mystery has a light comic touch that carefully balances its grotesque flourishes. Featuring a wonderful cast including César-nominated Dominique Lavant, Pierre Arditi and Kristin Scott Thomas in only her second screen appearance.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Sympathy for the Underdog
Description: Returning from a ten-year prison sentence, former gang leader Gunji (Koji Tsuruta, Big Time Gambling Boss) finds that his turf has been taken over by his former enemy, now a large crime syndicate with a legal corporate front. Looking for new opportunities, he gathers his old crew and heads for the island of Okinawa, a legal grey zone ripe for the taking. Made just before Kinji (Yakuza Graveyard) Fukasaku's 1970s streak of yakuza movie masterpieces, Sympathy for the Underdog is a key film in the development of this director's unique style and themes.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- High-Definition digital transfer
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- Audio commentary by yakuza film expert Nathan Stuart (2024)
- Interview with Fukasaku biographer Olivier Hadouchi (2024)
- Visual essay on Okinawa on screen by film historian and author Aaron Gerow (2024)
- Trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Bastian Meiresonne and an archival review of the film
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
- REGION-A/B "LOCKED"
UK STREET DATE: JUNE 24.
Bandits of Orgosolo
Description: A Sardinian peasant is suspected of murder following an encounter with bandits. In order to survive, he has no option but to turn to banditry himself. Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, Bandits of Orgosolo continues the traditions of Visconti and De Sica yet with his own style and rhythms Vittorio De Seta musters just as much power as the earlier masters. Despite awards and plaudits on release this incredible film only now makes its debut on home video. Upon release, Bandits moved Martin Scorsese to observe: "It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet."
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- NEW 4K RESTORATION from the original camera negative by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with Titanus with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- New interview with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (2024, 28 mins)
- New interview with curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht (2024, 11 mins)
- Trailer
- Optional English subtitles
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Roberto Curti
- Limited Edition of 2000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
- REGION-FREE
Bandits of Orgosolo + The Lost World
Description: A Sardinian peasant is suspected of murder following an encounter with bandits. In order to survive, he has no option but to turn to banditry himself. Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, Bandits of Orgosolo continues the traditions of Visconti and De Sica yet with his own style and rhythms Vittorio De Seta musters just as much power as the earlier masters. This release includes De Seta's remarkable short film programme 'The Lost World' comprising his Cannes Film Festival award-winning short film Islands of Fire and others which survey Italy's poorest communities. Despite awards and plaudits on release these incredible films only now make their English language debut on home video. Upon release, Bandits moved Martin Scorsese to observe: "It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet."
Special Features and Technical Specs:
DISC ONE
- NEW 4K RESTORATION from the original camera negative by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with Titanus with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
- New interview with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (2024, 28 mins)
- New interview with curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht (2024, 11 mins)
- The Lost World: A program of ten restored short films by De Seta, featuring Islands of Fire (1954, 11 mins), The Age of the Swordfish (1954, 11 mins), Golden Parable (1955, 10 mins), Sea Countrymen (1955, 11 mins), Solfatara (1955, 11 mins), Easter in Sicily (1955, 10 mins), Orgosolo's Shepherds (1958, 11 mins), Fishing Boats (1959, 11 mins), A Day in Barbagia (1958, 11 mins), The Forgotten (1959, 21 mins), restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.
- Archival interview with Vittorio De Seta (2008, 18 mins)
- New interview with curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht (2024, 21 mins)
- Trailer
- Optional English subtitles
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Roberto Curti
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
- REGION-FREE
The Agitator: Three Provocations from the Wild World of Jean-Pierre Mocky
Description: Jean-Pierre Mocky was a prolific icon in French cinema. Actor, director, novelist, and in-demand raconteur, Mocky made mainstream films with an independent spirit, even owning a cinema to help the distribution of his films. Yet those films had a specific style, unmistakably his, often with controversial and outlandish themes, and he came to be known as a wild and untameable force, acting as an uncompromising agitator within the French film industry for over six decades. Three of his wild cinematic adventures from the 1980s are collected in this new boxset. Cult horror sensation Litan, hooligan horror Kill the Referee and Hitchcockian mystery Agent Trouble are presented from new 4K restorations on Blu-ray for the first time outside of France.
Worried by a disturbing dream, Nora wakes to find her husband missing during a trip to Litan. She goes out to find him but encounters one bizarre event after another taking place at the village festival, including uncanny acts and a masked marching band. As Nora and Jock attempt to escape the village, a series of strange murders take place against the backdrop of a mad doctor performing experiments on the recently deceased. Jean-Pierre Mocky's Litan is a classic cult Euro-horror and a Kafkaesque fever dream of surrealist imagery, arrestingly shot by Edmond Richard (The Trial, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).
When a referee calls a penalty that causes a French football team to crash out of the championship, their ultra-dedicated hooligan fans vow to track him down and murder him by the end of the evening, as Inspector Granowski (played by director Jean-Pierre Mocky) attempts to stem the carnage. With an unrelenting one-night narrative recalling After Hours and Green Room, Kill the Referee mixes black humour with horror as its escalating sense of dread builds toward a shattering climax.
A bus of fifty French tourists lay dead. While the driver makes a call, a wanderer, Victorien (Tom Novembre, Denti), boards the bus and robs all the passengers. Returning home he visits his aunt Amanda (Catherine Deneuve, The Hunger), and lets her in on his secret, unwittingly bringing her to the attention of icy hitman Alex (Richard Bohringer, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover). A conspiracy thriller reminiscent of Hitchcock, Jean-Pierre Mocky's wonderfully eccentric mystery has a light comic touch that carefully balances its grotesque flourishes. Featuring a wonderful cast including César-nominated Dominique Lavant, Pierre Arditi and Kristin Scott Thomas in only her second screen appearance.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
- NEW 4K RESTORATIONS of each film presented on three discs, made available on Blu-ray (1080p) for the first time outside of France
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- Archival interview with Jean-Pierre Mocky about his relationship to the fantastic (1982, 12 mins)
- Archival 'Making of Litan' documentary from French television (1982, 26 mins)
- Newly filmed interview with journalist and broadcaster Philippe Auclair on Kill the Referee (2024)
- Interview with Mocky's assistant Eric Leroy on Kill the Referee (2022, 13 mins)
- Television reportage from the set of Kill the Referee (1983, 5 mins)
- Archival French TV interview with Jean-Pierre Mocky (1987, 18 mins)
- Archival interview with Catherine Deneuve on Agent Trouble (1987, 5 mins)
- Archival interview with Richard Bohringer on Agent Trouble (1987, 5 mins)
- Interview with Eric Leroy on Agent Trouble (2022, 13 mins)
- Interview with Olivia Mokiejewski on Agent Trouble (2022, 4 mins)
- New and improved optional English subtitles
- Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
- Limited edition 80-page book featuring new writing by Roberto Curti, Nathaniel Thompson and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, and newly translated archival interviews including Serge Toubiana on Jean-Pierre Mocky, and Oliver Assayas on Michel Serrault, as well as an on-set report of Kill the Referee
- Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
- REIGON-FREE
