Well, I started working for Soda earlier in the year producing their DVDs/BDs, so I thought it might be time to dust the cobwebs off this thread and announce some recent/upcoming releases. I lurk around here all the time, so if anyone has any questions about our upcoming theatrical/DVD slate, feel free to ask. I'll keep it updated as confirmed specs come in for future discs. Disasters like the
Klimt one mentioned on the last page should be well and truly a thing of the past - most discs are sourced from HD materials, and I've done my best to do away with other evils like burnt-on subs.
I imagine some of the below will be of no interest to you guys (like the
Forgiveness Of Blood DVD, assuming you've all bought the Criterion edition), but just in case! We've got some really strong titles coming up in the next year, like
Bullhead,
Compliance,
Everyday (the new Michael Winterbottom film),
Sister,
The Joy Of Six (a specially-curated British shorts package featuring the directorial debuts of Romola Garai, Matthew Holness and others), and many more.
Before anyone asks - no plans for any future BDs at the moment. That's not saying "never" though!
Two Years At Sea
Release date: Available now (
order from Amazon here)
Using 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers documents the solitary existence of Jake, a man who lives in isolation in the middle of the forest in a remote part of Scotland. The film follows his unconventional life, capturing moments of profound beauty. Jake is seen in all seasons, surviving frugally, passing the time with strange projects, living the radical dream he had as a younger man, a dream he spent two years working at sea to realise.
Gracefully constructed, Two Years at Sea creates an intimate connection with an individual who would otherwise be a complete outsider to us.
Extras: "Stovies" (deleted scenes);
This Land Is My Land, the original short film by Ben Rivers that inspired the feature
Watch the trailer here
Shock Head Soul
Release date: 10th December 2012 (
order from Amazon here)
This brilliant study of psychosis, religious freedom and deluded fanaticism is a moving and unique film based on a real story. In 1903, Daniel Paul Schreber published a shocking and celebrated autobiography about 'madness from within'. Up until middle age he was a highly respected judge until one morning he awoke having had a dream that would eventually lead to his long confinement in an asylum.
Shock Head Soul follows Schreber from respectability to madness mixing reconstruction, live-action drama and comments from contemporary pyschiatrists to plot this mesmerising real-life event.
Extras: Interviews with director Simon Pummell and consultant Dr Bart Grob.
Confession Of A Child Of The Century
Release date: 14th January 2013 (
order from Amazon here)
Cannes Award Winner Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia) stars opposite Pete Doherty in his film debut in Confession of a Child of the Century.
Doherty plays Octave, a young libertine who witnesses his lover Elise (Lily Cole) being unfaithful. Despair leads to decadence, influenced by his friends to undertake a life of debauchery but it fails to satisfy his thirst for the absolute. He meets a young widow Brigitte who, at first, tries to resist him, unwilling to relive the tortures of passion. They fall in love, but their relationship becomes tempestuous as Octave is quickly overcome by suspicion, in a world where love is fragile and temptation is everywhere.
The Forgiveness Of Blood
Release date: 14th January 2013 (
order from Amazon here)
The new film from the director of Maria Full of Grace is a story of family feuds and the honour of a bloodline. Nik is a normal 17-year-old in the last year of high school ready to embark on his first romance and the opening of his own café after graduation. But then a local land dispute results in his father being accused of murder, Nik and the male members of his family are forced under house arrest. Nic’s sister Rudina has to leave school to take over the family business and whilst she flourishes with her new found responsibility, Nik’s resentment at his enforced isolation causes him to try and end the feud even though it may cost him his life.
Watch the trailer here
Keyhole
Release date: 21st January 2013
Guy Maddin's new film Keyhole is a film that spins 1930s gangster plot with Homer's Odyssey and stars Jason Patric and Isabella Rossellini.
A gangster and deadbeat father, Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) returns home after a long absence. He is toting two teenagers: a drowned girl, Denny, who has mysteriously returned to life; and a bound-and-gagged hostage, who is actually his own teenage son, Manners. Confused, Ulysses doesn't recognise his own son, but he feels with increasing conviction he must make an indoor odyssey from the back door of his home all the way up, one room at a time, to the marriage bedroom where his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) awaits, full of cancer, grieving over the deaths of her three children, and wooed by Ulysses arch-rival, Chang (Johnny Chang).
The house is haunted by countless dead relatives. Ulysses eventually reaches his goal and vanquishes his enemy, but the equilibrium of the house has been disturbed. Perhaps this has all been a dream that is dreamt every night by Manners himself or by the ghosts he loves so much.
Extras: Two short films by Guy Maddin (Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair/Glorious); F-Hole: Music Behind Keyhole by Jayson Staczec; trailer.
Watch the trailer here
Barbara
Release date: 28th January 2013
Summer in the GDR, 1980. Barbara, a young doctor, is exiled to a provincial hospital, seemingly punished for attempting to leave East Germany. Confined to a claustrophobic small town and under a constant veil of suspicion, she befriends no one, waiting patiently for the opportunity to resume her mission.
When her new boss appears to confide in Barbara, she is thrown. Hers is a life in which the fear of surveillance is embedded in all personal relationships, and she doesn't know who to trust. Why has he covered for her and one of her patients? Torn between her instinct and her duty, the characteristically hyper-controlled Barbara begins to lose her grip on herself, her obligations and her heart.
Watch the trailer here
More info at
www.sodapictures.com