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Posted: **Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:49 pm**

Price has dropped to £36.00 (before VAT removal)

Posted: **Mon Dec 01, 2014 7:31 am**

3 single releases on DVD also...

Posted: **Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:11 pm**

Telstar wrote:Price has dropped to £36.00 (before VAT removal)

Now down to £31.93

Posted: **Mon Mar 02, 2015 9:54 am**

Full specs announced:

Roberto Rossellini
The War Trilogy
Rome, Open City; Paisà; Germany Year Zero
Limited Numbered Edition Blu-ray box set and individual releases on DVD

The War Trilogy, a Limited Numbered Edition box set released by the BFI on 30 March, brings together for the first time on Blu-ray Roberto Rossellini’s celebrated trilogy of films made during and immediately after the World War II. Rome, Open City, Paisà and Germany Year Zero will also be released individually on DVD on the same date.

These three films provide heart-rending depictions of a Europe savaged by war, the struggles faced by ordinary people and the hope that endures. They established Rossellini as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of all time.

Special features on Blu-ray
• Newly remastered presentations
• L’amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948, 80 mins): Rossellini’s controversial two-part anthology film showcasing the manifold talents of Anna Magnani. The first part, A Human Voice is written by Jean Cocteau, and the second, The Miracle, is written by Federico Fellini, who also puts in an acting appearance.
• Children of Open City (Laura Muscardin, 2005, 53 mins): documentary featuring Vito Annicchiarico visiting key locations from Rome, Open City and sharing memories of the shoot
• Into the Future (Tag Gallagher, 2009, 32 mins): visual essay on the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher
• Illustrated booklet featuring new essays by Tag Gallagher, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Jonathan Rosenbaum, and full film credits

Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta)
Italy / 1945 / 1.33:1 / black and white / 103 mins

Paisà
Italy / 1946 / 1.33:1 / black and white / 125 mins

Germany Year Zero (Germania anno zero)
Germany, Italy / 1948 / 1.33:1 / black and white / 73 mins

Blu-ray product details
RRP: £49.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1193 / Cert 12
Italian, German and English language, with optional English subtitles / 301 mins / BD50 x 3 / 1080p / 24fps / PCM mono audio (48k/24-bit)

Rome, Open City

A landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Roberto Rossellini’s portrait of life under the Nazi Occupation remains remarkable for its sheer immediacy, tension and power.

Made in extraordinarily straitened circumstances immediately after the liberation of Rome, the film follows Manfredi (Marcello Pagliero), a partisan leader, as he attempts to evade the Gestapo by enlisting the help of Pina (Anna Magnani) fiancée of a fellow member of the underground resistance, and Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi), the priest due to oversee her marriage. Both Fabrizi and Magnani were well known comedic actors and perform magnificently against type.

Shot both on the ravaged streets of the city and in the studio, Rome, Open City seamlessly blends sequences reminiscent of documentary with more conventional dramatic scenes notable for their pace, precise staging and affectingly naturalistic performances. The power of this extraordinary film remains undiminished.

Special features on DVD
• Newly remastered presentation
• Children of Open City (Laura Muscardin, 2005, 51 mins): documentary made for the 60th anniversary of Rome, Open City, featuring Vito Annicchiarico visiting key locations and sharing memories of the shoot
Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Rosenbaum and film credits

Product details
RRP: £19.99 / Cat. no. BFIV2027 / 12
Italy / 1945 / black and white / Italian and German language, with optional English subtitles / 99 mins / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 / DVD9 / PAL / Dolby Digital mono 2.0 audio (320kbps)

Paisà

Available for the first time on DVD, Roberto Rossellini’s ambitious and enormously moving follow-up to his breakthrough Rome, Open City is presented here in a new restoration.

Made in the aftermath of the Second World War, Paisà is constructed as a series of six encounters which take place during the liberation of Italy as Allied troops advance through the country from Sicily to the northern Po Valley, via Rome and Florence.

Shot on location using a non-professional cast alongside actors, the semi-documentary aesthetic and epic sweep of Paisà is both charming and devastating in its portrayal of the final days of war and the confusion that follows in its wake.

This classic of neo-realist cinema forms the centrepiece of Rossellini’s acclaimed War Trilogy and was followed, in 1948, by the celebrated Germany Year Zero.

Special features on DVD
• Newly remastered presentation
• Into the Future (2009, 30 mins): a visual essay on the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher
• Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Tag Gallagher and film credits

Product details
RRP: £19.99 / Cat. no. BFIV2028 / PG
Italy / 1946 / black and white / Italian, German and English language, with optional English subtitles / 121 mins / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 / DVD9 / PAL / Dolby Digital mono 2.0 audio (320kbps)

Germany Year Zero

The concluding part of Roberto Rossellini’s celebrated War Trilogy, Germany Year Zero is presented here in a new restoration.

Amidst the war-torn ruins of Berlin in the period immediately after the Second World War, a 12-year-old boy, Edmund, struggles to support his family – his ailing father and unregistered brother unable to provide for them. Left to his own devices, Edmund wanders around the devastated city, getting caught up in black market schemes and falling prey to the pernicious influence of a Nazi-sympathising former teacher with tragic consequences.

This heart-rending portrait of a decimated post-war European city is a damning indictment of war and fascism and remains one of the most affecting films in the history of cinema.

Special features on DVD
• Newly remastered presentations
• L’amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948, 77 mins): Rossellini’s controversial two-part anthology film showcasing the manifold talents of Anna Magnani. The first part, A Human Voice, is written by Jean Cocteau, and the second, The Miracle, is written by Federico Fellini, who also puts in an acting appearance
Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Jonathan Rosenbaum, and film credits

Product details
RRP: £19.99 / Cat. no. BFIV2029 / PG
Germany, Italy / 1948 / black and white / German language, with optional English subtitles / 70 mins / Original aspect ratio 1.33:1 / DVD9 / PAL / Dolby Digital mono 2.0 audio (320kbps)

Posted: **Mon Mar 02, 2015 10:19 am**

So still worth holding on to the Criterion for extras, good to know.

Posted: **Mon Mar 02, 2015 10:23 am**

I've been waiting for an English-friendly release of L'amore for years!

Posted: **Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:44 pm**

The inclusion of L'amore totally clinches this one. Anyone know if it's presented in HD on the boxset? Nice to have it either way though.

To be honest I'm somewhat surprised that Rome, Open City got away with a 12 cert from the BBFC. It's certainly a fairly tame film by modern standards but I would've expected the brief image of

SpoilerShow

torture by blowtorch

to nudge it into 15 territory.

Edit: Huh, it's actually been a 12 since 2005. Guess the imagery isn't quite as graphic as I remember, nauseating and horrifying though it may have felt at the time.

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2015 12:03 am**

It was newly restored along with the other films so I'm confident it will be.

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:23 am**

Slipped another week, 6th April now...

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2015 10:14 am**

EddieLarkin wrote:It was newly restored along with the other films so I'm confident it will be.

L'amore is indeed a full-scale HD restoration, and looks great.

Rome Open City looks phenomenal considering the all too well-documented production conditions. Some shots are irretrievably compromised by things like poor focus, but it looks sharper and cleaner than I'd ever have believed possible from the spectacularly crappy prints that I've seen in the past (examples of which can be glimpsed in the Children of Open City doc). We're talking Film Foundation Satyajit Ray levels of improvement here.

Paisà and Germany Year Zero clearly suffer more from imperfect materials, although the latter is actually pretty good for the most part - it's the newsreel clips that mainly let it down, although they almost certainly looked scratched to hell at the time. And you can glimpse in Paisà's dissolves just how compromised the 35mm sources must have been - there are plenty of fine scratches that were presumably impossible to remove without potentially making things worse.

That said, it's a whopping improvement on what I've seen in the past - and it's also probably a safe bet, given that Progetto Rossellini is a major Italian cultural effort involving several key institutions, that these 4K restorations are as good as they're realistically going to get.

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2015 5:03 pm**

Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy....Tooze: This is a limited edition, numbered Blu-ray, boxset and I urge all cinephiles to snatch this up while you can. It's a brilliant Blu-ray package that deserves an honored place in all digital libraries. This is the best of the early year, IMO. Don't hesitate!

Posted: **Thu Mar 19, 2015 5:05 pm**

I've just filed something similar with Sight & Sound. You can buy with complete confidence.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2015 5:17 am**

Superb - can't wait for this... Worth also seeing to place ROME OPEN CITY especially in context is the powerful documentary GIORNI DI GLORIA/DAYS OF GLORY (1945) by Visconti, De Santis, Pagliero et al., about the resistance, the Ardeatine massacre, the subsequent trial and executions... It's in the public domain, I believe, so it is possible to pick up an English subtitled DVD-R online, while Visconti's section can be found on Youtube here (in Italian with Italian subs)...

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2015 8:12 am**

As much as the Criterion was a saviour from previous releases, the pictureboxing decision looks ever more ill conceived. These BFI Blu-rays look astonishing in comparison. I rarely pre-order, but in this instance I am more than glad that I did.

Posted: **Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:31 am**

Has the release date been put back again amazon are showing you will be notified when they have a release date

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00P6OOFJW/r ... amp=211189

Posted: **Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:35 am**

Perhaps the limited edition has reached its limit & no more are available currently from Amazon...

Posted: **Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:46 am**

frankiecrisp wrote:Has the release date been put back again amazon are showing you will be notified when they have a release date

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00P6OOFJW/r ... amp=211189

I got two emails last week. One saying it was pushed back a week, and then one saying "Good news!" we can deliver it a week early, back to the original release date.

Posted: **Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:47 pm**

It's now available to order again on Amazon.

Posted: **Tue Mar 31, 2015 6:49 am**

I was charged for this this morning, finally. So presumably it's being dispatched.

Posted: **Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:25 am**

Mine has shipped. All is well.

Posted: **Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:37 am**

Mine looks about to ship.

Posted: **Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:40 am**

Just got a shipping confirmation as well. Mine should arrive tomorrow, don't want to wait this time so decided to take the fastest shipping method (same goes for the Carl Th. Dreyer set as well).

Posted: **Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:37 am**

Mine arrived today, number 282. Packaging small, with 2 overlapping discs and 1 on its own.

Posted: **Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:40 pm**

Anyone have pictures of the set(would like to know if it'll fit through letter box)

Posted: **Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:28 pm**

It's the same shape and size as the Robbe-Grillet set. Nice and compact, although I have requested a replacement as mine arrived squashed.

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