Milestone

[Perkins Cobb]

The money (and mass consumer interest -- not particularly members of this forum) seems to be for the ease and price-break for screening over the internet.

Death of cinema in a sentence (at least for me) unless the technology improves. Screw Netflix for not holding the line. It's not like they don't have the cash to continue supporting DVD for a while longer. Anyway, I'm glad The Word Is Out squeaked in under the wire.

[drdoros]

Death of cinema in a sentence (at least for me) unless the technology improves. Screw Netflix for not holding the line. It's not like they don't have the cash to continue supporting DVD for a while longer. Anyway, I'm glad The Word Is Out squeaked in under the wire.

My apologies for making it sound like Netflix's fault. For the past ten years the studios (and even us smaller distribs in some ways) have dreamed of the time when digital streaming/downloads took over from DVDs. Less marketing costs, less production and delivery costs, etc. It's the reality that since the beginning of the year, the revenue for digital delivery is rising sharply and DVD sales is still sinking. I would truly miss the production of bonus features -- it's the best part of my job and we have no plans to stop now -- but the business plans of film distribution has been cloudy these past few years and this is just a different wrinkle. No need to worry now since none of us have an idea of what will happen, but the rise of streaming revenue is keeping most of us in business and acquiring new films so it's not that bad considering.

[Perkins Cobb]

Well, that's an excellent point, Dennis. It's just not a very appetizing reality for cinefiles, at least based on the little I've sampled from Hulu and Netflix streaming. In the abstract I'm glad that streaming is keeping companies like Netflix in business ... but in practice, if Milestone were to release a film for home viewing only via digital delivery, I probably wouldn't bother. At least for now.

I also don't understand why bonus features haven't become part of the streaming universe yet, but that's also a topic for another day I guess....

[Numero Trois]

My apologies for making it sound like Netflix's fault. For the past ten years the studios (and even us smaller distribs in some ways) have dreamed of the time when digital streaming/downloads took over from DVDs. Less marketing costs, less production and delivery costs, etc.

Is this true for the largest studios? Everything I've read suggests they love the big fat DVD profit margins and keep wishing it were 2003. From what I understand it's the Netflix streaming and rentals they're not overly happy about. All the press I've read suggests they would prefer VOD because they can charge more for it.

I also don't understand why bonus features haven't become part of the streaming universe yet, but that's also a topic for another day I guess....

For one thing, it's a technical matter. Netflix doesn't even have subtitling completely set up yet. For another, even if it were possible I bet the studios wouldn't allow it.

[drdoros]

Again, I'm not picking on Netflix. Our new deal with them is allowing us to pay our bills and do a big project next year. TCM and Oscilloscope are also big factors in our company's work.

But VOD is just another digital delivery to the home that doesn't involve replicating discs, shipping, discounts, junkets, advertising kickbacks, returns, etc. It's also a platform where marketing and sales doesn't necessarily have power over the creative process like home video heads have had over the last decade.

I haven't been talking to the studios as much this year, but I'm guessing their view of Netflix is vastly different since the revenues have gone up and DVD sales have diminished. It's a lot easier sending a digital file than sending 1000s of discs. And Netflix, VOD suppliers and others are necessary because the studios (most likely) cannot do it themselves because of past and future court decisions on monopoly.

Yes, everybody would love to go back to the days when DVDs were the big profit margin and yes, we love bonus features. It might be a case where we all set up delivery systems where the bonus features can be downloaded as well. I'm actually producing bonus features for 2012 releases so we have no plans to stop. But the world is changing and with fair use becoming the key catchphrase of the 21st century, perhaps it will be cinephiles and academics who will be providing even more context in the future and that will replace the current system.

[What A Disgrace]

I like the sound of "big project".

[drdoros]

ARAYA
a film by Margot Benacerraf



World DVD Premiere to be released April 5, 2011
Featured at 2009 Berlin International Film Festival and screened in over 75 US cities.
See the trailer at http://www.arayafilm.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

“Araya has lost none of its ability to fascinate and move us with its hypnotic combination
of beauty and hardship. It's a gift to cineastes.” – STEVEN SODERBERGH

"MAJESTIC...ARRESTING...OVERWHELMING BEAUTY!"— RICHARD BRODY, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE

"Wonderfully restored… I can compare the film only to Luchino Visconti's great LA TERRA TREMA for its combination of EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY, outraged social conscience and almost MYTHIC GRANDEUR... The experience was stunning in 1959. It's every bit as STUNNING today."— STUART KLAWANS, THE NATION

MILESTONE is proud to present one of the finest cinematic discoveries in recent years. In 1959, ARAYA shared the prestigious International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour. But it was soon overlooked and forgotten until Milestone released the film in theaters in 2009. Critics and audiences were stunned by the glowing cinematography, powerful story and passionate love for the culture that director Margot Benacerraf had captured so many decades before. Her meticulously planned tone poem’s imagery, music, sound and language create a moving and magical exploration of a desolate place and the remarkable people who lived there.

Benacerraf’s tour de force explores a day in the lives of three families living in Araya, an arid peninsula in northeastern Venezuela. For centuries, since its discovery by the Spanish, the region’s salt was collected and stacked into radiant white pyramids. Benacerraf captured breathtaking and unforgettable images – from the saliñeros toiling to build the mountains of salt, to fishermen hauling in huge teeming nets, to a young girl and her grandmother laying “flowers” of shells on windswept graves.

Milestone’s deluxe DVD edition is derived from a stunning 2K scan off of the director’s original 35mm interpositive. With three added documentaries on Benacerraf, two commentary tracks with the director, and her first film REVERON on the famed Venezuelan painter, ARAYA is guaranteed to be one of the best releases of the year!

Press kits, additional information and high-res stills are available at http://www.arayafilm.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Exclusively distributed to wholesalers and stores by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

The DVD is also available direct from http://www.arayafilm.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or calling our toll-free number (800) 603-1104

A FILM BY THE MARGOT BENACERRAF PRESERVATION FUNDED BY MILESTONE FILM & VIDEO RESTORED BY SCOTT MacQUEEN and DENNIS DOROS WITH FOTOKEM, MODERN VIDEOFILM AND AUDIO MECHANICS DVD PRODUCED BY D. ADRIAN ROTHSCHILD
Street 04/05/11 UPC 784148011448 SRP $29.95 ISBN 978-1-933920-22-1 Item # MILE00114 VENEZUELA/FRANCE

SPECIAL BONUS FEATURES

1) ARAYA (82 mins. B&W. 16x9.) New 2K scan from the original 35mm interpositive.
2) Restored Spanish soundtrack with new English subtitles. French language soundtrack.
3) REVERON, the first film by Margot Benacerraf. 1953. B&W. 23 minutes.
4) THE FILM OF HER LIFE: ARAYA. Documentary by Antoine Mora.
5) Two extensive television interviews with Margot Benacerraf.
6) Two Audio Commentaries: Interviews with Margot Benacerraf on ARAYA and REVERON.
7) ARAYA American trailer.
8) ARAYA Press kit (PDF file for DVD-Rom download)
9) From the Files of Margot Benacerraf (PDF file for digital download)

[perkizitore]

DVDPacific are selling this for $16.5

[drdoros]

And for those who use Netflix, please put it in your Queue! Once again, it would help them decide to carry it.

[Adam]

And for those who use Netflix, please put it in your Queue! Once again, it would help them decide to carry it.

Done.

[Perkins Cobb]

And for those who use Netflix, please put it in your Queue! Once again, it would help them decide to carry it.

Shout this out on Facebook too, Dennis. Netflix recently confirmed publicly that the queue-add thing works, by the way.

[drdoros]

Shout this out on Facebook too, Dennis. Netflix recently confirmed publicly that the queue-add thing works, by the way.

It's not much of a secret. They actually tell our salesperson that they are waiting to see how many people join the Queue before they will buy our DVD.

[Perkins Cobb]

Yeah, but until I saw that post, the only person I'd heard that from was you. Not that it has helped much -- the hundred or so recent catalog titles that are parked in my "saved" list don't seem to be moving up into my actual queue.

[Mark Metcalf]

The first 2 years I had Netflix, my 'saved' queue was about 10 titles. Now it's 120 and growing.

Anyway I encourage people to add the great Japanese films from Animeigo to your Netflix queue, so Netflix will hopefully buy them.

[zedz]

I saw Araya recently and can recommend it, if you're interested in this kind of documentary. Looks stunning and would make a great double feature with Rocha's Barravento or, ironically enough, Kalatozov's Salt for Svanetia.

[drdoros]

I saw Araya recently and can recommend it, if you're interested in this kind of documentary. Looks stunning and would make a great double feature with Rocha's Barravento or, ironically enough, Kalatozov's Salt for Svanetia.

As a matter of fact, Rocha saw Araya at Cannes in 1959 and credited her as a big influence in his future career. And since Kalatozov won in 1957 with Cranes are Flying, I can see how maybe he and Margot influenced each other as well if he attended in 1959 or saw it at the Moscow Film Festival that year where it played.

[jbeall]

And for those who use Netflix, please put it in your Queue! Once again, it would help them decide to carry it.

Success! Netflix now lists this as available starting 4/5/11.

[jbeall]

Beaver on Araya

[drdoros]

Okay, since we get requests for some of our titles that we just don't have the time or the bonus materials to bring out on DVD, Amy and I have started our own Milestone line of DVD-Rs just like the big studios. Just call us Perfecto-Zizzbaum. Dave Kehr tells me we're the first indie distributor to do this so I'm so glad we're on the cutting edge. (A first for Milestone, to be sure.) We'll try to bring out three DVD-Rs every month or so.

The first three releases are:

A DAY ON THE GRAND CANAL WITH THE EMPEROR OF CHINA or surface is illusion but so is depth
A film by Philip Haas and David Hockney. Music by Marc Wilkinson. Cinematography by Curtiss Clark. 48 minutes. Color. 1988. © Philip Haas

Director Philip Haas (Angels and Insects), and artist David Hockney invite you to join them on a magical journey through China via a marvelous 72-foot long 17th-century Chinese scroll. As Hockney unrolls the beautiful and minutely detailed work of art, he traces the Emperor Kangxi’s grand tour of his southern domains. Hockney’s charming and fascinating narration helps bring the bustling streets and waterfronts of three hundred years ago to life. Comparing this work with a Canaletto painting and a later Chinese scroll, Hockney spins a dazzling discourse on eastern and western perceptive and their relationship to his own artistic vision. His trip through one of China’s most magnificent artworks is a joyous adventure for all!

DZIGA AND HIS BROTHERS: A Film Family on the Cutting Edge
Director: Yevgeni Tsymbal. Russia. 2002. 52 minutes. Color and B&W.

The fascinating and tumultuous lives of Mikhail, Boris and Denis Kaufman (better known as Dziga Vertov) are the focus of this powerful documentary. Using rare archival footage from Russian state film archives and private collections, the brothers’ lives and art are traced from Bialystok to Moscow, Paris, and Hollywood. “David, Moisey, and Boris Kaufman – ‘perhaps the most talented brothers in the history of cinema’ per film historian Yevgeni Tsymbal – were born in Bialystok (the “most Jewish town in Poland”) to a used-book dealer and a rabbi’s daughter. The town suffered a major pogrom during their childhoods, and their parents would eventually perish in the Holocaust, but the Kaufman brothers attended Russian school and reinvented themselves in the crucible of revolution: David most radically as docu-visionary Dziga. Mikhail (né Moisey) worked with his older brother—he is the title character in The Man With a Movie Camera – until they quarreled and he too became a director. Baby Boris went first to France, collaborating with Jean Vigo, and then to America. Dziga was targeted during Stalin’s Cold War anti-cosmopolitan campaign; he suffered a heart attack and died in obscurity months before Boris won an Oscar for shooting On the Waterfront.” — J. Hoberman, Village Voice.

AND NOW, MIGUEL
Directed by Joseph Krumgold. 1953. Cast: The Chavez Family. Cinematography by Kenneth Marthey. Filmed in Las Cordovas, New Mexico. 62 minutes. Music score composed by Louis Appelbaum.

AND NOW, MIGUEL is known today as the beloved novel by Joseph Krumgold that won the Newberry Medal for excellence in American children’s literature in 1954. But few know that the story actually originated as a motion picture for the US Department of State directed by the Academy Award®-winning Krumgold. Magnificently photographed with an emphasis on local customs and practices, this DVD debut mastered from the best 35mm material will be an important addition to Latino film studies.

Miguel Chavez, 12 years-old, has dreamed of visiting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains since he was very little. This summer, he is going to work hard and pray until his father and grandfather realize that he is ready to take the trip with the rest of the older men. His prayers are granted when his older brother is drafted. His father needs an extra body and grudgingly allows Miguel to accompany them.

The three films retail for $29.95 each but are available at 20% off by going to http://www.milestonefilms.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or calling Milestone directly at (800) 603-1104

[Gregory]

Will these be newly remastered?

[drdoros]

Will these be newly remastered?

Miguel definitely is, and off the only 35mm material around -- our friends at Colorab did a very good master. Dziga was a Russian video production but we went through five masters before we were happy with it. Grand Canal is the older master but a decent one, and perhaps the best film of the bunch. Hockney gives an amazing lesson on art, perspective and cinema.

Dennis

[Perkins Cobb]

Good news, Dennis. I hope you guys make some bucks on these.

(Wouldn't Zipporah / Frederick Wiseman count as an earlier indie releasing its catalogue on DVD-r though?)

[drdoros]

(Wouldn't Zipporah / Frederick Wiseman count as an earlier indie releasing its catalogue on DVD-r though?)

And funny thing, I've been advising them on labs for their DVD-Rs and DVDs! At the same time, a lot of filmmakers distribute their own films -- I wouldn't call them an indie distributor. Of course, I would be very happy if I could make a film as good as theirs!

[What A Disgrace]

I hope this doesn't affect any of your upcoming (and potentially upcoming) projects in any way. The On the Bowery box set sounds fascinating.

Any chance that Classicflix might carry some of these DVD-R releases?

[drdoros]

New reviews for ARAYA

DVD Savant: http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s3510aray.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DVD Verdict: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/araya.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DVD Reviews and More: http://dvdreviewsandmore.blogspot.com/2 ... araya.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DVD Talk: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/48244/araya/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;