Icarus acquires 6 films by Jean Rouch for release both theatrically and non-theatrically this fall. More info at Indiewire
Titles:
LES MAÎTRES FOUS 1955/ color/ 26 minutes Rouch’s classic and controversial depiction of a spectacular trance ritual of Accra’s Hauka religious sect, made up mostly of migrant workers from rural Niger, that also constitutes a theatrical protest against West Africa’s colonial masters.
MAMMY WATER 1956/ color/ 19 minutes Along the coast of Ghana, near the old Portuguese slave forts, children play in the ocean and fisherman perform ceremonies to placate the sea gods whose favor determines their catch.
MOI, UN NOIR 1957/ color/ 72 minutes In Rouch’s landmark ethnofiction, three Nigerien migrant workers in Treichville, outside Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, describe their lives in the city, the difficulties of urbanization, and their dreams, playfully re-enacting their daily routines for the camera, and taking on the names of American movie stars.
THE LION HUNTERS (LE CHASSE AU LION À L’ARC) 1965/ color/ 80 minutes Recorded over the course of seven years on the border between Niger and Mali, THE LION HUNTERS documents the traditional lion hunt of the Songhay people, taking it as a key to understanding the region’s social organization.
JAGUAR 1967/ color/ 89 minutes Three young men from Niger travel to Accra to work. Rouch once again collaborates with his subjects, who narrate the film together, recreating dialogue, explaining their motivations, and infusing the documentary footage with fantasy.
LITTLE BY LITTLE (PETIT À PETIT) 1969/ color/ 92 minutes In LITTLE BY LITTLE, viewers rejoin the three men from JAGUAR, now running an import-export company in Niamey. Business brings them to Paris, where they perform a reverse anthropology of Rouch’s own culture.
Looks like Criterion is doing Chronicle of a Summer.
Thre is a very large Rouch series in NYC right now, at FIAF and Anthology (although today might have been the last screening at Anthology). http://www.fiaf.org/french%20film/fall2 ... ouch.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Now we're working on bringing a good chunk of that to LA in the winter, including the Icarus films and many more. News to come.
SpiderBaby wrote:^ Has anyone got the release yet?
I ordered the Decasia blu from Amazon US, which supposedly came out a week earlier than the Imamura set. And both these titles are "temporarily out of stock." I don't think Icarus positions their releases for distribution ahead of time at Amazon warehouses, as I remember the same thing happened to me with some of those Akerman documentaries. They ought to mysteriously appear in a few days/weeks. But if you need it for Xmas and you ordered from Amazon you may be in trouble.
Decasia review on DVDBeaver
I completely missed the news of this release, as well as the Imamura set so it was quite a shock to see a sudden BD review of this title, especially since it was in my wishlist years ago and went out of print a long time ago.
Does anyone have any information concerning The Pirates of Buban from the Imamura set which has no serious mention on the forum, no IMDB, and only a few French articles of no worth on the Internet.
The Pirates Of Bubuan was made for TV Tokyo, a documentary about the Bubuan (Babuyan) Islands off of The Philippenes, and the documentary crew learning about discrimination and tension between the various islanders. The documentary is overdubbed in Japanese.
manicsounds wrote:The Pirates Of Bubuan was made for TV Tokyo, a documentary about the Bubuan (Babuyan) Islands off of The Philippenes, and the documentary crew learning about discrimination and tension between the various islanders. The documentary is overdubbed in Japanese.
Icarus Films wrote:April 4, 2013, New York: Today, Icarus Films announced its acquisition of all North American distribution rights to Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme’s landmark 1963 film LE JOLI MAI. Long unavailable, and now newly restored, LE JOLI MAI will play at several major film festivals before opening theatrically in New York at Film Forum on Friday, September 13, 2013. This engagement will be followed by a theatrical rollout across the U.S. and Canada. In November 2013, the film will be released by Icarus Films Home Video in a deluxe 2-disc DVD edition, and online.
The restoration work on LE JOLI MAI, done according to the wishes of Chris Marker (1921-2012), was supervised by the film’s cinematographer and co-director, Pierre Lhomme. It will be presented on DCP, made from a new 2K scan. The film’s music is by the Academy Award-winning composer Michel Legrand, and the English-language commentary is by Academy Award-winning actress Simone Signoret.
Yes! I had been wondering for ages who might be working on this. Le Joli Mai is top-drawer Chris Marker, one of the greatest films he ever made, and I've only ever seen it on badly worn VHS copies. It's fantastic that it's being re-released theatrically. And yes, I hope there's a Blu-ray, too, but even if there isn't, I'll be immensely happy to have that DVD.
I'm hoping that "deluxe 2-disc edition" will include a bundle of other Marker films too, since Icarus seem to have a great degree of access to his work.
