Cinema Guild

[knives]

That’s amazing news. Hopefully they will include in releases his extensive collection of shorts.

[domino harvey]

These are all the films in the Blaq Out set, I think

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Saw a few of these restorations at UCLA and they look great. Very excited for these and if they release the shorts, I hope they include the photo from the French DVD.

[Michael Kerpan]

I wonder . . has Cinema Guild ditched plans to release Ohikkoshi/Moving on BluRay? I had expected this to be out by now,

[Calvin]

I wonder . . has Cinema Guild ditched plans to release Ohikkoshi/Moving on BluRay? I had expected this to be out by now,

Cinema Guild seem to have all but abandoned home video unfortunately - they've only put out one disc in 2025. Not only have they not released Moving but they haven't released PP Rider, which they released theatrically a year earlier in September 2023.

[ryannichols7]

and it was announced at time of acquisition that they'd be releasing both films on disc, Moving was even announced as a 4K

we will hope whoever has these in the UK takes care of them at this point...

[Calvin]

I'm also fearful that the Monteiro and Luc Moullet restorations that they've acquired might not make it to disc. Given the recent dearth of releases, I'd be fairly shocked to see big box sets from them

[hearthesilence]

A shame if there is no physical release. The restorations generally looked great when I saw them at Lincoln Center, though I now regret missing The Comedy of Work (one of the new 4K restorations). Not perfect, I'm not sure but it's possible I saw some visible artifacts, but given the enormous upgrade from what had been available on video, it would be petty to dwell on them.

[What A Disgrace]

I can't help but wonder if Cinema Guild is going to jump on the band wagon and start associating itself with the VinSyn Partner Labels the way Film Movement did, or maybe with Kino, in future. The Moullet, Monteiro and Somai films being obtained by them only to be buried in limited theatrical runs and digital distribution would be a travesty.

[im_online]

The newest edition of the Metrograph magazine has a long Monteiro retrospective by Nick Pinkerton and he mentions there is a forthcoming box set by Cinema Guild. They're all being shown at MoMA until November so maybe after that?

[Calvin]

The newest edition of the Metrograph magazine has a long Monteiro retrospective by Nick Pinkerton and he mentions there is a forthcoming box set by Cinema Guild. They're all being shown at MoMA until November so maybe after that?

Cinema Guild also said Moving would come to disc following the theatrical run in 2024 and we're still waiting for that. I hope my pessimism is unwarranted!

[FrauBlucher]

Perhaps they will strike a deal with another boutique... CC, VS, KL or Arrow

[hearthesilence]

I'm wondering why it would even make sense to bury something like the Moullet films. Someone paid a good deal of money to get those features restored, and they likely want to recoup their investment in the license, which means whoever paid for that license will likely have a substantial cost they'll want to recoup as well. Understandably, there's a recurring pattern where films get restored when the rights owners know they're not going to simply sink into debt. It's not like the Moullet films are getting that many bookings in NYC or LA - I honestly think a box set would have to be planned and likely out within a year.

[andyli]

Are we sure that they picked up the home media rights for the Moullet films as well? My understanding is that you can just have theatrical distribution and be done with it. Or there's the sublicensing model.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I'm wondering why it would even make sense to bury something like the Moullet films. Someone paid a good deal of money to get those features restored, and they likely want to recoup their investment in the license, which means whoever paid for that license will likely have a substantial cost they'll want to recoup as well.

I mean, Grasshopper (which has incidentally released nothing on physical media in 2025 thus far except a box of four Paravel/Castaing-Taylor films, two of which they previously put out as standalones) bought the entire Huillet/Straub library and sent almost all of it straight to VOD after the three disc releases underperformed their expectations. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if both Cinema Guild and Grasshopper do better with their educational divisions than they ever did with physical media.

[eerik]

The Films of João César Monteiro (Official Trailer)

João César Monteiro (1939-2003) emerged from the radical climate of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution of 1974, part of a lively generation of filmmakers who broke new cinematic ground as the country shook off decades of fascist dictatorship. To this day, he remains one of the most provocative and influential figures of Portuguese cinema. At once a dandy and a pauper, a hedonist and a monk, a revolutionary and a classicist, a realist and a romantic, Monteiro was an artist of profound contradictions. His work combines a perverse, slow-burn burlesque with the formal sense of a high modernist and a poets’s feeling for language and lyricism. Pinching from the high and the low, he synthesized the avant-garde with a popular spectacle, launching a furious, carnivalesque revolt against the established order.

From the militant and mythical agitprop of What Shall I Do With This Sword?, to his fable-like breakthrough Silvestre, to the string of opulent late-period comedies inaugurated by Recollections of the Yellow House, Monteiro was drawn as much to the obscene and the earthy—with an allegiance to the downtrodden and dispossessed, to folk tales and peasant traditions—as he was transfixed by the otherworldly aura of love, poetry, music, and religion, the logic of miracles and mysteries. Coloring it all is a delight in the everyday and the overlooked, a connoisseurship of the back alleys and bandit’s roosts of his beloved Lisbon.

A frequent performer in his own films—notably as his signature alter ego, the lecherous, tip-toeing old man João de Deus—Monteiro struck an indelible on-screen presence, a holy mischief-maker recalling both Jerry Lewis and Erich von Stroheim, the clown and the devil wrapped into one. At the core of Monteiro’s cinema is a gourmand appetite for life in all its sordid and sumptuous variety.

In 2003, the year his last film Come and Go premiered posthumously at Cannes, filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet penned an obituary to Monteiro, paraphrasing from Kafka’s diary: “O loved one, O angel, at what height do you hover, beyond the reach of my earthly hand? César!” Thanks to a monumental restoration effort, Monteiro’s body of work—unavailable for decades—is finally within grasp again. Now, it can rightly be appreciated as one of the most singular and scandalizing achievements of 20th-century filmmaking.

Cinema Guild is proud to present the works of João César Monteiro in brand new 4K restorations, a rich feast coming to the cinema in 2025.

Fingers crossed for a Blu-ray boxset in 2026.

[Aunt Peg]

I've already purchased French Blu Ray box set and watched all the films. I had only ever seen God's Comedy which I still consider his best film and the rest were a very mixed bag but nevertheless a very worthwhile and rewarding viewing experience.

I do hope Cinema Guild give the films a physical media release in the US so they can find a wider audience but they seem to have not released anything for a while now. I got sick of waiting for Hong's A Traveler's Needs and ordered the Korean edition.

[Michael Kerpan]

I fear we will not see any more releases from Cinema Guild. I wonder if they can sub-license physical media rights (and whether they would do so -- and would any other country be interested in things like Hong's and Somai's films)?


BTW - I got to see Traveler's Needs at the Harvard Film Archive. I would say that while I found it interesting, I also found it to be the most disconcerting Hong film (overall) since Pig Fell into a Well.

[goblinfootballs]

Cinema Guild lives! In Our Day is up for pre-order.

[JSC]

Let's hope more Hong sang-soo blus will follow! (A Traveller's Needs, not to mention the other gaps
in his filmography (In Another Country, Like You Know It All, Night and Day, etc.).

[goblinfootballs]

Not to mention a blu-ray of The Day He Arrives.

[dadaistnun]

Hooray! Yes, hopefully this bodes well for more releases!

I suspect I'm in the minority of, on balance, preferring latter-period Hong (the Kim years, basically) to earlier. Along with By the Stream, In Our Day is probably my favorite of the past several years (though I haven't seen What Does That Nature Say to You?).

[JSC]

Although I'd seen a few of Hong's films over the last few years, I made an effort recently to watch all
of his work chronologically (although it wasn't easy finding a copy of The Day a Pig Fell into the Well,
Hahaha, and On the Occasion of Remembering The Turning Gate). However, once I got started it was
both fascinating and rewarding to watch as his rigorous style subtly changed and shifted over the years.

Looking forward to his current two films.

[criterionsnob]

Hong Sangsoo's A Traveler's Needs announced for Blu-ray in February.

[senseabove]

And Bas Devos' Here announced for March (with Ghost Tropic included as a supplement)!