dwk wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 8:58 pm
I could see Univeraal licensing it to Arrow in the UK (assuming that Universal still has the UK rights and hasn't already licensed it to that one crummy UK label that I can never remember the name of.)
That would be wonderful but the well seemingly dried up in the UK when it comes to 4K titles. The people at 88 Films described the process of working with Universal on American Pie as very complicated and when I asked Fran at Radiance about the possibility of him licensing from Universal, he said that they’re difficult these days. Same actually in Germany or other territories. You’d think that international boutiques would be all over the stuff Kino releases from Universal, such as the Eastwood westerns, and yet there’s radio silence.
Here’s hoping that someone one day pushes through just like it happened with MGM and Paramount.
dwk wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 8:58 pm
I could see Univeraal licensing it to Arrow in the UK (assuming that Universal still has the UK rights and hasn't already licensed it to that one crummy UK label that I can never remember the name of.)
That would be wonderful but the well seemingly dried up in the UK when it comes to 4K titles. The people at 88 Films described the process of working with Universal on American Pie as very complicated and when I asked Fran at Radiance about the possibility of him licensing from Universal, he said that they’re difficult these days. Same actually in Germany or other territories. You’d think that international boutiques would be all over the stuff Kino releases from Universal, such as the Eastwood westerns, and yet there’s radio silence.
Here’s hoping that someone one day pushes through just like it happened with MGM and Paramount.
That is too bad. I know that 88 also had issues with Miami Vice. I wonder what, and, I guess, when was, the last Universal title Arrow released in the UK.
dwk wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 9:24 pmThat is too bad. I know that 88 also had issues with Miami Vice. I wonder what, and, I guess, when was, the last Universal title Arrow released in the UK.
I believe Inglorious Basterds but they’ve had the rights for years. Before that, we had Chronicles of Riddick and Crimson Peak in 2024. These are dual territory releases and nothing UK-exclusive though. I went back in my own collection and noticed that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from 2023 is the last Universal Arrow UK 4K I have.
dwk wrote: Tue Sep 23, 2025 7:58 pm
Looking forward to seeing how Kino screws up Wild at Heart
Fingers crossed that Criterion eventually gets it a la Lost Highway.
MGM only had rights via The Samuel Goldwyn Company's North American distribution, so it seems more likely it reverted to Universal via Polygram's rights. Skeptical about Kino Lorber being correctly attributed since it would be strange for them to be doing a restoration before anyone in Europe, especially after the Lost Highway debacle.
I cannot fathom how Lynch would want Kino to do Wild at Heart when he so favored Criterion, especially now that he's no longer with us. Taking bets on whether it's uncensored or not?
Calvin wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2025 9:06 am
Wild at Heart isn't included in any of the sections that I'd expect a new restoration to screen. I'd bet on this being an older one.
If it’s an older master, they probably would’ve credited Twilight Time or maybe Shout as they put out the US BDs unless they licensed the master from Universal or other rightsholders. It seems Kino never had anything to do with the film until now.
Calvin wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2025 9:06 am
Wild at Heart isn't included in any of the sections that I'd expect a new restoration to screen. I'd bet on this being an older one.
If it’s an older master, they probably would’ve credited Twilight Time or maybe Shout as they put out the US BDs unless they licensed the master from Universal or other rightsholders. It seems Kino never had anything to do with the film until now.
Kino released it on DVD.
We'll get confirmation in due course but I find it highly unlikely that what would be a brand-new world premiere restoration of Lynch's Palme d'Or winner would be essentially buried in the Lumiere programme without fanfare.
Another surprise in the Lumière program is that there are restoration credits for The Assassin, and even more surprising is that Hou Hsiao-hsien is credited as a supervisor alongside Lee Ping-bing. Hou expressed some dissatisfaction with the original DI and maybe he's still sufficiently compos mentis to oversee a new master (whether a complete rebuild from the 35mm elements or a new grade from the original scan), but I suspect the program is mistakenly listing the original tech credits as a "restauration."
Orange Studio did do the restoration of Millennium Mambo, which is showing as part of the same program and is missing its restoration credits on the festival website. But none of the info I can find on that restoration mentions the involvement of Hou or Lee, so it might not be as simple as Lumière mistakenly putting the info on the wrong page. Does Orange Studio even still exist under that name after the Canal acquisition?
The Little American (DeMille, 1917):
UCLA "photochemically restored “The Little American” in 1990 from DeMille’s personal 35mm nitrate print and a nitrate negative fragment. In 2019, the Archive partnered with the Mary Pickford Foundation to scan the preservation duplicate picture negative in 4K as the basis for the current digital restoration, which is being presented with a new original score by Adam Chavez." https://cinema.ucla.edu/events/silent-m ... 2025-09-28
The new restored version of ASHIMA shown at the 2025 Festival Lumière was done in 4K from a collaboration between Shanghai Film Studio and L'Immagine Ritrovata. This was restored to its original widescreen format that never officially released. The film was originally shot with anamorphic lenses and finished in widescreen but soon was banned during the political movements. The limited screening copies during the cultural revolution and the official re-release after the cultural revolution were all flat in 1.37:1. This would be the first time for this film to be presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen.
Projects that will be presented at Lyon Film Festival, that either are looking for funds to do or finalize their restorations, or projects finalized and now looking for distributors :
Looking for funds :
Woman Is the Future of Man (Hong Sang-soo)
Ala-Arriba! (Leitão de Barros)
The Magic Eye of Love (Ícaro (Francisco C.) Martins & José Antonio Garcia)
Jupiter (Jean-Pierre Prévost)
Looking for distribution :
The Peach Thief (Vulo Radev)
Njangaan (Mahama Johnson Traoré)
Ecce Homo Homolko (Jaroslav Papoušek)
Kohlhiesels Töchter (Ernst Lubitsch)
Father (István Szabó)
China Film Archive did new 4K restorations:
Way Down West (1927, aka West Chamber) - restored from the only surviving 5-reel European released prints
Sorrows and Joys of a Middle-Aged Man (1949) - restored from original camera nagatives
But the ridiculous methods from China Film Archive strikes again, they claimed the original frame rate of silent films is not compatible with modern screening formats, so they did another high frame rate conversion for Way Down West and using the software to upconvert this film into HFR. They called it to preserve the original looks of this film lol https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jRPuYURcQdXidm7hK4ww7A
When I'm constantly seeing re-restorations of films that have already been restored multiple times in the past
fifteen years, couldn't someone at Pathe finally admit that the 2011 restoration of Children of Paradise
was lackluster (to say the least) and spring for a new top-to-bottom restoration project?
