Otar Iosseliani

[AxeYou]

Not sure if the above restorations are the ones featured in the Carlotta box set. Specs for the box does not mention 4K, only HD restorations "1080/24p/50i • ENCODAGE AVC"

tenia's review mentions the Carlotta BD set featured 2K restorations.

I saw the new 4K restorations of Falling Leaves and There Was Once a Singing Blackbird at Metrograph in NYC. They were credited to Hiventy.

The clarity is remarkable, however... there was serious black crush on both. Almost all detail is lost in darker areas. Very much worse than the caps tenia took of the 2K resto here. (I'm yet to see Pastorale, but I'm not holding out my breath.)

Metrograph also screened a 2K restoration of Georgian Ancient Songs, which, while also credited to Hiventy, did not exhibit the same black crush at all. I believe this is the same master that Carlotta used on their disc. There was just a little bit of highlight blooming, and the 2K resto provided great clarity already.

[AxeYou]

Having picked up the Carlotta box set now, I can confirm that Falling Leaves and There Was Once a Singing Blackbird suffer none of the black crush in the newer 4K restorations. However, the English subtitles here omit quite a bit of dialog, which was improved upon in the ones accompanying the 4K restorations.

From the individual back covers within the boxset: Everything was scanned in 4K and restored in 2K by Hiventy, except Georgia, Alone (1994) which was restored in HD by Hiventy based on SD video elements.

[tenia]

Iosseliani supervised the subtitles included in the Carlotta set, including the lack of subs on some dialogues. Not sure if having more of them is normal.

[domino harvey]

As with Godard wanting “Navajo” subtitles, sometimes it’s okay to ignore a director’s wishes when it comes to just relaying the film they made accurately to others

[diamonds]

In the case of Iosseliani, who drew much inspiration from silent comedy, more detailed subtitles would hardly make the films any more comprehensible. They play perfectly fine with minimal subtitles. (They also don't have a great deal of dialog in general, so I can't imagine the subtitles on these supposed newer versions are significantly more copious.)

[tenia]

Iosseliani also had issues with the State and its censorship and commissions, and not subtitling some movies or part of them was a way to express that the end result isn't what he wanted the viewers to get.