Kino

[brundlefly]

Restoration trailer for Antonio Carlos da Fontoura's A Rainha Diaba.

[domino harvey]

Triumph of the Will discussion split off here

[brundlefly]

Restoration teaser for E. Elias Merhige's Begotten.

[Forrest Taft]

Great news, I’ve always wanted to see this.

[pistolwink]

I fondly(?) remember the effusive praise for that film by Susan Sontag, which became the linchpin of the film's marketing, to a humorous degree. (Nearly the same went for Sokurov's Mother and Son, whose trailer not only used her name twice, but actually had her signature on screen.)

Probably partly as a result of her endorsement, Begotten became one of the strangest and most cult-y films to be available at my local video stores.

[beamish14]

I fondly(?) remember the effusive praise for that film by Susan Sontag, which became the linchpin of the film's marketing, to a humorous degree. (Nearly the same went for Sokurov's Mother and Son, whose trailer not only used her name twice, but actually had her signature on screen.)

Probably partly as a result of her endorsement, Begotten became one of the strangest and most cult-y films to be available at my local video stores.

Did Begotten ever get 35mm prints? I thought it did receive 16mm distribution that was marketed towards the college screening crowd

[Robin Davies]

Restoration teaser for E. Elias Merhige's Begotten.

I got this on DVD years ago, lured by the inevitable Eraserhead comparisons. Some of the imagery is powerful but overall I found it very tedious.

[domino harvey]

I n December, 1930, Russian revolutionary film director Sergei Eisenstein travelled to Mexico to experience firsthand its “geographical, ethnological, cultural and historical diversity,” and to make a film he would call ¡Que Viva México! After shooting more than 30 hours of 35mm film—striking compositions of centuries-old Mayan ruins, traditional funeral rites of the indigenous people, the raucous festivities of Día de Muertos, and so much more—Eisenstein departed Mexico in April 1932, without having begun to edit. The footage instead made its way into the hands of other filmmakers, who sought to approximate his bold vision. A first of its kind, SERGEI EISENSTEIN ¡MÉXICO! assembles newly restored versions of those films derived from Eisenstein's legendary Mexican footage: Thunder Over Mexico (1933) and Death Day (1934) by Sol Lesser, Time in the Sun (1940) by Marie Seton, Bell & Howell’s four-volume Mexican Symphony by Willam F. Kruse and Egon Mauthner (1940-41), and the debut of Idols Behind Altars (2026), a diptych of Eisenstein's raw footage conceived by Bruce Posner with a new score by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky). This special two-disc collection also includes rare outtakes, photographs, sketches, and documentaries featuring historians and filmmakers who savor the brilliance of the Mexican footage, and discuss the challenges in representing a masterpiece which exists only in tantalizing fragments.

Product Extras :
A Trip to Tetlapayac, a 2022 Documentary by Ian Christie and Chiemi Shimade
Sensuous Lines, Eisenstein's Mexican Drawings 1930-32
Interview with Kenneth Anger Discussing ¡Que Viva Mexico!
Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising
Illustrated 48-Page Booklet of Essays and Notes
Gallery of Photographs
And More

Last minute contender for release of the year

[swo17]

Woah. So does this not include ¡Que Viva México! but all the footage can be found throughout these other films?

[Matt]

I was a little confused as to why Scorpio Rising would seemingly randomly be on this release, so here's the connection:

A Philological Quandary, Kenneth Anger’s ¡Que Viva Mexico! (2026, dir. Bruce Posner)

Kenneth Anger edited his own version of Sergei Eisenstein’s unfinished Mexican reverie, and even showed it at a festival. Alas leaving no trace of the object. Bruce Posner, now, created his own multi-screen variation on the story that lyrically compares moments from ¡Que Viva Mexico! with scenes from Anger’s avant-garde axiom Scorpio Rising.

[pistolwink]

A first of its kind, SERGEI EISENSTEIN ¡MÉXICO! assembles newly restored versions of those films derived from Eisenstein's legendary Mexican footage: Thunder Over Mexico (1933) and Death Day (1934) by Sol Lesser, Time in the Sun (1940) by Marie Seton, Bell & Howell’s four-volume Mexican Symphony by Willam F. Kruse and Egon Mauthner (1940-41), and the debut of Idols Behind Altars (2026), a diptych of Eisenstein's raw footage conceived by Bruce Posner with a new score by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky). This special two-disc collection also includes rare outtakes, photographs, sketches, and documentaries featuring historians and filmmakers who savor the brilliance of the Mexican footage, and discuss the challenges in representing a masterpiece which exists only in tantalizing fragments.

This is the way to do it. There's no definitive version of this film, so just stick 'em all on there as a kind of scholarly edition. Kind of amazing nobody's done this before.

That said... I'm assuming this includes the feature-length 1980(ish) version entitled Que Viva Mexico put together by Aleksandrov, which doesn't seem to be explicitly mentioned. It'd be very strange if this were excluded as it's the best-known version of the footage and Kino released it on VHS once upon a time.

[domino harvey]

And on DVD, which I bought within the last year or so