New Wave Films (UK)

[GaryC]

On a tangent, I'm so hoping that a 70mm print of The Master does the rounds in the UK.

So am I, and I've posted as such in that film's thread. I am told that a 70mm print did get shown at BAFTA at the end of last month, so we may well be in luck. That isn't a public cinema though, so I'm not sure where in London will be showing it. The only screens I know for sure that can show 70mm in London are the BFI IMAX and NFT1 at the BFI Southbank, though I would be surprised if the Empire 1 and Odeon Leicester Square hadn't kept their 70mm equipment. The last commercial run of a 70mm print was of 2001 in that year at the Curzon Mayfair (reissues of West Side Story and the forthcoming one of Lawrence of Arabia were/are digital-only, as is the present run of Samsara). However, going by their website, none of the Curzon chain can do 70mm any more, and screen two at Mayfair and all three screens at the HMVCurzon in Wimbledon can't do 35mm either.

Outside London there are places like the Pictureville Cinema in Bradford, and I believe that the Glasgow Film Theatre can show 70mm prints, though I haven't seen one shown there.

[AidanKing]

With regard to New Wave releasing some films on DVD/BluRay as soon as possible, and allowing others to have a longer theatrical run, the main problem would be how to decide which films go down which track. Is it completely obvious that Once Upon a Time in Anatolia would have a successful theatrical run while Bluebeard would not? Hadewijch I think could have done reasonably well in cinemas had it not been for the prejudice against Dumont's work in certain distribution channels.

If the release of art cinema was tailored solely to the users of this board, no doubt BluRay release would be the primary concern with anything else an afterthought. But are the users of this forum the sole market for art cinema? I hope not or else it will soon be dead and gone because the audience will be too small and all that will be left will be the multimillion dollar blockbusters and attempts to do cheaper versions of the same in countries like the UK.

I think that everyone who reads this forum will get their information on new films from festival reports in magazines like Sight and Sound, Cinema Scope and Film Comment and from internet reviews but some arthouse films (e.g. Anatolia again) will have had some people attending in the UK because of reviews in The Guardian and Independent on Sunday.

The problem for New Wave is how to get as wide an audience as possible: I know that's obvious but it's true. Relying on an international, web-based community of cinephiles who buy BluRay and not trying to attract anyone else is surely going to result in the company not having enough capital to acquire new films for distribution. And then these types of films won't be able to be made any more.

Having said this, I think they should probably just cut their losses on Aurora in particular and maybe also Elena and get them out on DVD as soon as they can.

Just as an aside, considering Robert Beeson's achievements with the old Artificial Eye and New Wave, praising New Wave for excellent taste should maybe be taken as a given: it sounds a little bit patronising otherwise.

[repeat]

But are the users of this forum the sole market for art cinema? I hope not

Surely not, but the combined readerships of the three magazines you mentioned, plus those of Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, might come approximately close to some kind of a core audience. If that audience is too small (as it indeed might well be) to make DVD/BD distribution of marginal titles feasible, I guess one possible solution could then be the classic strategy of trying to cash in on a small number of crowd-pleasing titles (if any can be acquired), and try to channel the profits from those to less lucrative endeavours. (I have absolutely no idea of the financial realities of film distribution, but this sort of thing seems to work for example for some independent book publishers)

[MichaelB]

The biggest change in the last two decades has been that income from TV sales has plummeted.

As far as UK distribution is concerned, twenty years ago, a sale to BBC2 or Channel 4, which once used to show one or two subtitled or otherwise challenging films weekly, might well cover the cost of mounting the theatrical release. But now, it's far more likely that you'll sell TV rights to a minority-interest digital channel, which pays far less - thus making a theatrical release a much bigger financial risk.

[peerpee]

Just as an aside, considering Robert Beeson's achievements with the old Artificial Eye and New Wave, praising New Wave for excellent taste should maybe be taken as a given: it sounds a little bit patronising otherwise.

Is that aimed at me? Bit snarky, Aidan! -- I said "We love your films and your taste"

I don't know what you're reading into it, but no-one should feel even vaguely patronised by an honest statement of affection.

[TMDaines]

On a tangent, I'm so hoping that a 70mm print of The Master does the rounds in the UK.

So am I, and I've posted as such in that film's thread. I am told that a 70mm print did get shown at BAFTA at the end of last month, so we may well be in luck. That isn't a public cinema though, so I'm not sure where in London will be showing it. The only screens I know for sure that can show 70mm in London are the BFI IMAX and NFT1 at the BFI Southbank, though I would be surprised if the Empire 1 and Odeon Leicester Square hadn't kept their 70mm equipment. The last commercial run of a 70mm print was of 2001 in that year at the Curzon Mayfair (reissues of West Side Story and the forthcoming one of Lawrence of Arabia were/are digital-only, as is the present run of Samsara). However, going by their website, none of the Curzon chain can do 70mm any more, and screen two at Mayfair and all three screens at the HMVCurzon in Wimbledon can't do 35mm either.

Outside London there are places like the Pictureville Cinema in Bradford, and I believe that the Glasgow Film Theatre can show 70mm prints, though I haven't seen one shown there.

I can't imagine so many have junked their 70mm equipment. Even the Student Cinema at Warwick can project it.

[AidanKing]

Just as an aside, considering Robert Beeson's achievements with the old Artificial Eye and New Wave, praising New Wave for excellent taste should maybe be taken as a given: it sounds a little bit patronising otherwise.

Is that aimed at me? Bit snarky, Aidan! -- I said "We love your films and your taste"

I don't know what you're reading into it, but no-one should feel even vaguely patronised by an honest statement of affection.

No, it's definitely not aimed at you and not intended to be snarky, although in retrospect I can see why you felt that. Sorry it seemed that way.

I just felt that the tone of some of the comments indicated that New Wave were in some way being regarded as an inferior company to Artificial Eye which, given the history of the two companies, seems a bit mistaken.

Much as I like most of the films Artificial Eye put out, I sometimes wonder whether some (e.g. The Turin Horse) would not be better sited with New Wave. I also found it a bit annoying that AE dumped the Dardennes for Silence of Lorna and then took Kid with a Bike, which New Wave told me (by e-mail after last year's Cannes) they would have liked: oh well, business I suppose.

I also feel genuinely worried that New Wave may not survive, and about the consequences of that, because the films they distribute are of minority interest even within arthouse cinema, but they seem to pick up the best stuff and, if they go, I wonder whether anyone would fill the gap.

I think if this forum can give them advice about how to get the best out of the films they pick up, which some members (in particular, you, of course) can do, that's better than abandoning them and purchasing their releases elsewhere (if you live in the UK).

MichaelB's point about TV sales is one I hadn't considered when posting in this thread at first and it's another problem for New Wave: I doubt whether even BBC4 would show most of their films.

[peerpee]

Thanks for clarifying Aidan!

I share all your concerns. We're all discussing this because we genuinely want New Wave and other labels we love to do well. Hearing that they lose money on titles is such a shame.

Artificial Eye are seemingly trying to carry on along the same path they brilliantly furrowed under Andi/Pam/Robert but at times seem to be struggling with what feels like a surfeit of acquisitions, and there's been a big emphasis on the Curzon brand lately, which I'm not sure the average person realises is anything to do with AE.

The rate of AE's releases reminds me of Optimum Releasing immediately prior to the StudioCanal acquisition. Furiously catalogue building to fatten themselves up for a sale. The Tabatznik Family Trust taking a substantial equity stake in Curzon Artificial Eye perhaps also an indicator of something along those lines.

MichaelB's point about TV sales is pretty massive. From my experience it fell off the edge of a cliff a while back though (2007/8?) and labels have since been relying on (what were) UK Film Council grants to cover certain theatrical distribution costs for foreign language films (including P&A, subtitling, the making of prints, etc).

[colinr0380]

On the TV acquisition issue it could get worse rather than better. The latest issue of Sight & Sound has a piece on the depature of Steve Jenkins the head of BBC film acquisitions who apparently nurtured the (limited and focused on the 'big' titles) foreign language film slot on BBC4.

Here's a quote from the article:

The BBCs budget for film acquisitions is being cut as part of the corporations Delivering Quality First initiative and Jenkins will not be directly replaced, with his his responsibilities absorbed by the Head of Programme Acquisition. A press release from the corporation stressed that fewer movies will be required for the post News at Ten slot on BBC1 [colr comment: unsurprising since the two hour Eastenders omnibus now plays in the post 10.30 p.m. news slot on BBC1 Fridays and Match of the Day takes up a couple of hours on Saturdays throughout much of the year], while BBC2 and BBC3 will also have their film output reduced. BBC2 will remain home to BBC Films, while BBC4 will continue to broadcast foreign-language drama.

I'm not sure that I agree with the celebratory tone of the article talking of the way that Jenkins moved foreign language films into a prime time slot from being tucked away at 2 a.m. - that just meant that riskier, non celebrated films were never selected for the BBC4 'World Cinema' season (and we are probably not going to get any repeats of films from an earlier era outside of special one-off seasons) and the late night slots instead got filled by rolling news, signed repeats of primetime shows and gambling and home shopping programmes (I also remember the days when the regional ITV channels, prior to consolidation into a nationwide entity, used to show one hour B-movies from Butcher's Films and the like! They might not have been lost masterpieces but they were preferable to the wasteland there is now)

On the BBC's end I wonder whether this cutting back is also down to their on-demand internet streaming service - it may be impossible to negotiate the rights to screen the films they show for their iPlayer and therefore it is much more practical to schedule a block of five episodes of Eastenders rather than trying to sort out the availability of Mad Max or something like that, or leave a gap and 'programme unavailable' message on their iPlayer stream while the film screens? Films that they produce will likely be fine but anything bought in, unless it is too high profile to ignore (such as a Christimas premiere of the latest blockbuster film or a series like The Killing), might be problematic and not worth the trouble to schedule.

[peerpee]

An open-ended, top notch, non-dumbed down, specialist cinema discussion roundtable programme, before and after classic/world cinema, would be a cheap and extremely interesting thing for BBC4 to do.

I find it hard to get nostalgic about the BBC's past approach to world cinema, which seemed to only involve striking a deal with Artificial Eye and porting all their stuff through for a few years.

They don't seem to realise that TV could offer so much more than this and the World Cinema Awards. They could offer a magical service, a complete alternative to what's available on the DVD/Blu-ray circuit, with accompanying new programming.

[colinr0380]

But you know even with the BBC in the past there were still gems. Maybe gems that they didn't recognise but they were there. I'll give a non-'World Cinema' example: last night I was watching back through a tape I had of films recorded from the BBC from 1995. Back then they did a Monday evening screening of a TV movie on BBC2 in the 8.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. slot - mostly uninspiring stuff and likely just screened as a schedule gap filler.

However one of the films was Final Verdict, a 1991 period law film starring Treat Williams which is the last film to date directed by Jack Fisk who has gone on to be the Production Designer on all of Terence Malick's films since the The Thin Red Line, along with Paul Thomas Anderson's last two films (The Master and There Will Be Blood) and Lynch's Straight Story and Mulholland Drive.

Final Verdict itself isn't a great drama (while it is a real-life story, it is very in the vein of To Kill A Mockingbird and the subplot about the young daughter looking up to her lawyer father is a little weird, starting strongly but then moves to the background for the longest time before suddenly resurfacing again. It is Glenn Ford's last film though, getting a Brando-in-Godfather style period running down in the street after buying a bag of oranges!) but the period 1910s setting is absolutely stunning with the cars, courtrooms and the mid-day courtyard of a brothel beautifully realised. I would recommend anyone to track a copy of that film down just to compare it to the beautifully created period worlds that Mr Fisk designed for other filmmakers.

Now that is an example of even the tossed aside films in the BBC schedule ten to fifteen years ago containing something of value almost by accident of there being a lot of stuff to show and a lot of space to fill in the schedule with bought in stuff. I doubt much is bought in now (although Channel 5 seem to be doing their bit to single-handedly keep the TV movie genre alive), leading to fewer surprise encounters of that sort in the TV schedules.

Instead you get fifteen re-runs of an Indiana Jones film or the latest officially sanctioned 'BBC Film Production' take on cinema - they might be great films but they are working within a very narrow range (as they are with the BBC4 'World Cinema' season seeming to be content in screenings coming only from the film and DVD distributors rather than forging into their own territory), and seemingly only getting narrower if that article is to be believed.

[MichaelB]

They don't seem to realise that TV could offer so much more than this and the World Cinema Awards. They could offer a magical service, a complete alternative to what's available on the DVD/Blu-ray circuit, with accompanying new programming.

I completely agree. I use BBC4 as a handy means of catching up on what I've missed, but I used to use BBC2 and Channel 4 as an essential means of finding stuff I never knew about. My love of Czech cinema stems largely from a BBC2 season that they ran in the summer of 1990 - and it wasn't just the films (I think there were ten: unimaginable now!), but also the accompanying documentaries like the wonderfully-named Kids from FAMU, which I didn't know until much later was an early Pawel Pawlikowski effort.

Of course, documentaries cost money - but intelligent intros and post-screening discussions rank amongst the cheapest programming there is. You could even incorporate Twitter elements and make them truly interactive.

I've been asked to give a 90-minute talk on film music to a load of American undergraduates on Friday. I daresay they're expecting me to tick the usual Herrmann/Korngold/Morricone boxes, but there'll be plenty of Zdeněk Liška and other personal favourites thrown in too. And if just one person is enthused enough by the clips from Marketa Lazarová to encourage them to explore further, mission accomplished.

[AidanKing]

The rate of AE's releases reminds me of Optimum Releasing immediately prior to the StudioCanal acquisition. Furiously catalogue building to fatten themselves up for a sale. The Tabatznik Family Trust taking a substantial equity stake in Curzon Artificial Eye perhaps also an indicator of something along those lines.

Crikey, things are even worse than I thought then. A cursory look at articles relating to Tabatznik seems to suggest that the equity stake may be a tax thing - and not in the sense of ensuring that you make your full contibution to the essential cost of running a civilised society, either.

On a more positive note, I too would love to see a discussion programme along the lines suggested. It's not just the BBC which has changed though: I remember not only a Channel 4 Truffaut season and but also a screening of Mirror - both at 9.00 PM on a Saturday night.

[peerpee]

To clarify, when I said: "I find it hard to get nostalgic about the BBC's past approach to world cinema," -- I meant "during the BBC4 / digital TV era of the last ten years" and wasn't talking about their attitude to world cinema before it, which in the 1960s (thanks to Tom Milne), and the 80s/90 (thanks to Alex Cox / Mark Cousins / and others) was pretty much all we had, and it was great.

[GaryC]

However one of the films was Final Verdict, a 1991 period law film starring Treat Williams which is the last film to date directed by Jack Fisk who has gone on to be the Production Designer on all of Terence Malick's films since the The Thin Red Line, along with Paul Thomas Anderson's last two films (The Master and There Will Be Blood) and Lynch's Straight Story and Mulholland Drive..

Slight nitpick - Fisk was Malick's art director on both Badlands and Days of Heaven. He met his wife, Sissy Spacek, on the set of the former and they are still married. Fisk's association with Lynch goes back a long way: they are longstanding friends and he and Spacek helped Lynch get Eraserhead under way. Fisk plays the Man in the Planet in that film.

I do remember the 1980s Film International slot on BBC2 on Saturday nights well, as that's how I started on non-English-language cinema. However, it wasn't perfect: it was almost always recent stuff, including many films that are pretty much forgotten now except by specialists (Duty Free Marriage, anyone? Flame Top?) Older world cinema was rarely shown - I remember that La grande illusion only got shown when someone involved with it died - and there were seemingly random showings of things like Closely Observed Trains and Le trou, to name two that I saw. But compare that to what we have now.

On a related point, BBC2's several seasons of Australian films thirty-odd years ago got me started on Cinema Down Under.

[colinr0380]

However one of the films was Final Verdict, a 1991 period law film starring Treat Williams which is the last film to date directed by Jack Fisk who has gone on to be the Production Designer on all of Terence Malick's films since the The Thin Red Line, along with Paul Thomas Anderson's last two films (The Master and There Will Be Blood) and Lynch's Straight Story and Mulholland Drive..

Slight nitpick - Fisk was Malick's art director on both Badlands and Days of Heaven. He met his wife, Sissy Spacek, on the set of the former and they are still married. Fisk's association with Lynch goes back a long way: they are longstanding friends and he and Spacek helped Lynch get Eraserhead under way. Fisk plays the Man in the Planet in that film.

True, I was trying to find a way to work that in but thought it would overcomplicate matters. There was obviously an ongoing relationship there with both directors, then Fisk worked on his own features in the 80s (two of his four directed features star Spacek) and 90s ending with Final Verdict, then seems to have returned to working with Malick and Lynch on a more regular basis.

[AidanKing]

BBC2's Film Club in the 80s was pretty good too, with often excellent introductions, e.g. Derek Malcolm on Heaven's Gate, Terence Davies on 2001, Mike Hodges on Kaos.

With regard to New Wave, if they're looking for a good extra for a future release, how about adding My Joy to the forthcoming In the Fog? It didn't get UK distribution and it would continue the Artificial Eye tradition of great DVD double bills (Rosetta/La Promesse; Unknown Pleasures/Xiao Wu). I'm sure most people who would buy it would be willing to pay a bit extra for the additional film.

[repeat]

how about adding My Joy to the forthcoming In the Fog

For my part, I would easily pay double price for an edition with some of his documentaries/shorts, such as Blockade or Train Stop, on a second disc; to my knowledge only Northern Light is available on DVD. My Joy is out on R2 with English subs in Germany and available through several UK vendors so I doubt it would be as attractive an extra.

[newwavefilms]

This debate is going off in so many directions, but it is our ambition to release My Joy on video if we can secure the rights reasonably. If we do, it won't be economic to make it a double disc with In the Fog.

At the risk of getting everyone going again, we and say Cinema Guild are not supposed to be competing with each other for the custom of the readers of forums like these, we both have to be focussed on our respective national markets for practical, legal and contractual reasons. Our release dates are constrained by local considerations and of course money, rather than trying to be first in the world to release a particular title.

That said, when we do release Aurora on video early next year it will have an exclusive interview with Cristi Puiu as the extra, if that inspires anyone to hold off buying the Cinema Guild edition...

And at this time of night it's probably not wise to get started on the subject of the BBC. Let's just say that The Killing did in everything else.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

At the risk of getting everyone going again, we and say Cinema Guild are not supposed to be competing with each other for the custom of the readers of forums like these...
....That said, when we do release Aurora on video early next year it will have an exclusive interview with Cristi Puiu as the extra, if that inspires anyone to hold off buying the Cinema Guild edition...

The words ' your cake' and 'eating it' come to mind

And at this time of night it's probably not wise to get started on the subject of the BBC.

To paraphrase the Two Ronnies.... It's Good Night from him and Good Night from me.
We'll both just roll over and go back to sleep.

[RossyG]

Out of interest, newwavefilms, has the feedback given in this thread been of any use to you?

[AidanKing]

At the risk of getting everyone going again, we and say Cinema Guild are not supposed to be competing with each other for the custom of the readers of forums like these, we both have to be focussed on our respective national markets for practical, legal and contractual reasons. Our release dates are constrained by local considerations and of course money, rather than trying to be first in the world to release a particular title.

Objectively, this is clearly true, isn't it? It's probably better to buy the disc from the company based in the country in which you live, if you want the company to be able to survive.

I would also be interested to know if any of this feedback was helpful.

[colinr0380]

To clarify, when I said: "I find it hard to get nostalgic about the BBC's past approach to world cinema," -- I meant "during the BBC4 / digital TV era of the last ten years" and wasn't talking about their attitude to world cinema before it, which in the 1960s (thanks to Tom Milne), and the 80s/90 (thanks to Alex Cox / Mark Cousins / and others) was pretty much all we had, and it was great.

Agreed - it seemed for a while there that television was also championing films from around the world with its own discoveries and acquisitions rather than just feeding off the work already done by DVD distributors as seems more the case these days. And that seemed like a good symbiotic relationship, as material that people discovered on television (as MichaelB notes) created an interest in exploring further that home video suppliers could then fulfill and expand on! Now rather than give and take television seems more about just taking the pre-existing rather than creating value and demand through their own research with the resources that only a publically funded television company has access to and with the scope of viewership that only television can provide.

In the end everyone would benefit from that situation, both television and commercial distributors. But particularly audiences. (but then this is getting slightly into the wider political argument of it being ridiculous to attempt to extricate public and private businesses from each other so that they exist as separate entities, when a symbiotic relationship would benefit all to a greater extent).

I wonder if it would be possible to move the television discussion to its own thread, rather than annoy New Wave by cluttering up its dedicated thread? I think some of the issues about television acquisition feeding into the choices of home video distributors (and maybe even the choices of cinema distributors in what to choose) are important to highlight and maybe get further input from the likes of MichaelB and peerpee on. For example would screenings of films on television depress sales of DVDs of films or increase demand? Would cinemas keep away from screening films that were recently shown on television, or would that increase interest from audiences to see them on bigger screens? Are extra features or things like Second Run film screenings with guests more important in (terrible phrase) 'adding value' to films that are available elsewhere, therefore increasing the emphasis on important and intriguing extra material added to discs and screenings in their own right?

And seconded about the creation of a serious film discussion show, perhaps with associated screenings to involve the audience in what is being talked about more. After all if the BBC can devote two primetime hours every Saturday night to talking about football (as well as fifteen minutes every hour devoted to sport their news channel seven days a week), perhaps other interests should be accorded the same serious respect. It would then take the onus somewhat off of the Claudia Winkleman Film show to have to take on the role of being UK television's only representative of film culture in its entirety.

[MichaelB]

To respond to New Wave's last post, clearly in a strict legal/contractual sense UK companies are not supposed to be competing with foreign companies, but it's clear that the competition is happening regardless, and on the DVD/BD projects I've worked on myself I always make sure I'm aware of what other labels are or have been doing.

(I know for a fact that the BFI does this routinely - when embarking on Red Desert and the Ozu films, they made sure they were completely up to speed with other editions and what people had been saying about them, very much including comments made here. To give one excellent example, the strongly negative reception towards Criterion's Good Morning influenced their decision to spend a bit extra creating their own master instead of borrowing Criterion's.)

What would be interesting to know is how significant it is - by which I mean, what proportion of customers are likely to shop around globally before reaching their decision. And of course how extensive this global shopping is - I suspect with most people it involves the US, Canada, possibly France and Germany (various European Amazon branches make this easier), but stops well short of, say, eastern Europe, Russia and most other continents.

Which means that a US distributor bringing out a DVD of something released by, say, Second Run is a big deal, but the previous existence of an English-subtitled disc of Szindbád on a Hungarian label is far less of a threat - even if you were aware of its existence at all, ordering it involves significant logistical and linguistic hassle, and I'm willing to bet that very very few copies entered the UK before Second Run brought their own edition out. Certainly not enough to make any significant difference.

For me it varies - I rarely investigate much further than comparisons made here and on DVD Beaver, and I won't even necessarily go for the most stacked edition: for instance, I'm favouring Artificial Eye's The Turin Horse over Cinema Guild's because the only extra I particularly care about is common to both, by all accounts there's nothing to choose between the transfers, and as a UK resident the AE disc is a fair bit cheaper for me. On the other hand, if the UK edition was completely barebones and had an inferior transfer, that would certainly push me decisively towards Cinema Guild.

[repeat]

What would be interesting to know is how significant it is - by which I mean, what proportion of customers are likely to shop around globally before reaching their decision

As a layman I feel like I'm poking my nose where it doesn't belong with this thread, but I have to wonder aloud once more: whence the assumption that only British people buy discs from UK labels? With the lingua franca status of English, and even without the popularity of region-free players, I'd think the potential market area for New Wave DVD's is substantially wider, no?

So if we're talking about for example whether enough audience exists for a Hors Satan release to be feasible, surely the relevant question is how many people globally shop around for New Wave discs, and not the other way around?