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Treasures of Soviet Animation Vol. 4: Roman Davydov’s THE ADVENTURES OF MOWGLI (MAUGLI) - 1967-1971, Soyuzmultfilm, 90 min. The 4th installment in our series of newly restored gems from the Soyuzmultfilm studio features one of the most visually stunning animated films ever made in Russia, or anywhere. Director Roman Davydov’s utterly glorious adaptation of Kipling’s The Jungle Book was originally released as 5 separate short films between 1967 – 1971 titled “Raksha,” “The Kidnapping,” “Akela’s Last Hunt,” “The Fight” and “Return To Mankind,” and then combined into a single feature. Frankly, this puts the better-known Disney version to shame with its phenomenal colors and highly stylized designs: enormous ebony-black elephants thunder in the darkness, monkeys chitter with glowing green eyes at a row of stunning death's-head cobras, and a splendid, bejeweled peacock spreads its feathers like an emerald and ruby crown. (Episode 1 of MOWGLI was actually released in 1967 just before Disney’s feature version.) There are numerous other differences as well: here, Bagheera is a lithe female panther (voiced by famed Russian actress Lyudmila Kasatkina); Baloo, an Asiatic black bear (voiced by Stepan Bubnov); Tabaqui, the cowardly minion to tiger Shere Khan (voiced by Anatoliy Papanov) is a golden jackal as in the original story. The astonishing climax with Mowgli and his wolf pack facing off in a ferocious battle against a horde of wild dogs, is one of the viscerally thrilling animated sequences ever put on film. Newly restored by Craig Rogers for Deaf Crocodile. In Russian with English subtitles.

Special Features

New cover artwork by Haleigh Buck

60-pg. Illustrated booklet

New essay by film critic Walter Chaw

New essay by film historian Jennifer Barker

New audio commentary by filmmaker & animator Dorian Saisse

New visual essay by film historian Evan Chester

New video interview with Soviet animation historian Maria Tereschenko

New artwork and graphic design by Beth Morris

Blu-ray authoring by Vital Passenger

PASSAGE, 1997, Czech TV, 102 min. An incredible rediscovery from Czech / Slovak master filmmaker Juraj Herz (THE CREMATOR, MORGIANA, BEAUTY & THE BEAST), PASSAGE is one of the most obscure works in his filmography – until now. The very definition of a Kafkaesque / Escher-like / cinematic Moebius strip, PASSAGE follows a businessman, Michal Forman (Jacek Borkowski) caught in a blinding rainstorm, who seems to witness his doppelganger being hit by a car. He takes refuge in the Lucerna Palace, a labyrinthine early 1900s entertainment complex in Prague where he encounters an increasingly surreal, Fellini-esque carnival of characters: an enigmatic woman (Małgorzata Kożuchowska) in spiked heels who apparently screws men to death (!) in a filthy bathroom; homeless punks and harried shoppers, night watchmen and beefy sauna operators; a mysterious film crew who may be making the movie we’re watching unfold … Forman finds himself frustrated in every attempt to leave the maze-like Lucerna, which resembles a sunken luxury liner or the Paris Opera, with endless passageways and workers and prostitutes all jostled together. Comparisons abound, to Scorsese’s AFTER HOURS, Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL, Shakhnazarov’s ZEROGRAD, Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE – all labyrinthine narratives about worlds that follow their own twisted logic – but PASSAGE stands on its own as one of Herz’s finest undiscovered gems, the film as strangely lost as Forman himself. (It’s worth nothing that PASSAGE and THE CREMATOR were Herz’s two personal favorites from his filmography.) Newly restored after an exhaustive archival search by Deaf Crocodile and Comeback Company for its first-ever worldwide Blu-ray release. In Czech with English subtitles.

Special Features

Limited edition slipcover artwork by Marc Aspinall

New commentary by film historian Peter Hames and Czech film expert Irena Kovarova of Comeback Company

New visual essay by experimental filmmaker and film scholar Stephen Broomer

“On Location, Then and Now: Lucerna Palace”: New featurette on the Lucerna Palace, the main location for PASSAGE, shot by Irena Kovarova and edited by Ryan Verrill of Someone’s Favorite Productions

48-page illustrated booklet

New essay by film critic Walter Chaw

New essay by film historian Jonathan Owen

Interview with producer Eve Vercel

New artwork and graphic design by Beth Morris