British Film Institute (BFI) Discussion Thread

[Dogwood]

Originally Posted by hanz0

[Show spoiler]

F*** yeah

[huntauk]

Originally Posted by hanz0

[Show spoiler]

First one is a day one!

[drush9999]

Wow three outta the four for me, nice to see BFI get one or two up on Criterion.

[Sifox211]

Second one is a day one for me. Unsure about the last -

[Show spoiler]do I need such a comprehensive survey, or is the scope of the Criterion better for me?

[fabio_p]

Wauwzers! That's all four titles for me

As a bluray/UHD collector, 2024 is the best year for me so far. Not just BFI, but all (boutique) labels.
With the first 2025 announcements out in the open, looks like next year is going to be equally great!

[rapta]

In for both Kurosawa and possibly Cronos too! Incredible lineup.

[Jorvic]

Will most likely buy Cronos.

[trobrianders]

Originally Posted by hanz0

Quick BFI/Criterion comparison if it's helpful

BFI

Chantal Akerman Collection: Volume 1 — 1967 — 1978 is released on 24 February and includes,

Akerman — Examen d’entree INSAS x 4 (1967)
Saute ma ville (1968)
L’enfant aime ou je joue… (1971)
Hôtel Monterey (1972)
La Chambre (1972
Hanging Out Yonkers (1973)
Le 1⅝ (1973)
Je tu il elle (1974)
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
News from Home (1976)
Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

Chantal Akerman Collection: Volume 2 — 1982 – 2015, released on 16 June, will include

All Night Long (1982)
Les Années 80 (1983)
Golden Eighties (1986)
Sloth (in Seven Women, Seven Sins) (1986)
Histoires d’ Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy (1988)
D’Est (1993)
South (1999)
La Captive (2000)
From the Other Side (2002)
Almayer’s Folly (2011)
No Home Movie (2015)




Criterion

Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978

Saute ma ville 1968
L’enfant aimé ou Je joue à être une femme mariée 1971
La chambre 1972
Hotel Monterey 1972
Le 15/8 1973
Hanging Out Yonkers 1973
Je tu il elle 1975
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1975
News from Home 1976
Les rendez-vous d’Anna 1978

[Foggy]

Nice, all in on the Kurosawa films and the Akerman set, probably double dip on Cronos when it drops in price.

[T4ffer]

I will get the Chantal Akerman box for sure, the others maybe some day. I recently watched all Kurosawa movies so it will be some time before I get back to him. Cronos might pick up randomly some time.

[Aunt Peg]

Chantal Akerman & Stray Dog for me.

I have the Criterion High & Low and really do need to cut down on the double dipping.

[OnlyJapantown]

Both Kurosawa films for me. 2025 is shaping up to be a good but expensive year.

[CouncilSpectre]

I mean, it's the very definition of a first-world problem, but after the carnage of Q4 2024 I was really hoping for a quieter 2025. Or at the very least a quiet Q1 2025, but nope.....

[Grenseal]

Oh no, this is going to be expensive, I want all of them.

[MifuneFan]

What an incredible lineup. Also finally a release that matches my avatar

Stray Dog Blu-ray

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/stray-dog-blu-ray.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DM6HKD...%2C370&sr=1-52

Stray Dog (Blu-ray)

Director: Akira Kurosawa

A masterful mix of film noir and police thriller set on the sweltering mean streets of occupied Tokyo.

When rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pistol stolen from his pocket while on a bus, his frantic attempts to track down the thief lead him to an illegal weapons market in the Tokyo underworld. But the gun has already passed from the pickpocket to a young gangster, and Murakami’s gun is identified as the weapon in the shooting of a woman.

Murakami, overwhelmed with remorse, turns for help to his older and more experienced senior, Sato (a superb performance by Takashi Shimura). The race is on to find the shooter before he can strike again…

Extras

• Presented in High Definition
• Newly recorded interview with Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp
• Newly recorded audio commentary by Kenta McGrath
• Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create – Stray Dog (2002, 32 mins)
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet with new writing on the film by Barry Forshaw, archive essay by Philip Kemp and original review

[MifuneFan]

Yojimbo & Sanjuro 4K UHD

(Also available separately on Blu-ray)

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/yojimbo-sanjuro-4k-uhd.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DM99P9B4

Yojimbo & Sanjuro (4K UHD Set)
Director: Akira Kurosawa

Yojimbo

Like Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo was Kurosawa’s tribute to the widescreen action Westerns of John Ford and was itself remade as a Western by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Played by the great Toshiro Mifune, the film’s enigmatic samurai is a scruffy and itinerant warrior who wanders into a strange town and right into the middle of a war between two clans. Showing his skills with the sword within minutes of his arrival, he soon has the town’s rival factions competing for his services.

Kurosawa’s genius for storytelling combines with thrilling swordplay, a healthy dose of black humour, a soundtrack every bit as atmospheric and amusing as Ennio Morricone’s, and a towering performance from Mifune, to make Yojimbo an irresistible widescreen action adventure.

Sanjuro

In response to the huge critical and commercial success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa and Mifune re-teamed a year later to make Sanjuro, a hilarious comedy of manners altogether more light-hearted than its predecessor.

The story has Sanjuro (Mifune) running lazy rings around nine naïve and clean-cut samurai and two genteel ladies, whilst also cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government. Whilst Kurosawa plays most of it for laughs, expertly parodying the conventions of Japanese period action films, he stages a startling switch of mood with an intense finale which may well be the briefest, and most breathtaking duel in all cinema.

Extras

• Limited edition 2-disc set, 2 x 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-rays presented in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Newly recorded interview with Jasper Sharp (2024)
• Audio commentary on Yojimbo by film critic Philip Kemp
• Introduction to Sanjuro by filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 5 mins)
• Interview with filmmaker Alex Cox (2003, 9 mins)
• Original trailers for both films
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring new and archival essays on both films, original reviews and full film credits
• Other extras TBC

[MifuneFan]

High & Low Blu-ray

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/high-and-low-blu-ray.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-and-Lo.../dp/B0DM6H2SP4

High and Low (Blu-ray)

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Based on an Ed McBain novel, High and Low is a gripping police thriller starring Toshiro Mifune. Wealthy industrialist Kingo Gondo (Mifune) faces an agonising choice when a ruthless kidnapper, aiming to snatch his young son, takes the chauffeur’s boy by mistake – but still demands the ransom, leaving Gondo facing ruin if he pays up.

An anatomy of the inequalities in modern Japanese society, High and Low is a complex film noir, where the intense police hunt for the kidnapper is accompanied by penetrating insight into the kidnapper’s state of mind. Kurosawa’s virtuoso direction provides no easy answers, and in short, the police and the criminal as equally brutal, but nonetheless human.

Extras

• Presented in High Definition
• Newly recorded audio commentary by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp
• Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create – High and Low (2002, 38 mins): the director discusses how High and Low came to exist, and how specific sequences were filmed. Also features interviews with actors Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa, Takeshi Kato, and Tatsuya Mihashi, as well as cameraman Takao Saito and Masaharu Ueda and script supervisor Teruyo Nogami
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet with new essay on the film by Alex Barrett, archive essay by Philip Kemp and an original review from Monthly Film Bulletin[

[MifuneFan]

Cronos UHD

(also available separately on Blu-ray)

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/cronos-limit...-ultra-hd.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DM6G586Z

Cronos (UHD Limited Edition)

Director: Guillermo Del Toro

Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro’s (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) directorial debut offers a unique take on the classic vampire story and went on to win the Critics’ Week award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993.

When antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) discovers an ancient artifact in the form of a golden mechanical scarab, he is unaware of the power it holds. Whilst the parasite inside the device grants eternal life to its new host, it also causes an extreme aversion to daylight and an unquenchable thirst for human blood. Desperate to claim the device for himself, a dying millionaire (played by Claudio Brook) and his brutish nephew (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) are in hot pursuit.

Newly restored in 4K, the BFI is delighted to be bringing Cronos back to UK audiences, in an extras packed limited edition 4K UHD.

Extras

• 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Newly recorded audio commentary by Jason Wood
• Audio commentary with Guillermo del Toro (2002)
• Audio commentary with producers Arthur H Gorson and Bertha Navarro and co-producer Alejandro Springall (in English and Spanish with optional English subtitles)
• Optional original Spanish-language voice-over introduction
• Cronos - An Introduction (2024, 34 mins): director Guillermo del Toro in conversation with the former head of the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes film festival and current managing director of Arte France Cinéma, Olivier Père (2024, 34 mins)
• Geometria (1987, 7 mins): a short film by Guillermo del Toro about a young man who pays dearly to have his dreams come true
• Guillermo del Toro on Geometria (7 mins): a short interview with the director about Geometria
• BFI Screen Talk: Guillermo del Toro (2017, 74 mins): filmed around the release of The Shape of Water, the writer and director discusses his career with journalist, author and screenwriter Mark Salisbury and the BFI London Film Festival
• The Making of Cronos: An Interview with Federico Luppi (2006, 5 mins): a short archival interview with the actor
• Interview with the director (2010, 60 mins): an archival interview with Guillermo del Toro
• Interview with Guillermo del Toro (2010, 18 mins): an interview with the writer and director
• Interview with Guillermo Navarro (2010, 13 mins): an interview with the film’s cinematographer
• Interview with Ron Pearlman (2010, 7 mins): an interview with the actor who since Cronos has gone on to become one of Del Toro’s regular collaborators
• Theatrical trailer
• Stills gallery
• 60-page book featuring new essays by Michelle Kisner, Rich Johnson, Barry Forshaw, and Michael Leader. Also includes and edited version of ‘Guillermo del Toro: The origins of horror and Cronos’, an interview that originally appeared in The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema, by Jason Wood and an original Sight & Sound review by John Kraniauskas.
• Fold-out poster featuring the new artwork for the film

[MifuneFan]

Chantal Akerman Collection Vol. 1 1967-1978 Blu-ray

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/chantal-aker...y-box-set.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chantal-Ake.../dp/B0DM6K3V2Z

Chantal Akerman Collection: Vol 1 – 1987 – 1978 (Limited Edition 5 x Blu-ray)

Director: Chantal Akerman

Born in Brussels in 1950 and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman directed more than 40 films (short, medium, and feature-length) in almost 50 years, spanning fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation. Today she is regarded as one of the most important and influential directors of her generation.

Akerman’s personal, non-conformist body of work has become increasingly relevant since her death in 2015, resonating with cinephiles globally as well as filmmakers including Joanna Hogg (The Eternal Daughter), Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine as Light), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Sean Baker (Anora), Alice Diop (Saint Omer) Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) and Charlotte Wells (Aftersun) citing her radical and experimental approach to filmmaking as a direct inspiration.

Representing the first significant release of Chantal Akerman’s work in the UK, this 5-disc set spanning 11 years includes her most famous film, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which topped the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll in 2022.

The Films
Examen d’entree INSAS x 4 (1967), Saute ma ville (1968), L’enfant aime ou je joue… (1971), Hôtel Monterey (1972), La Chambre (1972), Hanging Out Yonkers (1973), Le 1⅝ (1973), Je tu il elle (1974), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1976), and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

Extras

• Limited edition 5-disc set
• Autour de Jeanne Dielman (68 mins): documentary by Sami Frey, and co-edited by Akerman, which explores the on-set relationships between Akerman, Delphine Seyrig and the crew
• Audio commentaries on Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna by Kate Rennebohm
• Audio commentary on Je tu il elle by So Mayer and Selina Robertson
• Interview with cinematographer Babette Mangolte (32 mins)
• Interview with Natalia Akerman (28 mins)
• Interview with actor Aurore Clement (18 mins)
• Video essay by Sarah Wood looking at the early films of Chantal Akerman (2024)
• Perfect-bound book with new essays by Catherine Bray, Justine Smith, Gerald White, Sarah Wood and Hannah Strong

[Gacivory]

High & Low only being a Blu is disappointing. I’m still gonna get it, but disappointed.