27 January 2008

Tartan Video have announced the following four titles for an April 2008 release on UK DVD. Technical specs and some of the extras are awaiting confirmation. Box artwork will hopefully follow shortly.

Exterminating Angels (Les Anges exterminateurs)
The latest film from Jean-Claude Brisseau, director of the erotic thriller Choses secrètes, has a possibly autobiographical air in its story of a filmmaker who is auditioning actresses for a new movie about female pleasures and his determination to push each one to new physical and pornographic boundaries. Challenging our traditional notions of how sex should be portrayed on screen, Brisseau's surrealistic, sexually explicit drama is almost guaranteed to shock and stimulate in equal measure.

Paranoid Park
Probably the film on this list that we are most looking forward to, this latest semi-experimental study of alienation from Gus Van Sant focuses on high school skateboarder Alex, whose life begins to crumble when he becomes involved in the accidental death of a security guard in the vicinity of the Portland park of the title. Shot by legendary cinematographer Chris Doyle (Chungking Express, Hero, In the Mood for Love and a whole load of very cool others) and Rain Kathy Li, Gus Van Sant's ultra-stylish film won the special 60th Anniversary Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The DVD extras will include UK exclusive coverage of Secret Cinema preview event; 'Making Of' documentary by Van Sant's sound mixer, Felix Andrew.

Mala Noche
To coincide with the release of Gus van Sant's most recent film, Paranoid Park, Tartan are also going to release his first, long available feature, now fully restored. The story of unrequited love between liqueur store clerk Walt and handsome illegal Mexican immigrant Johnny was shot on 16mm in black and white for a budget of $25,000, Mala Noche is nonetheless a visually arresting work that put Van Sant firmly on the indie film map.

Eisenstein, Volume 2
Tartan's second volume of films by on of the giants of cinema, Sergei Eisenstein, contains his classic historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Part 1 (Ivan Groznyy I) and Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 (Ivan Groznyy II: Boyarsky zagovor), which brought the director in conflict with Stalin. The set also contains Eisenstein's short film Bezhin Meadows (Bezhin lug).

Exterminating Angels will be released on 14th April 2008, while Paranoid Park, Mala Noche and Eisenstein, Volume 2 will be released on 28th April 2008. The retail price of each will be £19.99, except for Eisenstein, Volume 2, which will retail at £29.99.