24 June 2008

To co-incide with the release of his new documentary feature Of Time and the City, receiving a BFI cinema release on 31st October, The British Film Institute are releasing three of Terence Davis's early films on UK DVD for the first time, restored by the BFI National Archive working closely with Davis himself.

While at Coventry Drama School in the early 1970s, Terence Davies wrote the script for Children which he directed in 1976.  He subsequently took up a place at The National Film School and with the support of the BFI Production Board, made his graduation film Madonna and Child (1980). Three years later, also part-funded by the BFI, he completed the Trilogy with Death and Transfiguration. Before Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes confirmed Terence Davies' status as one of the cinematic masters of our day; these three early shorts reveal a filmmaker of great promise.

In stark black and white, Davies excavates the life of his fictional alter ego, Robert Tucker, in a narrative that slips between childhood, middle age and death, shaping the raw materials of his own life into a rich tapestry of experiences and impressions.

Over the course of these three films, we witness the emergence of Davies' singular talent and style, the refinement of his technique, and a director growing in confidence, soon to become fêted as British cinema's greatest film poet.

The Terence Davis Trilogy will be released by the BFI on UK DVD on 28th July 2008 at the RRP of £19.99 with the following special features:

• Full feature commentary by Terence Davies;
• Filmed interview with Terence Davies by Geoff Andrew;
• 10-page illustrated booklet including essays by Derek Jarman and Distant Voices, Still Lives producer Jennifer Howarth on Terence Davies at Film School.

Following his prize-winning debut feature film Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), in 1992 Terence Davies made The Long Day Closes, now released by the BFI on DVD for the first time, alongside The Terence Davies Trilogy. Terence Davies' lyrical hymn to childhood revisits the same territory as Distant Voices, Still Lives, this time focusing on his own memories of growing up in a working-class Catholic family in Liverpool.

Eleven-year-old Bud (a heartbreaking performance from Leigh McCormack) finds escape from the greyness of '50s Britain through trips to the cinema and in the warmth of family life. But as he gets older, the agonies of the adult world; the casual cruelty of bullying, the tyranny of school and the dread of religion, begin to invade his life.

Time and memory blend and blur through Davies' fluid camerawork; slow tracking shots, pans and dreamlike dissolves combine to create the world of Bud's imagination and the lost paradise of his childhood.

The Long Day Closes will be released on UK DVD for the first time by the BFI on 28th July 2008 at the RRP of £19.99 with the following special features:

• Full feature commentary with Terence Davies and Director of Photography Mick Coulter (Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually);
• On-set interview with production designer Christopher Hobbs (Velvet Goldmine, Orlando);
• Previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage of Terence Davies directing;
• 18-page illustrated booklet with essays, director biography and credits;
• Fully uncompressed PCM stereo audio.