The Sisters Brothers

release date: 27th February 2023 

 

After redefining the prison drama with the multi-award winning A Prophet and earning a Palme D’Or for Dheepan, French visionary director Jacques Audiard turned his eye to the American Western, adapting Patrick DeWitt’s acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers. Joaquin Phoenix (We Own the Night) and John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights) star as Charlie and Eli Sisters, a pair of Old West bounty hunters preceded by their reputation for ruthlessness. They’re tasked by their boss, a trade magnate and crime lord known only as The Commodore, with a seemingly simple mission: track down and kill a man by the name of Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed, The Sound of Metal), with the help of John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal, Donnie Darko), a private detective who’s approached Warm under false pretences. As the Sisters Brothers embark on the arduous journey from Oregon to California, their allegiance is questioned and their humanity challenged when they discover their actual target: a secret formula of Warm’s invention, that when poured into a river, can help detect gold. Superbly shot by regular Audiard collaborator Benoît Debie and featuring mesmerising performances from its lead cast, The Sisters Brothers reinterprets the classic Western formula to craft a compelling and darkly comedic tale of betrayal, redemption and brotherhood.

 

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation

• Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio sound

• Barry Forshaw on The Sisters Brothers, a brand new video essay by film critic Barry Forshaw on The Sisters Brothers and the psychological Western genre

• His Own Private Wild West, archival hour-long making-of documentary featuring interviews with many cast and crew members including director Jacques Audiard, actor John C. Reilly, cinematographer Benoît Debie, Production designer Michel Barthélémy, sound designer Brigitte Taillandier and Patrick DeWitt, author of the novel The Sisters Brothers.

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The Last Emperor

date: 13th february 2023 

 

Director of The Spider’s Stratagem, The Conformist, and Last Tango in Paris, Bernardo Bertolucci was one of the greats of Italian cinema. In 1987 his acclaimed epic The Last Emperor – made with British producer Jeremy Thomas (Naked Lunch, Crash) – swept the 60th Academy Awards winning nine Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director Following the life of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his birth in 1908 through his childhood in the fortress-like Forbidden City and his later misguided collaboration with the Japanese in World War II, The Last Emperor tells the history of China through the eyes of the man brought up to believe he was the country’s divine ruler. Filmed on location in China, Bertolucci and Thomas were the first western filmmakers to be allowed access to previously forbidden locations. Together with a cast including John Lone, Joan Chen and Peter O’Toole, and director of photography Vittorio Storaro’s lushly evocative cinematography, they created a classic film of sweeping scope and delicate intimacy that stunned critics and audiences alike. 

 

• New 4K restoration of the original theatrical version

• Original and extended versions of the film presented in their original aspect ratio of 2.39:1

• Original uncompressed stereo 2.0 audio, plus 5.1 audio option for theatrical version

• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork options

• Eight double-sided postcard sized lobby card reproduction artcards

Fold-out double-sided poster featuring two artwork options

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Vivre Sa Vie

date: 13th february 2023 

 

Vivre sa vie was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna Karina, Godard’s greatest muse, plays Nana, a young Parisian who aspires to be an actress but instead ends up a prostitute; her downward spiral is depicted in a series of discrete tableaux of daydreams and dances. Featuring some of Karina and Godard’s most iconic moments— from her movie theatre vigil with The Passion of Joan of Arc to her seductive pool-hall strut—Vivre sa vie is a landmark of the French New Wave that still surprises at every turn.

 

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin

• Video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni, conducted by historian Noël Simsolo

• Television interview from 1962 with actress Anna Karina

• Excerpts from a 1961 French television exposé on prostitution

• Illustrated essay on La prostitution, the book that served as inspiration for the film

• Stills gallery

• Director Jean-Luc Godard’s original theatrical trailer

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Fanny and Alexander

date: 13th february 2023 

 

One tumultuous year in the life of the Ekdahl family is viewed through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, whose imagination fuels the magical goings-on leading up to and following the death of his father. When his mother remarries a stern bishop, Alexander and his sister Fanny are banished to a gothic world. Directed by Ingmar Bergman and drawing heavily on his own memories, it highlights the young protagonist’s fascination with storytelling, while also serving as a kind of confessional critique of Bergman’s films and reworked themes, with trademark scenes of marital infighting, desperate grief, and searching existential enquiry. This two-disc Blu-ray features both the OSCAR-winning theatrical cut and original television miniseries, both presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

 

• Fanny and Alexander (1984, 321 mins): acknowledged by Bergman as his truest vision for the film, this five episode made-for-television version is the source from which the theatrical release was cut and contains entire scenes that were omitted from the film seen in cinemas

• Theatrical trailer (2022)

• Fully illustrated booklet featuring an essay on both versions of Fanny and Alexander by Philip Kemp

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The Cassandra Cat

date: 20th february 2023 

 

Vojtěch Jasný’s sumptuous, surreal satire is one of the most lavish and uninhibited films of the entire Czechoslovak New Wave. A travelling circus and its magical feline mascot arrive in a provincial Czech town, and expose the virtues, vices and desires of its unruly inhabitants. Part modern fairy tale, part colourful political metaphor, The Cassandra Cat (also known as When the Cat Comes) is a unique, glorious comic drama. Banned after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the film was regarded as an unacceptable and subversive critique of Communist society. Now newly restored in all its vibrant glory, this Cannes award-winner makes its world premiere on Blu-ray.

 

• The Cassandra Cat (Až přijde kocour, 1963) presented from a new 4K restoration by the Czech National Film Archive.

• A Projection Booth audio commentary with Mike White, Spencer Parsons and Chris Stachiw.

•  Badly Painted Hen (Špatně namalovaná slepice, 1963): the acclaimed animated short film by Jiří Brdečka, co-writer of The Cassandra Cat.

• Booklet featuring a new, expansive essay by author Cerise Howard.

• Original soundtrack remastered in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.

• New and improved English subtitle translation.

• World premiere on Blu-ray.

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.com for murder

date: 6th february 2023 

 

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream! This turn-of-the-millennium cyber psycho-thriller from Nico Mastorakis (Island of Death, Nightmare at Noon) showcases the usual gleeful eye for excess and inspired casting (including rock stars Roger Daltrey and Huey Lewis) one has come to expect from the cult director. Nastassja Kinski (Cat People) stars as Sondra Brummel, a young woman confined to a wheelchair following a skiing accident, who decides to have a bit of fun on an internet dating site with her friend Misty (Nicollette Sheridan, The Sure Thing) while her architect boyfriend Ben (Daltrey, The Legacy) leaves her alone for the weekend in the high-tech intelligent mansion he has built for them. Online anonymity works both ways, however, as they discover when they invoke the ire of a young man going by the handle of “Werther” and find the virtual world violently intruding upon the real, knife in hand… Nico Mastorakis takes us to the dark side of the web in an audacious and vivacious retooling of classic Hitchcockian thrillers – think Rear Windows 2000 meets Dial M for Mastorakis!

 

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation

• Original 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and lossless stereo audio

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

• The Making of .com for Murder, a featurette on the making of the film

• .com for Murder: The Unknown Story, a new featurette in which producer-director Nico Mastorakis revisits the production

• Archive interviews with Roger Daltrey and Huey Lewis

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  Imitation of Life

  date: 27th february 2023 

   

  Melodrama master JOHN M. STAHL (Magnificent Obsession) brings his exquisite restraint and almost spiritually pure visual style to this devastating, enduringly relevant story of mothers and daughters. Imitation of Life explores the friendship between two struggling single mothers: one (It Happened One Night’s CLAUDETTE COLBERT) a workingclass white woman who ascends to the top of the business world, the other (Beulah’s LOUISE BEAVERS) her Black housekeeper, whose life is shattered by the rejection of her rebellious, white-passing daughter (One Mile from Heaven’s FREDI WASHINGTON). It is this latter relationship— attuned to America’s bitter racial realities and heartbreakingly enacted by trailblazing Black performers Beavers and Washington—that lends the film its transcendent emotional power. This first adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s best-selling novel boldly confronts the complexities and contradictions of racial identity, economic exploitation, and the limits of the American dream.

   

• 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• New interview with Miriam J. Petty, author of Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood, about the resonance of Louise Beavers’s and Fredi Washington’s performances

• New interview with Imogen Sara Smith, contributor to The Call of the Heart: John M. Stahl and Hollywood Melodrama, about director John M. Stahl and his work with actor Claudette Colbert and others

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by Petty

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Scary Movie

date: 13th february 2023 

 

Melodrama master JOHN M. STAHL (Magnificent Obsession) brings his exquisite restraint and almost spiritually pure visual style to this devastating, enduringly relevant story of mothers and daughters. Imitation of Life explores the friendship between two struggling single mothers: one (It Happened One Night’s CLAUDETTE COLBERT) a workingclass white woman who ascends to the top of the business world, the other (Beulah’s LOUISE BEAVERS) her Black housekeeper, whose life is shattered by the rejection of her rebellious, white-passing daughter (One Mile from Heaven’s FREDI WASHINGTON). It is this latter relationship— attuned to America’s bitter racial realities and heartbreakingly enacted by trailblazing Black performers Beavers and Washington—that lends the film its transcendent emotional power. This first adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s best-selling novel boldly confronts the complexities and contradictions of racial identity, economic exploitation, and the limits of the American dream.

 

• 2K preservation from the original 16mm camera negative

• Commentary with director Daniel Erickson and Joseph A. Ziemba of AGFA

• MR. PUMPKIN and LITTLE HERO short films by Daniel Erickson

• Original theatrical teaser trailer

• Behind the scenes photo gallery

• Reversible cover art with illustration by Charles Forsman

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Man Markes for Death, 20 years later

date: 6th february 2023 

 

Eduardo Coutinho’s classic Man Marked for Death, 20 Years Later is regarded as a landmark of filmmaking. Voted the greatest Brazilian documentary of all time in 2017 and the fourth greatest Brazilian film ever made in 2015 by the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine). Part fictionalised true story and part documentary, this extraordinary film sets out to tell the story of Joao Pedro Teixeira, leader of the Sape Peasant League in northeast Brazil, murdered on orders from the landowners. Before the film could be completed, a right-wing military coup forced the closure of its production and the imprisonment of several members of the crew. Decades later, Coutinho returned to the original film location and, using surviving footage alongside interviews with members of the original cast, including Joao Pedro’s wife Elizabeth, he created this compelling commentary on Brazilian history, politics and class conflict.

• Specially commissioned interview with the film’s producer Zelito Viana (25 mins)

• Award-winning interview with the director Eduardo Coutinho (12 min)

• Limited Edition numbered Blu-ray

• Limited Edition O-Card slipcase

• Limited Edition collector’s booklet feat. new writing by Berkeley Professor Natalia Brizuela

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Wakaliwood Supa Action Volume 1: Who Killed Captain Alex? + Bad Black

date: 13th february 2023 

 

Welcome to Wakaliwood, Uganda: home of “DA BEST OF DA BEST MOVIES!” and the vanguards of DIY commando cinema! Under the guidance of writer-director-producer Nabwana Isaac Godfrey Geoffrey (IGG) and with producer-star Alan Ssali Hofmanis, this crack crew of self-taught filmmakers and martial arts aficionados produce dozens of gonzo action films in the Kampala ghetto with budgets that rarely exceed $200 USD. Utilizing scrap parts to build computers, machine guns, and a full-sized Huey helicopter, these real-life superheroes inspire more heart, imagination, and soul than a thousand Hollywood blockbusters. AGFA is proud to bring two of the most reckless, out-of-control brain-blasts in the Wakaliwood canon to home video for the first time ever in the UK – WHO KILLED CAPTAIN ALEX and BAD BLACK! And in Uganda’s finest storytelling tradition, the films are complemented by the acerbic wit of narrator/VJ (Video Joker) VJ Emmie, who sums up the Wakaliwood experience with a single sentiment: “It is a love story…LOVE OF ACTION!”

 

• WHO KILLED CAPTAIN ALEX with or without VJ Emmie

• BAD BLACK with VJ Emmie

• Director’s Commentary

• Behind da scenes

• Trailers and commercials

• Interviews and news clips

• Music videos

• Welcome videos for 14 countries

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