Like my previous Video Home Invasion focus, Severin, Bildstoerung has dedicated a large part of its catalog to resurrecting beloved Eurocult exploitation and art cinema. These films were a key part of the film culture of Europe from the '60s on through the early '80s. Filmmakers like Borowczyk, Zulawski, Jireš, and Spanish provocateurs like Villaronga, Zulueta, and Serrador made work that appealed both to hardcore genre and sexpoitation fanatics as well as the higher minded films critics around the world who didn't mind a challenge. These films are the kind that you probably don't want to watch with your mother.

A quick caveat for this column as well as the upcoming editions on Bildstorung: Many of their releases are not English-friendly. For the sake of universality I will spend most of my time focusing on the titles that are, however, I will definitely be pointing out the fantastic work that they've done for the German speaking film fan, and I will also be sure to point out if there is a particular reason that even a non-German speaker should seek out an edition, which is frequently!

One film which has recently had a very successful repertory run in the US is Andrzej Zulawski's Possession. This film is considered by most to be his masterpiece, and probably his most accessible work. Bildstorung was the first label to release a properly remastered edition of the film on DVD. This is one of their releases that is English friendly from top to bottom, feature and bonus material. The film looks marvelous and it is, at present, the best release of this film in the world, easily. Included on the disc is an English commentary with Zulawski and film critic Daniel Bird, as well as an exclusive 52-minute making of documentary produced by Bildstorung with interviews from Zulawski, Bird, and producer Marie-Kaure Reyre.

One thing that I must mention, even though it isn't in English, is the top notch booklets that Bildstorung produces. In the case of Possession, contributors include Zulawski, Bird, and German film fanatic/gore specialist Jorg Buttegereit. I wish these were in English, but even though they aren't, they are wonderful additions as they are well curated discussions from what I've been able to glean and the design of the 44-page booklet is gorgeous. This kind of attention to detail and care for the product is still rare, even as niche labels pop up more frequently.

Another release worth mentioning is their two disc edition of Arrebato by Ivan Zulueta. This is a completely English friendly release as well, with the feature and second disc of bonus material translated in their entirety. Arrebato is a lesser known, but no less eerie, film, and one that focuses on cinephilia in a way that few people (hopefully) can claim to have experienced. The fantastic bonus features include separate documentaries on filmmaker Zulueta and the making-of Arrebato, as well as a Zulueta short film, totaling around two hours. Also included is a twenty five page booklet, only in German, with some great looking criticism and journalism.

The fantastic cult cinema from Spain continues with Bildstorung's release of Who Can Kill A Child. The film has a US release via Dark Sky and a recent UK release via Eureka, but Bildstorung's edition is certainly a worthy contender. The German edition has no subtitles for the feature or bonus material, but there is an English language dub track, so it's available to the western masses. There is also a very welcome audio soundtrack CD included with the package, which is always great! The artwork mimics the Dark Sky release from a few years back, but I can assure you, just from my own experience, that the complete packaging will be superb.

The final film on which I will focus for this column is Valerie & Her Week of Wonders, the dreamlike Czech film from Jaromir Jireš. This is another film ripe for rediscovery. Cult film fans in the US don't have a decent edition to call their own, although the UK's Second Run DVD is very good. This DVD is among the jewels of Bildstorung's collection, though sadly the film itself is not subtitled in English. However, the incredible bonus materials are, and I'll let Bildstorung brag about those:

Featuring a separate audio CD containing the original motion picture soundtrack by composer Lubos Fiser, a full length audio commentary by Czech New Wave expert Peter Hames and Daniel Bird, optional audio track featuring the alternative Soundtrack composed by The Valerie Project (side project of Espers' Gregory Weeks), documentary feature "Waking Valerie" on the backstory to VALERIE (25 min.), a small interview collection "Valerieholics" featuring interviews with Andy Votel, Trish Keenan (of UK based band BROADCAST, who sadly passed away last year), Gregory Weeks and Joseph A. Gervasi, talking about the impact the film had on them (16 min.), a music video for BROADCAST's track "Valerie" from their "Haha Sound" album edited together from footage of the film (4:14 min.) -- the audio commetary, documentary and interview feature have been produced by ourselves exclusively for this release, which also for the first time ever in combination with the film features the alternative soundtrack by The Valerie Project

[commentary, documentary and interviews in English]

That is quite an impressive spread, and makes this release a catch even without subs on the feature. I am probably going to add it to my Second Run DVD just to attempt to complete the collection! It would be a shame if I forgot to mention the remarkable cover art of this release as well, specially commissioned for this DVD. Incredible stuff.

There are a number of other Eurocult releases that are not English-friendly, and I will mention them and their perks here briefly:

IN A GLASS CAGE (Tras el cristal, Agustí Villaronga, Spain 1987)
Released for the first time ever in Germany in any format. Based on a new 16:9 anamorphic HD master from the original negatives. Including an full length audio commentary by Agustí as well as a new interview with him (28 min.), a commented picture gallery, a split-screen comparisson of storyboard to film (one selected scene) and an alternative beginning on basis of the storyboard

MARQUIS (Henri Hhonneux & Roland Topor, Belgium 1989)
Double-DVD set including a parallel behind the scenes feature (playing parallely on split screen, covering more than 60% of the full running time, taken from mor than 15 hours of footage filmed during the actual shoot of the film and edited by ourselves exclusively for this release), Making of (31 min.), excerpts from the storyboard for a clay animation scene (2 min.), two deleted scenes, 8 min. of interview footage and 6 short excerpts about making the masks
 
LA BÊTE (Walerian Borowczyk; France 1975)
We successfully fought for it's deletion from Germany's censorship index after 24 years -- so it's the first fully uncut release in Germany. Featuring Boro's original short "L'Escargot de Venus" (4:39 min.), which initially accompanied the film's theatrical release in 1975, an interview with Boro (7:39), a short documantary on Boro and LA BÊTE by Daniel Bird (9 min.), 7 deleted scenes taken from the extended NL VHS-version, 4 Behind-the-scenes excerpts taken from the 105 min of soundless footage from the shoot (as included on Cult Epics' 3 disc set) edited in split screen to accompany the corresponding scenes from the film, interview with camera operator Noel Very (7 min.). In addition to that we also released a limited edition (500 copies, numbered) which includes a bonus disc featuring the extende NL cut of the film (i.e. the deleted footage from the longer VHS cut is re-edited into the film's new master)

SOUND AND FURY (De bruit et de fureur, Jean-Claude Brisseau, France 1988)
Featuring an interview with director Jean-Claude Brisseau (25 min.), an featurette in which Brisseau comments on the first scenes of his film with a remote controll in his hand (27 min.), a Making-of feature by Luc Ponette filmed during shooting of the film in 1987 (39 min.)

IMMORAL TALES
DVD, Blu-ray and a limited special edition containing the DVD and Blu-ray and an exclusive bonus DVD with the originally intended 'long' version of the film including the thought-to-be-lost short film version of LA BÊTE, which was originally planned as a fifth episode -- and this disc also comes with the official introduction short of UNE COLLECTION PARTICULIERE as a prologue -- and as an additional extra including it's legendary alternative cut only shown once on the Oberhausen short film festival back in 1975 or '75 (where it caused a real scandal), which lacks the voice-over, doesn't have the concealing fingers on the pornographic photos and also features scenes of a genuine animal porn stag reel, which, however, had to be pixelated in the explicit parts due to German law).

THE CREMATOR (Juraj Herz's)
Including an audio commentary of Juraj as well as a 30 min. bonus feature, in which we visited two of the three crematoriums with Juraj (both features produced in 2011, exclusively by us for this release); and we've also totally cleaned up the Czech master, i.e. removed all the dirt, scratches, flash and whatnot by single frame processing.

Also coming very soon are the following Eurocult titles:

THE 10th VICTIM by Elio Petri
Planned for a release at the end of March as DVD & Blu-ray, maybe also a limited edition (not decided upon yet)

DAISIES
Planned for the end of April, including some extras and maybe (with a big question mark!) on Blu-ray as well...

Many of these have me hunting on Amazon for a Pimsleur program to learn German because they sound FANTASTIC. I'm a big Borowczyk fan, and I own the special edition of La bete both from Bildstorung and Cult Epics, and I wish I could enjoy the Immoral Tales Blu-ray edition. Also, I recently reviewed In a Glass Cage on Blu-ray and it is a very striking film. Marquis I've never seen, but it looks interesting and the "split-screen" thing sounds very cool. So many movies, so little German! 

I've put links below to selected films, especially the ones which are English friendly. BIldstorung titles are easily found on Amazon DE, however, so if you want to look up the others, it's not hard at all.

That's it for this week's Video Home Invasion. Check back next week when we'll look into Bildstorung's contemporary and western film collections, including Life & Death of a Porno Gang and Clean, Shaven.