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RaroVideo Launching March 1, 2011 with One of Federico Fellini's Final Masterpieces Dedicated to his Lifelong Fascination with The Circus - The Clowns
Followed by Four-Disc Collection Spotlighting Fernando Di Leo on March 8, 2011
“The Clowns is an affectionate memoir, a lyrical documentary in which Fellini himself, often on-screen as movie ringmaster eulogizes his lost fantasy world.â€
-Vincent Canby, The New York Times
“The two killers in The Italian Connection inspired me to conceive of Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield for Pulp Fiction,†“The Italian Connection is work of a genius.â€
- Quentin Tarantino.
LOS ANGELES (February 10, 2011) - Hailed by cinephiles for expertly restoring rare films by influential filmmakers and publishing them with compelling extras, Italian DVD label RaroVideo announces the company will begin distributing its acclaimed DVDs in the U.S. for the first time ever on March 1, 2011.
To launch RaroVideo in the U.S., the company will spotlight two powerhouse directors of Italian cinema with Federico Fellini's hard-to-find The Clowns (1970) and The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection, a four-disc set that features Fernando Di Leo's celebrated “Milieu Trilogy,†plus Rulers of the City (1976).
RaroVideo US's restored version of Fellini's The Clowns, one of the director's final masterpieces will arrive on DVD for the first time ever in the US on March 1. The DVD extras contain a rare and exclusive short film by Fellini, a video essay on the genesis of the film and a 50 page booklet with exclusive Fellini drawings. Hard-to-find, this 1970 film melds memoir and documentary into a circus of fiction and reality where Fellini delights in the role of ringmaster. The carnival-sounding score composed by Nino Rota, and an appearance by Anita Ekberg (star of Fellini's 1960's masterpiece La Dolce Vita), enhances the Fellini-esque experience.
The Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles (IIC), a governmental agency dedicated to promoting Italian culture and language, will host a special screening of THE CLOWNS at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 9 in its own theater (1023 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024). www.iiclosangeles.esteri.it
Master of garish, intricately plotted, ultra-violent stories about pimps and petty gangsters, director and writer Fernando Di Leo perfected the genre with an uncanny accuracy that prefigured the works of Quentin Tarantino and John Woo.
RaroVideo US collects some of his finest work in The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection, a four-DVD set that includes Di Leo's highly influential “Milieu Trilogy†- Caliber 9 (Milano Calibro 9), The Italian Connection (La Mala Ordina) and The Boss (Il Boss). The set's final disc includes 1976's Rulers of the City, which stars Jack Palance as a mob boss.
All four films were digitally restored and remastered in collaboration with the Venice Film Festival. Each is presented with a number of extras, including a documentary about each film. The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection will arrive on DVD March 8.
RaroVideo will continue to spotlight the works of major Italian directors next year with plans to release Antonioni's The Vanguished (I Vinti), Pasolini's The Anger (La Rabbia) and Carmelo Bene's Our Lady of the Turks (Nostra signora dei Turchi).
RaroVideo's Company Mission Statement:
RaroVideo's eclectic and interdisciplinary approach aims to recognize and publish quality works found in the cinema and visual art world.
About RaroVideo U.S.:
RaroVideo U.S. is devoted to producing high-quality DVD, BLU-RAY and VOD releases for American audiences. The partnership behind the company formed in 2010 when Stefano and Gianluca Curti, owners of RaroVideo Italy, teamed with Nico Bruinsma, owner of U.S. DVD label Cult Epics. Stefano and Gianluca Curti started RaroVideo Italy in 1999. Hailed by cinephiles for expertly restoring rare films by influential filmmakers from a wide range of genres, the company has earned an outstanding international reputation for the quality of its high-definition transfers. Its releases are also known for their original uncut versions and exclusive supplemental content as well as the critical analysis and superb booklets that accompany each film. Among the directors featured in the RaroVideo catalog are: Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rosselllini, David Lynch, Derek Jarman, Shinya Tsukamoto, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Lars von Trier, Lucio Fiulci, Mario Bava, Francesco Barilli, Tinto Brass, Jean Cocteau, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese to name just a few. RaroVideo was also the first company in the world to release on DVD Andy Warhol's: The Chelsea Girls, My Hustler, The Nude Restaurant and Lonesome Cowboys. RaroVideo's U.S. branch is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
THE CLOWNS - SYNOPSIS
Fellini's fascination with the circus and the surreal come to a head in one of his final masterpieces, The Clowns. The film reflects Fellini's childhood obsession with clowns and begins with a young boy watching a circus set up from his bedroom window. Though comicaland referred to as a “docu-comedyâ€, this film explores deeper human conditions such as authority, poverty, humility and arrogance all of which manifest themselves through the characters of the clowns who vary from the local sex-crazed hobo, a midget nun, to a mutilated Mussolini disciple. The Clowns features Anita Ekberg, the star of his 1960's masterpiece, La Dolce Vita and the director himself.
THE CLOWNS - SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Un Agenzia Matrimoniale, a short movie by Federico Fellini. 1953, Italia, 16 minutes, 35 mm, b/w, Italian original audio with English subtitles.
-Fellini's Circus, a visual Film essay by Adriano Aprí . Fellini Expert and film Historian, Adriano Aprí examines the director's lifetime fascination with the circus while also comparing it's stylistic features to other Fellini films. Italian original audio with English subtitles.
-A fifty page fully illustrated booklet on Fellini's own reflections and notes concerning the genesis and production of the film. Also included are exclusive original drawings by the director himself.
THE CLOWNS
Price: $29.98 (DVD)
Street Date: March 1, 2011
Pre-Order Date: January 25, 2011
Running time: 92 minutes
Distributor: ENTERTAINMENT ONE
DVD UPC: 1601801001
Blu-ray UPC: 1601801002
Language: Italian and French with optional English subtitles
Rating: NR
THE FERNANDO DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION - SYNOPSIS
The inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's early films, Fernando Di Leo is the master of garish, intricately plotted, ultra-violent stories about pimps and petty gangsters who perfects the genre with an uncanny accuracy. Di Leo doesn't leave anything out of his criminal underworld films-mobsters, naked women, pointed guns, drugs, money laundering, small town crooks, and hired killers. For the first time digitally restored and remastered in collaboration with the Venice Film Festival: 4 of Fernando Di Leo's masterpieces in one box set.
THE FERNANDO DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION DVD Listing:
Additional Box Set Features
A Candid Interview with Fernando di Leo on the Macking of his Films
A 20 page fully illustrated booklet
Disc 1 - Caliber 9
SYNOPSIS:
In the first film of the Trilogy, smalltime gangster Ugo Piazza has just been released from prison. He tries to convince the police, the mafia, and his one-time associate Rocco, a sadistic hoodlum who enjoys sick violence and torture, that he wants to go straight, but everyone believes he has $300,000 of stolen money hidden somewhere.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Documentary on Calibro 9
-Documentary on Fernando Di Leo: La morale del genere
-Documentary Scerbanenco noir
-Photo Gallery with audio commentary by Gastone Moschin
-Director biography and filmography
-New and improved English subtitles
Disc 2 - The Italian Connection
SYNOPSIS:
The second film in Fernando Di Leo's Milieu Trilogy focuses on Luca Carnali, a small-time mobster and pimp who has been set up by his gangland boss. When a shipment of heroin disappears between Italy and New York, Carnali is framed for the theft. Carnali is pursued through Milan by a pair of merciless American hit men.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Documentary Alle origini della Mala
-Photo Gallery
-Director biography and filmography
-New and improved English subtitles
Disc 3 - The Boss
SYNOPSIS:
Based largely on real people and actual events, Fernando Di Leo's action-packed film, the final part of his Milieu Trilogy is his boldest commentary on corruption and the criminal underworld. A bomb attack in a cinema in Palermo kills all the members of one mafia family except for Cocchi. Realizing that the instigator of the bomb attack is Daniello from another mafia family, Cocchi is determined to revenge.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Documentary Storie di mafia
-Director biography and filmography
-New and improved English subtitles
DISC 4 - Rulers of the City
SYNOPSIS:
The paradox of Rulers of the City is that the rulers are small time crooks and suburban gangsters who barely manage to make ends meet, but that's what makes the film so real and accurate and perhaps why Quentin Tarantino credits I Padroni della Cittí as the pivotal force behind his decision to be a film maker. In the film Tony is a mob loan collector who's unsatisfied with his position in life, and constantly dreams of living it rich in Brazil with his brother. To make some quick cash, Tony joins the forces of organized crime, making his way up the ladder. Together with Napoli, another mob enforcer, Tony hatches a plan to con mob boss Manzari (Jack Palance) out of a fortune, but Manzari isn't about to let that happen.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Documentary Cittí violent
-Director biography and filmography
-New and improved English subtitles
THE FERNANDO DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION
Price: $39.98 (4 DVD Set)
Street Date: March 8, 2011
Pre-Order Date: January 25, 2011
Running time: 410 minutes
Distributor: ENTERTAINMENT ONE
DVD UPC: 1601801006
Language: Italian and English with optional English subtitles
Rating: NR
