Cinelicious Pics, SpectreVision, and The Cinefamily Team To Present 4K Restoration of Japanese Anime Feature Belladonna of Sadness (1973)
Cinelicious Pics, SpectreVision, and The Cinefamily team to present 4K restoration of Japanese Anime Feature Belladonna of Sadness (1973)
Cinelicious Pics, SpectreVision and The Cinefamily have joined forces to present a newly restored 4K version of the long-unseen 1973 Japanese anime feature, Belladonna of Sadness. Never officially released in the United States, the beautiful and wildly surreal Belladonna was adapted from writer Jules Michelets 1862 proto-feminist, occult novel La Sorcière.
Although it was too far-out there and explicit for distributors in America in the early 1970s, I think cinema audiences have finally caught up with Belladonna, says Dennis Bartok, EVP of Cinelicious Pics, noting The film combines Tolkien-style medieval fantasy, demonic tarot-card imagery by way of artists like Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Guido Crepax, graphic and disturbing eroticism, and a mindblowing, fuzz-stoked psychedelic soundtrack.
We are proud to unite with SpectreVision and The Cinefamily to boldly bring it to new life in a spectacular 4k restoration using the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements, which traveled outside of Japan for the first time ever, says Cinelicious Pics President Paul Korver.
The impetus for the restoration came from The Cinefamily founder Hadrian Belove, who broached the idea with Cinelicious Pics President Paul Korver and E.V.P. Dennis Bartok.
After viewing a badly copied duplication of the film over the Internet, Korver and Bartok were immediately taken with it and began a detective search to track down the rightsholder. Cinelicious Pics parent company, postproduction and restoration house Cinelicious Inc., handled the state-of-the-art film scanning and restoration.
"We had a short list of dream films here at Cinefamily we wanted to see restored: films that wouldn't just be major rediscoveries, but ones that would benefit the most from being seen in all their audio-visual glory. Belladonna was at the top of the list, notes Belove. What Cinelicious did with Belladonna was absolutely transformative. I found the final restoration absolutely overwhelming. It was like seeing the film for the first time.
During the process of the restoration, Korver and Belove reached out to SpectreVision partners/founders Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller and Elijah Wood. Without hesitation, the trio offered their involvement as part of the companys SpectreVision Presents banner.
We created SpectreVision to support films that fall between standard definitions of genre, explains Wood. Im not sure weve ever encountered a film that better exemplifies this than Belladonna of Sadness, a unique and original work in every possible respect.
Prior to the films theatrical, Blu-ray and VOD release in 2016, Belladonna of Sadness will be screened at several prestigious film festivals, both in the United States and internationally, to be announced shortly.
Belladonna of Sadness was the final film in the adult-oriented Animerama Trilogy, all of which were directed by Eiichi Yamamoto (the classic Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion TV series) and produced by Japanese anime and manga legend Osamu Tezukas Mushi Productions.
ABOUT CINELICIOUS PICS
CINELICIOUS PICS is a distribution company bringing handpicked, delicious cinema to U.S. and Worldwide audiences for the first time via theatrical release, VOD, Blu-Ray and 4K Television. Key ingredients include an eclectic mix of foreign and independent features & docs plus 4K-restored art house and cult classics, lovingly brought to pristine viewing quality by sister post & digital restoration studio Cinelicious. For more on the company and its current slate, please visit http://www.cineliciouspics.com.
ABOUT SPECTREVISION PRESENTS
In addition to their slate of original productions, SPECTREVISION is also dedicated to supporting special projects that need help reaching a wider audience under their banner of SPECTREVISION PRESENTS. We created SpectreVision Presents to give those special films a little extra push, so they can live on in the world to be discovered for years to come, says Daniel Noah. Those titles include Toad Road and LFO: The Movie, among others.
ABOUT CINEFAMILY
The Cinefamily is one of Los Angeles' premiere nonprofit cinematheques, with a mission to revitalize film culture by fostering a sense of discovery, and building a community around its exceptional, weird and wonderful cinematic events. With a daily line-up that is "breathtaking in its scope and ambition" (Peter Martin, Cinematical), The Cinefamily is transforming the landscape of first-run arthouse and repertory cinema through distinct programming, unusual events, and vital cultural collaborations. The L.A. Weekly described its opening in 2007, as "a climate-altering event for Los Angeles moviegoers." In 2013, Executive Director Hadrian Belove was named as one of Indiewire's top 40 Influencers in the world of independent film.
Cinelicious Pics, SpectreVision and The Cinefamily have joined forces to present a newly restored 4K version of the long-unseen 1973 Japanese anime feature, Belladonna of Sadness. Never officially released in the United States, the beautiful and wildly surreal Belladonna was adapted from writer Jules Michelets 1862 proto-feminist, occult novel La Sorcière. Although it was too far-out there and explicit for distributors in America in the early 1970s, I think cinema audiences have finally caught up with Belladonna, says Dennis Bartok, EVP of Cinelicious Pics, noting The film combines Tolkien-style medieval fantasy, demonic tarot-card imagery by way of artists like Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Guido Crepax, graphic and disturbing eroticism, and a mindblowing, fuzz-stoked psychedelic soundtrack.
We are proud to unite with SpectreVision and The Cinefamily to boldly bring it to new life in a spectacular 4k restoration using the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements, which traveled outside of Japan for the first time ever, says Cinelicious Pics President Paul Korver.
The impetus for the restoration came from The Cinefamily founder Hadrian Belove, who broached the idea with Cinelicious Pics President Paul Korver and E.V.P. Dennis Bartok.
After viewing a badly copied duplication of the film over the Internet, Korver and Bartok were immediately taken with it and began a detective search to track down the rightsholder. Cinelicious Pics parent company, postproduction and restoration house Cinelicious Inc., handled the state-of-the-art film scanning and restoration.
"We had a short list of dream films here at Cinefamily we wanted to see restored: films that wouldn't just be major rediscoveries, but ones that would benefit the most from being seen in all their audio-visual glory. Belladonna was at the top of the list, notes Belove. What Cinelicious did with Belladonna was absolutely transformative. I found the final restoration absolutely overwhelming. It was like seeing the film for the first time.
During the process of the restoration, Korver and Belove reached out to SpectreVision partners/founders Daniel Noah, Josh C. Waller and Elijah Wood. Without hesitation, the trio offered their involvement as part of the companys SpectreVision Presents banner.
We created SpectreVision to support films that fall between standard definitions of genre, explains Wood. Im not sure weve ever encountered a film that better exemplifies this than Belladonna of Sadness, a unique and original work in every possible respect.
Prior to the films theatrical, Blu-ray and VOD release in 2016, Belladonna of Sadness will be screened at several prestigious film festivals, both in the United States and internationally, to be announced shortly.
Belladonna of Sadness was the final film in the adult-oriented Animerama Trilogy, all of which were directed by Eiichi Yamamoto (the classic Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion TV series) and produced by Japanese anime and manga legend Osamu Tezukas Mushi Productions.
ABOUT CINELICIOUS PICS
CINELICIOUS PICS is a distribution company bringing handpicked, delicious cinema to U.S. and Worldwide audiences for the first time via theatrical release, VOD, Blu-Ray and 4K Television. Key ingredients include an eclectic mix of foreign and independent features & docs plus 4K-restored art house and cult classics, lovingly brought to pristine viewing quality by sister post & digital restoration studio Cinelicious. For more on the company and its current slate, please visit http://www.cineliciouspics.com.
ABOUT SPECTREVISION PRESENTS
In addition to their slate of original productions, SPECTREVISION is also dedicated to supporting special projects that need help reaching a wider audience under their banner of SPECTREVISION PRESENTS. We created SpectreVision Presents to give those special films a little extra push, so they can live on in the world to be discovered for years to come, says Daniel Noah. Those titles include Toad Road and LFO: The Movie, among others.
ABOUT CINEFAMILY
The Cinefamily is one of Los Angeles' premiere nonprofit cinematheques, with a mission to revitalize film culture by fostering a sense of discovery, and building a community around its exceptional, weird and wonderful cinematic events. With a daily line-up that is "breathtaking in its scope and ambition" (Peter Martin, Cinematical), The Cinefamily is transforming the landscape of first-run arthouse and repertory cinema through distinct programming, unusual events, and vital cultural collaborations. The L.A. Weekly described its opening in 2007, as "a climate-altering event for Los Angeles moviegoers." In 2013, Executive Director Hadrian Belove was named as one of Indiewire's top 40 Influencers in the world of independent film.
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