Criterion reeeallly needs to release more stuff from some countries. Country representation is pretty s*** in parts.

Would love to see the actual stats on this

Yeah thats a deal

Ive been wanting their Rohmer Comedies & Proverbs set badly, that's such a nice release. Also been wanting their Marc Isaacs collection cause it looks interesting

Saw a twitter post a few months ago that had a chart of all the criterion releases by country of origin, ordered from most to least. Will try to find

I watched a few Rohmers to see if I liked his stuff before a cop, stopped before Collectionneuse.

I had that Arrow set pre-ordered, but I cancelled it since I'd have to hunt down the older OOP Rohmer set too.
It'll still hit sale by November and be like £25 anyways if I change my mind, but now I'm set on getting the complete Potemkine box. Athough there are cases of disc fails and rot imma still take that gamble lol, just waiting for a right price

@Mo Found it:

This was as of Nov 2019 — doesn't include OOP or streaming only titles, and any country not listed on Criterion's shop filter is marked as 0 by default

very interesting chart. thanks for finding it.

Yeah that shows how hard they're neglecting some regions. Especially Asia (aside from Japan), Africa and South America.

thanks for finding this

No prob!

It is unfortunate how many major countries are under/un-represented in their catalogue. But also to be fair, some of those countries have been given more exposure by other studios, while others are difficult to find a decent amount of releases from by any studios (Africa, for example, tends to be a blind spot for most home media boutiques that I've come across.)

I think a better/more interesting chart would be a more universal one that shows the global coverage of the major studios and trendy labels (Criterion, Arrow, BFI, Kino, Cohen, Eureka, Warner, Canal, etc), but also the dozens of lesser known ones. Some of the smaller brands sometimes have a single genre/region/era they give most of their attention to as well, like Icarus Films and non-fiction/cinema verite.

And it's always hard for me to criticize any studio too heavily when it comes to international coverage (or even for obscure/experimental/independent films) tbh, because rights and licensing always play a big role too — even more so when there's certain countries that consider films as national property, then you're negotiating with a whole governmental branch instead of a company or person who controls the rights.

True, there's other labels. But the disparity is so big that it's sort of undeniable. I also think that the way Criterion have been portraying themselves they have a sort of responsibility to showcase lesser known films from different regions.

And I'm sure that it shouldn't be that hard/expensive to sort licensing out for films that simply don't have a release at all in the US.

Like they just have to release a American film from the 2010s thats already had a Blu-Ray release but they can't consider a film from Africa. Or they go for the 200th French classic like they need to rattle off the canon instead of contributing to it by releasing actual lesser watched films without release.

I'm sure they consider films from Africa and elsewhere, but Criterion also doesn't have a universal reach — that's why they frequently team up with other restoration studios and archivists like Janus and WCF.

The WCF is actually good example of how Criterion's resources are limited: their Scorsese's World Cinema Project releases were found, restored, and then licensed to Criterion for distribution by WCF. Since Criterion has investments and funds spread across different partnered film companies and endeavors — on top of the funds they already spend doing their own acquisitions, restorations, and physical media releases — that doesn't really leave them much money to make sure they're able to cast as wide of a net as possible for films from different countries.

When they are able to secure the more unrecognized films themselves, it typically results in Eclipse releases (which they've said exists solely because of a lack in funds to give those films proper releases with flagship packaging and features).

There's also other things that haven't been mentioned that factor into the titles they release. Like the unknown amount of films that are currently in their backlog of restorations/productions? And further: what films are currently awaiting treatment from places outside Criterion, like Janus/WCF? Also, what if Criterion or others have acquired supplementary materials for different films, but not yet enough to produce a satisfying restoration?

It's also a cliche thing to say now, but the whole "many lost films are just sitting forgotten in the backrooms of libraries and private collections" is a reality too. Scorese's World Cinema Project even includes films that the WCF believed were lost until someone reached out to them with surviving copies/materials.

Obviously they do, which is also why the whole funding thing is. dubious. If you look at non-american films they don't actually restore much, they just buy the rights. SFI, Murnau Stiftung, etc. can do the resto and they just release them in the US. I'm sure they can do this for other stuff. There's film institutes in every coutry. I just feel like it is more possible than their release slate suggests

The whole forgotten think might be true in a way, but we're talking about countries without a single film. Not all there films are forgotten like they don't give a s*** about their cultural history.

Yup. Just watched In a Lonely Place, Affair In Trinidad, and The Mob. Nightfall is up next.

When it comes to films they don't restore in-house, they do a lot more spending than just buy rights. Acquiring rights to a film itself is an endeavor that regularly takes at least a year or two, especially since film rights becoming convoluted from getting passed across multiple hands is now commonplace. Pursuing rights also isn't a cheap process, and varies wildly — they can go from a relatively modest distribution deal with WCF for a collection of films, while at the same time having to deal with market giants like Sony Entertainment making "package deals" for dozen different films. (And the cost of renewing their corporate deals whenever they expire.)

Its a whole lot more complicated and resource consuming to acquire films rights than just saying "Let's get a film from this country" and everything working out in a convenient way or timely manner.

"The whole forgotten think might be true in a way, but we're talking about countries without a single film. Not all there films are forgotten like they don't give a s*** about their cultural history."

In many place, that's indeed the case. For example, people who actually live in Africa often don't have the privilege to see African films because their theaters prioritize American blockbusters. There's also no film schools or government/institutional support for film in most places there, leaving the vast majority African filmmakers being self-taught and having regular day jobs in order to support themselves. There's also many places in Africa that are currently in the midst of war, liberation, or the victims of extremist attacks (sometimes both), or in the process of reconstruction.

Even in Africa's film capital, where the biggest and longest running African film festival is held every year, their film archives sat "gathering dust" for many years until WCF stepped in to help, because they didn't have the means to safely transport film negatives, much less had the means to begin shopping distributors to mass market them internationally (since they aren't able to secure screens for them in home country).

when the camera moves while Jimmy moves

Just watched The HouseMaid.

So chaotic

BRUCE LEE COLLECTION

criterion.com/boxsets/3205-bruce-lee-his-greatest-hits

The cover is godly

30% off

getting Grey Gardens and Seconds

Seconds is solid

Recommend me something I NEED to own. I can’t decide

what’d you like?

I can rec Sullivan’s Travels and Kes

Night Of The Hunter
M
Seventh Seal
Repo Man
Punch Drunk Love
Dreyer's
Ford's
Sternberg's
Malick's
Archers'
Hawks'
Polanski's