Otar Iosseliani Complete Works

[Knappen]

French Wikipedia gives the title La Femme est venu pour tromper son mari as a coming Iosseliani film. The only other hit I get is with google is another French Wikipedia article: Martine Marignac as producer, a role she has had on every Otar film since La Chasse aux papillons.

More rumors? Speculations?

[Kirkinson]

RussianDVD.com now has nearly every disc in this collection listed individually, though each one is currently marked "Out of Stock." Hopefully this means they're expecting them soon, and perhaps the whole box will be available to order at some point. Strangely, they seem to have held off including any films from the set that they already carry on other labels.

[jsteffe]

I just used some research funds to purchase my own copy of the entire set indirectly from Russia. (Don't ask how--it was EXPENSIVE!)

It's great that literally Iosseliani's entire oeuvre is there, but you should be warned that the subtitling is uneven. In Falling Leaves, they flick on for only a second in many places and disappear, making them virtually unreadable. The subtitles on the Blaq Out edition of that film are much better.

I too noticed that Russian DVD is listing the discs individually but showing them as "out of stock." Not sure what this means, but hopefully they'll be selling either the individual discs or the entire set here in the US finally.

[videozor]

I think RussiaDVD lists movies from the set for renting ONLY. It's hard to imagine them breaking boxes and selling individual DVDs separately

[jsteffe]

RussianDVD.com now offers the complete Iosseliani box set. It's not cheap at $299.99, but if I recall correctly it's also not out of line considering what it costs in Russia.

[DignanSWE]

The Russian box set seems to be out of print...
Are there any other dvds worth purchasing?
(Facets box set looks like crap, and the French dvds lack English subtitles (?))
These two are the only ones I can find:
Lundi matin
Jardins en automne

(I've never seen any of Iosseliani films -- just watched the interview on the "The Complete Jean Vigo"-dvd.)

[Kirkinson]

The Facets set is just a port of this French set, which also has English subtitles. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. If you've seen any other Blaq Out releases of films from around the same time (e.g., the Ruiz set) that's a good reference for the quality of the transfers.

The French DVDs of Adieu, Plancher des vaches! and Lundi matin both have English subtitles on everything. There are US releases of these from Kino that look pretty good, but the French discs have better extras.

Blaq Out's box set covers all of his major work, but only the last two films (the same two DVDs I just mentioned) have Englush subtitles. Though honestly, his work is totally accessible without understanding the dialogue, so much so that Iosseliani reportedly tells people not to read the subtitles when he's introducing screenings of his own films.

And if I recall correctly, Artificial Eye has Jardins en automne coming out in an English-friendly edition later this year.

Maybe it's time for an Iosseliani thread in the Filmmakers sub-forum. Unless someone else is really itching to take the charge, I'll get one started.

One thing I forgot to add:

Whatever you do, stay away from the Facets release of Brigands, Chapter VII. It's horrible even by Facets' standards, and possibly the worst transfer I've ever seen of such a relatively recent film.

[DignanSWE]

Thanks for your replies!

One more question: Is the French DVD of Adieu, plancher les vaches! anamorphic? (The Swedish DVD seems to be non-anamorphic, but it's much cheaper.)

[jsteffe]

It looks as if the Russian DVD set of Iosseliani's complete works has been re-pressed. I saw it for sale again on Ozon, and the Russian boostore Biblio-Globus USA is now offering it for sale. Maybe "for sale" isn't quite the right phrase, because it's $337.56. But if you really, really want it, it's here again!

There *is* an English language display option for the website, so if you can't read Russian, don't despair. I haven't purchased anything from them before, but they're a big company in Russia, so I would imagine the US branch is pretty reliable. In fact, they have a lot of great Russian DVDs so I'm going to try them for some other titles.

[NilbogSavant]

Ozon has this massive 19-disc box set listed

Does this website ship to the US? It seems to be on sale for 2999 rubles ($101.50) unless I'm Google Translating it wrong.

[jsteffe]

Because of recent changes in Russian law, Ozon no longer ships audio or video items overseas. However, you can get some (but not all) DVDs at http://www.russiandvd.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or http://www.biblio-globus.us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.