Video editors' meeting

For more than three hours of presentations, classic film editors followed one another on the Karbone stage, with presentations focusing on pre-war French cinema, Slavic directors and Z series horror film.

Despite the profusion of gory and horrific films, video publishing events began with Malavida's kids friendly catalogue. The publisher has chosen to strengthen its catalogue targeted for young audiences by releasing the Disney classic Alice comedies vol 2, reorchestrated by Manu Chao. This outing is accompanied by the Czechoslovakian animation gem Drôles de cigognes by Hermina Tyrlova. The publisher's efforts also focused on the visibility of Polish cinema with the reissue of Andresz Wajda's classic films (Kanal and Ash and Diamond), accompanied by a box set containing four films by Jerzy Skolimwski. On the non-heritage side, Malavida has chosen to follow up on the success of Mandico box 1 by publishing the rest of the work of the director of Les Garçons Sauvages.

It is with an impeccable line up that Wild Side took over the scene. An eclectic program between Terry Gilliam's quirky Fisher King and Burt Lancaster's elucubrations as a preacher in Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry. The publisher also brought light upon classics of romantic comedy with two star couples : Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in Stanley Donen's Two For the Road and Robert Redford/Barbara Streisand in Sidney Pollack's The Way we Were.

Following Wild Side, Pathé whipped out the heavy artillery with yet another montage of Apocalypse Now in its Final Cut version, an edit at the crossroads of the original and the Redux version. In addition to Coppola's monumental work, the Pathé catalogue brings up to date classics of French cinema, including four films by René Clair (Paris qui dort, Entracte...), two by Jacques Deray (Doucement les basses, Par un beau matin d'été) and La Roue, the huge Abel Gance's project, whose seven hours have been re-instrumented by the German composer Bernd Thewes. France was also in Gaumont's sights, whose presentation was based on the masterpieces of Henri Verneuil (Un monge en hiver, Le Président...), André Cayatte (Nous sommes tous des assassins, Avant le déluge...) and the sacred monster Yves Robert.

The second part of the conference was dominated by horror pictures, with a clear focus on independent publishers such as the Germans of Camera Obscura and the passionate crew of Le Chat qui fume. While the former are mainly known for their re-release of gialli and Italian erotic films, revealing the gore fetishism of Monster Dog, Blue Sunshine and Fair Game (which has the merit of winning Cindy Crawford a Razzie), Le Chat qui Fume continued their work to restore Lucio Fulci's work (Perversion Story) and on Halloween, presenting the second and third opus of the slasher series. 

The rest of the conference saw Carlotta Films shine in the light of their gargantuan work on Ozu's filmography, their well anticipated edition of Donnie Darko and Tom Holland's vampire tale Fright Night. Despite the absence of footage, the publisher conquered the audience by revealing the release of the iconic film-concert on the Talking Heads tour (the one featuring David Byrne in his "fat suit") directed by Jonathan Demme, Stop Making Sense.

The last presentations were sometimes humorous, like the pessimistic tirade of the representatives of the Czech film archives, who came to present the war film Zborov, as well as exciting as the very complete line-up of ESC in the Western category (Pacific Express, Bend of the RIver) and Sidonis for film noir with its encyclopedia dedicated to the genre. Tamasa closed the presentation by introducing their G.W Pabst box set as well as their work on Youssef Chahine, recently honoured at the Cinémathèque Française.