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Dis­cov­er the films of two Ital­ian mas­ters with a new Blu-ray box

07 Jul 2016

Woman in white clothing standing in shallow water, arms outstretched, with two children sitting on beach in the background.
Woman in white clothing standing in shallow water, arms outstretched, with two children sitting on beach in the background.
Three archive gems by the Taviani broth­ers are unearthed to receive the deluxe dig­i­tal treatment.

The guys over at Arrow films have been doing the lord’s work for a long while now, hav­ing recent­ly giv­en birth to such bounc­ing bun­dles of joy as as a box set of films by Rain­er Wern­er Fass­binder, and a clutch of lit­tle-seen films by French mae­stro, Jacques Riv­ette. Next on their list is to give deserved dues to the work of Pao­lo and Vit­to­rio Taviani, the Ital­ian sib­lings who have been pro­duc­ing qual­i­ty work since the 1950s. Their name will like­ly ring a bell as they won the Gold­en Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Fes­ti­val for their prison-bound Shake­speare adap­ta­tion, Cae­sar Must Die.

This set con­tains three of their ear­ly clas­sics, and mat­ters are kicked off in high (if gru­elling) style with their pun­ish­ing father-son psy­chodra­ma, Padre Padrone from 1977. The Night of Shoot­ing Stars, from 1982, explores the moral imper­a­tives of those liv­ing in an Ital­ian vil­lage dur­ing the end of World War Two, while 1984’s Kaos is an epic port­man­teau fea­ture col­lect­ing togeth­er four sto­ries by famed drama­tist, Lui­gi Piran­del­lo. The set, which is released on 11 July, comes packed with con­tex­tu­al extras, and you can take a lit­tle peek at the mer­chan­dise below in this exclu­sive video trailer.

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