Tag Archives: Restorations

Belladonna Art Contest

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One of the great lost masterpieces of Japanese animation, BELLADONNA OF SADNESS is a mad, swirling, psychedelic light-show of medieval tarot-card imagery with horned demons, haunted forests and La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Equal parts J.R.R. Tolkien and gorgeous, explicit Gustav Klimt-influenced eroticism, BELLADONNA is an art lover’s dream. In the four decades since its initial release, the film has inspired a rabid cult following, amassing devoted fans from the worlds of fashion, fine art, film and music (Sonic Youth, to cite one of our favorite examples, has been known to perform a live score to bootlegged copies of the film). Cinelicious Pics is extremely proud to be partnering with SpectreVision and Cinefamily in bringing BELLADONNA OF SADNESS to a new generation of audiences.

The goal of this contest is to inspire artists and generate excitement in the art community for the release of our new restoration of this truly amazing film. The entries to this contest are meant to promote our release of the film. Unlike many other contests, we want you to benefit from your time and hard work. To that end, you will be given full credit for your artwork in any and all instances of it’s use. When applicable, we will provide links to the URL of your choice and any and all artists whose entries become limited edition prints will be compensated.

The entries will be judged in by Cinelicious staff as well as three industry professionals. Meet the judges!

Please use the images and trailer below to help inspire you. We’ve also created a tumblr page where additional images and stills from the film have been shared.

>> DOWNLOAD HIGH RESOLUTION STILLS

Contest Details:

Anything goes, there are no rules save your own imagination. There are some basic guidelines, which are as follows:

Art must be 18″ wide x 24″ tall, (add 1/4″ bleed if design goes off the edge of the paper). NOTE: your physical artwork can be smaller. So long as your artwork can be scanned at high resolution for printing at 18×24.
Art submissions should be in JPG format and should not exceed 10mb. If your artwork is selected for printing, we’ll require a 300dpi PDF image in CMYK colorspace, so have one ready, but for submission purposes please keep your files sizes under 10mb.
All art submitted will still belong to you (the artist). Click here for Terms & Conditions.
All art must be submitted no later than: 11:59 PM PST, April 1st, 2016.
Your design is up to you. We are providing 10 still frames from the film for your use or inspiration. You may use (or not use) them as you wish. (link above).

Submissions or Questions/Commnets…Please send to: craig@cinelicious.tv

INDIEWIRE: Cinelicious Pics is bringing two rarely seen Agnès Varda gems to a new generation of audiences.

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Agnès Varda and Jane Birkin in JANE B. PAR ANGES V.

by Ryan Lattanzio | TOH!

APRIL 13, 2015 | LOS ANGELES

LA cinephiles had the pleasures of seeing two Agnès Varda discoveries from the middle of her career, and of seeing the legendary French filmmaker speak, at an American Cinematheque retrospective this past weekend.

Cinelicious Pics has just acquired the double bill “Jane B. by Agnès V.” and “Kung-Fu Master,” both starring Euro icon Jane Birkin, for US theatrical, VOD and Home Video distribution. Supervised by Varda, the new restorations made their West Coast debut over the weekend, and looked gorgeous in digital 2K.

Less a biopic than a quasi-fiction, poetic-realist documentary, “Jane B. By Agnes V” looks at the actress’ many faces. Really, it’s Varda’s “Orlando,” a time-hopping stitching together of Birkin’s best and least-favorite roles, and the parts she dreams of playing (including Joan of Arc). The film features Birkin’s longtime collaborator and erstwhile lover Serge Gainsbourg, New Wave actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (a.k.a. Antoine Doinel), Birkin’s daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg (who went on to star in the films of Lars von Trier) and Varda’s son Mathieu Demy, whom she had with her filmmaker-husband Jacques Demy.

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Mathieu Demy and Charlotte Gainsbourg in KUNG FU MASTER

A young Mathieu Demy and 14-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg also appear in Varda’s challenging romance “Kung Fu Master,” which stretches the “May-December” definition to its extremes. Aside from a video game that Demy’s early-teens Julien obsessively plays, the film has nothing to do with kung fu. Instead, the 40-year-old Birkin plays the single mother of two who falls in love with him. Their relationship is treated very matter-of-factly by Varda, who imbues it with a tenderness that is well-played, and earnestly acted, by Demy and Birkin.

At the Aero Theatre on Saturday, Varda said she wrote the film in “two minutes” after Birkin pitched the story to her during the making of “Jane B.” They took a break on that production and shot “Kung-Fu” quickly in the summer. Varda, who most famously directed “Cleo From 5 to 7” and “The Gleaners and I,” didn’t feel weird about directing her young son as the object of a much older woman’s affections. “From the minute we started to film, he was Julien.”

According to Varda, “Kung-Fu Master” hasn’t played much on French TV due to its controversial subject matter. The film also deals head-on with the rise of AIDS in the ’80s, interjecting its whimsical broken-fairytale romance with PSAs about sexual awareness and the disease’s ever-growing reach.

When asked if “Jane B.” (never released in the US) and “Kung-Fu” (released briefly in the 80s) belong together as a double bill, Varda said, “I don’t think so. They’re two separate films.” She may be right, but it’s a treat we get to see them at all, and newly resurrected from their original 35mm negatives.

Release dates forthcoming.

INDIEWIRE: Cinelicious Pics Restoring Animated Masterpiece BELLADONNA OF SADNESS for U.S. Release

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2014 | 9:00AM PT

Cinelicious Pics has signed an exclusive deal to restore and distribute the long-unavailable 1973 Japanese animated masterpiece BELLADONNA OF SADNESS, as its first major restoration and re-release. The last film in the groundbreaking Animerama trilogy produced by the godfather of Japanese anime & manga, Osamu Tezuka (METROPOLIS, ASTRO BOY) and directed by his long time collaborator Eiichi Yamamoto, BELLADONNA is a mad, swirling, psychedelic lightshow of medieval tarot-card imagery with horned demons and haunted forests. Never before released in the U.S., BELLADONNA OF SADNESS unfolds as a series of spectacular still watercolor paintings that bleed and twist together like an animated version of Chris Marker’s LA JETEE. Cinelicious will restore the feature using the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements in anticipation of a 2015 theatrical, VOD, and home video re-release in North America.

Cinelicious Pics, which launched earlier this year, is uniquely positioned to restore film through its parent company Cinelicious. “It took months of negotiations to convince the Japanese rightsholders to entrust us with the original camera negative of the film which we’re restoring in-house,” says Cinelicious Pics’ President Paul Korver. “People will be simply blown away by the wild, hallucinatory images and soundtrack,” he adds. “BELLADONNA OF SADNESS belongs on a short list with Rene Laloux’s FANTASTIC PLANET and Ralph Bakshi’s WIZARDS as one of the trippiest animated films ever conceived,” adds Cinelicious Pics’ EVP of Acquisitions & Distribution Dennis Bartok. “This is a major rediscovery – and I have to give credit to Hadrian Belove at The Cinefamily here in L.A. for bringing the film to our attention.”

An innocent young woman, Jean (voiced by Katsutaka Ito) is savagely assaulted by the local lord on her wedding night. To take revenge, she makes a pact with the Devil himself (voiced by Tatsuya Nakadai, from Akira Kurosawa’s RAN) who appears as an erotic sprite and transforms her into a black-robed vision of madness and desire. The film is fueled by a Japanese psych rock soundtrack by Masahiko Sato. The deal was negotiated by Cinelicious Pics’ President Paul Korver, President of Business Affairs Kristine Blumensaadt and EVP Dennis Bartok with Japanese rightsholders Gold View Co. and Mushi Productions.