The Blood of Hussain/Towers of Silence

[MichaelB]

Confirmed for October 22:

Blu-ray world premiere of Jamil Dehlavi's rare and acclaimed films The Blood of Hussain and Towers of Silence, released together in a Dual Format Edition. Jamil Dehlavi is arguably Pakistan's leading filmmaker. Political, subversive and artistically maverick, Dehlavi's remarkable body of work stands out for its originality and engagement with the social and political questions of his time. Read more about the director in a Guardian feature published yesterday.

(That feature, incidentally, doesn't mention that Dehlavi's visually gobsmacking Anglo-Turkish horror film Born of Fire is getting an Indicator release in September - and his later Immaculate Conception will be joining the Indicator line-up not long afterwards. What with Eureka's Jinnah already on the market, all these releases plug several major high-definition gaps in the career of one of the more original directors to have emerged in the last forty years.)

[What A Disgrace]

I knew about this yesterday, but now I've learned that Immaculate Conception is coming from Indicator.

[MichaelB]

Already revealed in their newsletter, although the "later this year" originally mentioned is now more likely to be "early 2019".

[Adam X]

Having only seen Born of Fire, I'm definitely interested in seeing more of Dehlavi's work. Seems like a good time to do so.

If you've seen the other films in question, how do they compare to the former? Are they completely different films? I've read up a little on Jinnah, and skimming the linked Guardian article, I get the impression that Born is somewhat the odd one out, though the others sound no less interesting.

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced:

The Blood of Hussain
A film by Jamil Dehlavi

World premiere Dual Format Edition release on 22 October 2018

Political, subversive and artistically maverick, Pakistan’s leading filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi’s remarkable body of work stands out for its originality and engagement with social and political questions. His vision captures the diversity and power of both the religious and the secular in everyday life.

Following August’s Dehlavi season at BFI Southbank, on 22 October 2018 the BFI brings his 1980 film The Blood of Hussain (banned in Pakistan) to Blu-ray/DVD for the first time anywhere. This Dual Format Edition includes Towers of Silence (1975) and other special features.

In The Blood of Hussain, the annual mourning procession for the murdered Hussain, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, is the setting for an allegorical tale of revolutionary struggle against injustice and oppression. Banned by successive military regimes in Pakistan, the film has achieved legendary status in its country of origin.

Dehlavi’s Towers of Silence weaves scenes of Zoroastrian funerary rituals – in which bodies are consumed by vultures – with glimpses of armed insurrection, juxtaposing traumatic landscapes of sex, death and faith.

Special features
• Brand new masters of both films presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
• Between the Sacred and the Profane (2018, 66 mins): Dr Ali Nobil Ahmad explores the cultural, artistic and political background of Jamil Dehlavi’s films
• Jamil Dehlavi in Conversation (2018, 76 mins): an on-stage conversation between the director and curator Timothy Cooper
• Illustrated booklet with a new essay by Raficq Abdulla, writing by MJ Fischer and full film credits

Product details
RRP: £24.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1325 / Cert 15
UK, Pakistan / 1980, 1975 / colour, black and white / 106 mins, 51 mins / English and Urdu language with optional English and English hard-of-hearing subtitles / original aspect ratios 1.66:1, 1.37:1 // BD50: 1080p, 24fps, PCM 1.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit) / 2 x DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio (48kHz/16-bit)