138-139 The Pemini Organisation (Hunted/Assassin/Moments)

[MichaelB]

HUNTED (Peter Crane, 1972)
ASSASSIN (Peter Crane, 1973)
MOMENTS (Peter Crane, 1974)

Release date: 23 May 2022
Limited Edition Blu-ray (World Blu-ray premieres)

Pre-order here

In the early 1970s, three ambitious friends – Peter Crane, Michael Sloan and Nigel Hodgson – combined the first letters of each of their names and set up the Pemini Organisation, a young and vital independent British film production company. Active between 1972 and 1974, Pemini produced one mid-length film, Hunted, a high-suspense thriller starring Edward Woodward and June Ritchie, and two feature films: Assassin, a grimly realistic spy film starring Ian Hendry, Edward Judd, Frank Windsor, Ray Brooks and Mike Pratt; and Moments, an enigmatic romantic mystery starring Keith Michell and Angharad Rees. When Pemini disbanded, the films disappeared into the ether...

Now, these three lost works, made by one of the most vibrant independent production companies of the era, have been rescued from the archives to be given their first ever home entertainment release in this deluxe, individually numbered Limited Edition Blu-ray set, accompanied by a wealth of newly produced extras, including feature-length director commentaries, cast and crew interviews, and an 80-page book.


INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION 2 x BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K restorations of Hunted, Assassin, and Moments from the only surviving film elements
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentaries on Hunted, Assassin, and Moments with director Peter Crane and film historian Sam Dunn (2022)
• Interview with Peter Crane, director of Hunted, Assassin, and Moments (2022)
• Interview with Michael Sloan, writer of Hunted, Assassin, and Moments (2022)
• Interview with Bruce Atkins, production designer Hunted, Assassin, and Moments (2022)
• Interview with Pemini Organisation co-founder Nigel Hodgson (2022)
• Interview with June Ritchie, star of Hunted (2022)
• Interview with Martyn Chillmaid, assistant director of Assassin (2022)
• Interview with Moments actor Valerie Minifie (2022)
• Interview with Moments composer John Cameron (2022)
• Interview with Bill Summers, electrician on Moments (2022)
• ‘Moments’ in Cannes (2022): Peter Crane recounts a memorable story from an exhibitor screening
• Film historian Vic Pratt charts the history of the Pemini Organisation (2022)
• Ian Hendry biographer Gabriel Hershman looks at the actor’s role in Assassin (2022)
• Moments: deleted sex scene (1974): sequence removed from release prints at the behest of the distributor
• In Search of Lebanon (1970): student film directed by Peter Crane and Nigel Hodgson exploring present day Lebanon as the living source of the Adonis myth
• Original theatrical trailers
• Image galleries: extensive promotional and publicity materials from the Pemini Organisation’s archives
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive 80-page book featuring extensive extracts from Peter Crane’s ‘Memories of Pemini’, detailing the rise and fall of the Pemini Organisation and the production of their three films, extracts from the films’ original press materials, archival news articles on Pemini’s activities, new writing on In Search of Lebanon, and full film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 6,000 copies for the UK and US
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD138
BBFC cert: 15
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697920499

[Apperson]

These sound really exciting, looking forward to recieving and watching these in a few months.

Sometimes labels release film with such a level of obscurity that I wonder how they even discovered them in the first place and I was wondering how you or any of the producers even came across them in the first place; you've obviously been working on this release for a long time based on the number (for instance Immaculate Conception is no.145 and released in March 2019) so it must be an interesting story.

[TMDaines]

These are really obscure. The three films have the following ratings on IMDB:

• Hunted - insufficient votes for a rating
• Assassin - 30
• Moments - 9

[yoloswegmaster]

These are really obscure. The three films have the following ratings on IMDB:

• Hunted - insufficient votes for a rating
• Assassin - 30
• Moments - 9

And a grand whopping 4 views between the 3 films on Letterboxd.

[MichaelB]

As far as I'm aware, they've been pretty much impossible to see for close to half a century.

And yes, this has been gestating for some time, not least thanks to the challenges of putting out a set like this with a lot of hands-on restoration work and brand new interviews under lockdown conditions, something that's afflicted quite a few of Indicator's other British titles.

[swo17]

Sort of disappointed to read that the Pemini Organisation is just like three friends instead of an underground network of assassins. But otherwise, I heartily approve of releases like this, assuming the films are any good

[therewillbeblus]

Sort of disappointed to read that the Pemini Organisation is just like three friends instead of an underground network of assassins.

If it's only three, why a whopping six men on the cover? Will this mystery be resolved by the end of the third installment?

[Dr Amicus]

I could be misremembering, but I'm sure I came across something about Pemini fairly recently - maybe Alexander Walker mentioned them in National Heroes which I reread last year,

Anyway, this looks the most interesting of this batch of announcements (and the other two aren't without interest either) - both in terms of the films and the extras.

[alacal2]

Surely the Cahiers crew must have had at least one of them in their top tens of the 70s.

[domino harvey]

I laughed, but they’re British so not bloody likely

[MichaelB]

Final specs:



Hunted + Assassin:



Moments:

[zedz]

Sort of disappointed to read that the Pemini Organisation is just like three friends instead of an underground network of assassins.

If it's only three, why a whopping six men on the cover? Will this mystery be resolved by the end of the third installment?

Maybe Pemini rhymes with Gemini and it's a visual pun.

[MichaelB]

Blueprint Review.

[MichaelB]

The Beavini Organisation.

[EddieLarkin]

The Beavini Organisation.

It's cool to see the main features presented in 1.75:1, and indeed the shorter feature in 1.66:1, as it suggests there was some evidence supporting these choices. Was it the filmmakers themselves or maybe some archival information that was dug up?

[MichaelB]

Peter Crane, who directed all three films, was extensively consulted throughout the prolonged gestation of this project.

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital.

[MichaelB]

CineOutsider on The Pemini Organisation:

This extraordinary release is a testament to the dedication and sheer love of film of not just the filmmakers, but those who so painstakingly restored the films and spent so much time shooting interviews, recording commentaries, and putting this tremendous 2-disc set together. I think we, as consumers (and reviewers) sometimes forget how much effort must go into creating special editions like this, and if ever there was a release to remind you of that fact, then one built around films made by similarly minded individuals working on minimal budgets, fired primarily by their talent and their passion for the medium, is most definitely it. I’ll accept that opinions will differ on the films themselves, but I thought they were really something, and this 2-disc set is as close to a definitive release as you’re likely ever to see for all three. Magnificent work all round. Very highly recommended.

[Drucker]

I finally cracked this open last night, and watched the first two films in this set last night. I enjoyed Hunted a great deal, which reminded me a lot of the tense Half-Hour Stories that accompanied the Alan Clarke BFI set. A very good single room film, with a lot of great tension and some really nice flourishes at the end.

I also enjoyed Assassin though I do think a rewatch is in order. In many ways it felt like an inverted Parallax View, with a focus not on the conspiracy or the man hunting it down, but the actors behind it. But then it goes a step deeper on the inversion, and rather than focusing on the plot itself is focused on the execution of the plot and the psychology behind those carrying it out.

SpoilerShow

I think I missed some key details early in the film, and thought the two people who survive in the end were out to execute the Assassin from the get-go, and couldn't figure out the exact nature of the plot. So I found myself a bit perplexed, but the lead assassin I found to be really well played. And maybe because I misread the plot, I enjoyed it a bit more. When he sleeps with the women, is he convinced she has set him up? The man outside the window, is that man coming to kill him? A really well done part of a very good film

[Drucker]

And Moments is indeed the high point of the set. The opening 15 minutes of the film are absolutely masterful, emitting a really quiet confidence in the filmmakers. But The Pemini people, with this film, go back to the strengths of Hunted and construct a deeply intimate film that revolves around a central pairing of people. It does a good job of hopping in a few different directions on its way to its logical conclusion. It's ability to maintain a somewhat consistent tone in and out of the goings on of the scenes was well done and there's a lot of affection for its central character.

[therewillbeblus]

I finally cracked this open last night, and watched the first two films in this set last night. I enjoyed Hunted a great deal, which reminded me a lot of the tense Half-Hour Stories that accompanied the Alan Clarke BFI set. A very good single room film, with a lot of great tension and some really nice flourishes at the end.

I went in cold, so this upended any loose expectations I had in just about every way, a uniformly positive result. I mean, I definitely wasn't anticipating a strong twofer play! But beyond that, this is no B-movie following some breezy suave assassin behavior; it's a raw, hazy anti-character study/acute scenario thriller, that subverts even the more troubling criminal portrait pics by revolving the 'action' around a deceptively-confident subject who messily spills half-processed anecdotes to reveal how disturbed he is (before further reveals muddle that information and leave us wondering if he was more self-actualized than he let on, and what actually brought him to this solution - certainly more than a half hour of Greatest Hits traumas). While obviously theatrically-constructed, the reactivity of both players felt authentic to the situation at hand and hinted at elisions of rich, complex backstories. I greatly appreciated the film's willingness to oscillate between self-restrain itself and full-measured activity in the exact places it does, a jarring effect of unpredictability for a talky chamber piece. Edward Woodward is like Harry Lime if perpetually isolated, with dirty hands, breaking down