Janus Films

[brundlefly]

Lumiere! Le Cinema

MoMA just premiered a Janus owned film that’s certain to be released by Criterion:

Lumière, Le Cinéma! 2025. France. Directed by Thierry Frémaux. New York premiere. DCP courtesy Janus Films. In French; English subtitles. 105 min.

This year’s To Save and Project invites audiences to witness the birth of cinema with the New York premiere of Thierry Frémaux’s Lumière, Le Cinéma! (2025), about the pioneering achievements of the French entrepreneurs Auguste and Louis Lumière in the late 19th century. Introducing the screening on January 10 is Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, the Institut Lumière, and the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France, the birthplace of these remarkable brothers. He brings a wealth of insight, history, and revelation to this journey back to the 1890s, when the Lumière Company, with their astonishing new invention, the cinematograph, made it possible for audiences to voyage around the world in moving pictures for the first time. Featuring gorgeous new restorations of more than 100 comedies, dramas, and travelogues—some famous, some forgotten, and some never before seen—and set to an evocative score of period music by Gabriel Fauré, this wondrous documentary enables contemporary viewers to imagine an entirely new language of storytelling unfolding film by glorious film. A weeklong theatrical run of the film will also take place at MoMA in March.

Frémaux explains they did this because a feature was more likely to get screened in theaters, and that was the main reason for restoring these glorious films - to return them to the big screen. It makes a huge difference and seeing them on the museum’s biggest screen was a revelation. When these films were made, they really wanted them to look like a window into life, and it’s startling how good these films look thanks to the careful preservation of the original negatives, something the brothers took the time to do when film preservation wasn’t really standard practice yet. (Peter Becker was there and I overheard him say he was knocked out by how everything looked.) About 150 films were sequenced for this feature, each less than a minute, and they are accompanied by subtitled narration so a home release might be appreciated as a way to remove the titles when a clean visual is preferred.

But watch it with the narration, it makes a great case as to why these early films had great artistry to them, as if the seeds for so much of cinema’s future was already being sown. Even self-reflexive filmmaking was quickly birthed in these films, and plenty of other details reveal these films to be quite modern and less “primitive” than one would think.

The closing highlights include a 75mm film that they were unable to project back in the day so over a century later this was its proper premiere.

It was quite the event, with Paul Schrader, Xavier Dolan, Julian Schnabel, Jerry Schatzberg (glad he’s back) and Isabella Rossellini in attendance, and she must’ve loved hearing the film compare the Lumières and Georges Méliès to her father and Fellini respectively.

Trailer.

[Lowry_Sam]

Just went to Janus' website to see what is getting distributed and where it's playing & was surprised that there's no info on actually where and when films are playing despite placing "Now Playing" on the new distributions. It provides buttons to "Book Now" but I'm not seeing any lists for actually where and when films are playing or even a prompt to pull up theaters in yor area. Seems like this would help the promotion of the films they're distributing.

[beamish14]

Just went to Janus' website to see what is getting distributed and where it's playing & was surprised that there's no info on actually where and when films are playing despite placing "Now Playing" on the new distributions. It provides buttons to "Book Now" but I'm not seeing any lists for actually where and when films are playing or even a prompt to pull up theaters in yor area. Seems like this would help the promotion of the films they're distributing.

Yes, I wish they would follow Park Circus’ model and allow you to get a heads-up over which of their titles are screening around the world

[Lowry_Sam]

It seems to me that they used to have at least a rudimentary listing of bookings even if it wasn’t completely accurate, but now there’s nothing….or am I misremembering from another distributor? To be fair it’s not just Janus. It seems that since Covid it’s much harder to find this out even for major films. Sites like Fandango and INDB, even Google, may or may not have current info and forget about anything more than what is playing this week.

[FrauBlucher]

Shoah has been added. That's another IFC film


Also, not sure if this has been posted. It's from one of the empty slot numbers that Janus skips over from time to time The Beast

[senseabove]

What's the story with them picking up so many IFC films? And if they're picking 'em up en masse, why the hell hasn't House of Tolerance been one of them yet?

[bad future]

House of Tolerance is where my mind always goes when I think about IFC and the home media availability of their films, whether through their longstanding relationship with Criterion or more recently Vinegar Syndrome, or whatever other paths are available. I can only imagine that there's some issue with the source (like post production was sub-HD? Is that even possible with a 2011 film at that level?) or Criterion has been sitting on it for a long time. Surely it can't just be a lack of interest?

[nitin]

fwiw Justin LaLiberty has said on the other forum it's one of his top 5 wanted releases from the IFC/OCN partnerhsip

[Omensetter]

I never thought I'd say this, but hopefully Janus snags or has Hou's Three Times and The Flight of the Red Balloon. Same for Paranoid Park. I can't see whoever curates IFC/OCN being taken by Hou, and Janus could at least have them streaming. Notoriously, there's a dearth of Hou on blu for a variety of reasons, but getting his two IFC-distributed releases out there seems the bare minimum some company could do. If LaLiberty is the curator, then he hasn't even seen Three Times. The two Hous plus Paranoid Park are no longer on the IFC website, so maybe there's hope there.

[dwk]

Blue Heron
Romería

[brundlefly]

Looks like Janus has also picked up Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Chime, and will be screening it alongside the restoration for Serpent's Path in the spring next year.

Trailer.

[brundlefly]

Sophy Romvari posted on Instagram that Janus will be releasing her feature debut, Blue Heron, next year.

Trailer.

[FrauBlucher]

Everyones favorite is now with Janus Here
Tokyo Melody

[bad future]

Tokyo Melody

Hell yeah

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Everyones favorite is now with Janus Here

I hated this when it came out in theaters, but rewatched it a few years ago and caught my self laughing and enjoying it. I have to be honest here!

[The Narrator Returns]

I went along with the jokes at the time not having seen but eventually I saw it and it is indeed good and funny (Alex Karpovsky is the funniest man alive so it makes sense). And Girls has so thoroughly outlived the angry responses to it as it aired that there’s no argument for Dunham not being an “important contemporary” artist.

[criterionsnob]

La maison des bois Trailer.

[FrauBlucher]

More Naruse Floating Clouds
and I believe this was recently added Animation Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia Away

[Hogfather]

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther

[artfilmfan]

More Naruse Floating Clouds

I’ve always believed that Floating Clouds is a film that should be in The Criterion Collection. Hope this will enable it to happen soon. I might finally buy a 4K disc player and TV if Criterion releases it on that format.

[DeprongMori]

Barbara Kopple’s American Dream (1990) has just received a 4K restoration and will be touring courtesy of Janus Films.

[hearthesilence]

Barbara Kopple’s American Dream (1990) has just received a 4K restoration and will be touring courtesy of Janus Films.

She'll be appearing at the IFC Center to present the new 4K restorations of both that and Harlan County, USA.

I kind of wish I caught one of her presentations of the 35mm print of Harlan County, USA, it would've been interested to compare to the new 4K DCP. FWIW, I actually thought the 4K DCP of D A Pennebaker's Monterey Pop looked even better than the 35mm blow-up.

[yoloswegmaster]

Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s ‘The Samurai and the Prisoner’ Lands U.S. Deal With Janus Films Ahead of Cannes Premiere

[brundlefly]

As mentioned in the other forum, Criterion/Janus also did the restoration for ROBERT WILSON AND THE CIVIL WARS, which is also premeiring at the Ritrovato festival. I've never heard of this, and it appears most people haven't either since only 7 people have this logged on IMDb and 17 on Letterboxd.

Trailer.

[dwk]

I Shot Andy Warhol 4K restoration getting theatrical screenings this summer from Janus Films