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What A Disgrace wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 4:20 pm Desert of the Tartars was Valerio Zurlini's last film, and I believe it is his most well known as well.

THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS
[IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI]
The final film directed by Italy's Valerio Zurlini is an oneiric meditation on militarism based on a celebrated 1940 novel by Dino Buzzati. Assigned to a remote desert outpost, the young lieutenant Drogo (Jacques Perrin) anxiously awaits his first encounter with the enemy army. But the enemy never appears. His platoon keeps drilling, and life continues elsewhere, but Drogo and company remain trapped in their fortress. As time passes, their world becomes even more untethered from the wider one. Absent any external enemy, the officers bicker among themselves, soldiers mutiny and illness and madness creep in. The international cast includes Vittorio Gassman, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal and Mohammad-Ali Keshavarz. The real-life location of the film's Fortezza Bastiani was the medieval Bam Citadel fortress in Iran, later declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and badly damaged by a 2003 earthquake. The atmospheric score is by Ennio Morricone. “[THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS] may be the grandest and most lavish existentialist parable ever made” – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice. DIR Valerio Zurlini; SCR Jean-Louis Bertuccelli, André G. Brunelin, from the novel "The Tartar Steppe" by Dino Buzzati; PROD Michelle de Broca, Bahman Farmanara, Mario Gallo, Enzo Giulioli, Jacques Perrin, Giorgio Silvagni. Italy/France/West Germany/Iran, 1976, color, 140 min. In Italian with English subtitles. RATED PG

Restored 4K DCP courtesy of Cinecittà.

AFI Member passes accepted.

Run Time: 140 Minutes

Opening Date: Saturday, July 06, 2024

Genre: Historical drama

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 4:19 pm Watch it be Truffaut's Confidentially Yours

TVC15 wrote: Mon Dec 15, 2025 4:25 pm More Visconti has been teased for 2026, so the CON could very well be Conversation Piece

geoffcowgill wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 5:35 pm I know Smile was considered a likely contender, but with no letter clues matching up, my guesses for the New Hollywood satire are Werewolf of Washington (WW) or Hi Mom (HM).

TVC15 wrote: Mon Dec 15, 2025 4:25 pm More Visconti has been teased for 2026, so the CON could very well be Conversation Piece

andyli wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 4:08 pm "This director's final feature was one of his best", and I was thinking of Bergman and Bresson at first, except that Fanny & Alexander and L'argent are still with BFI. Then there's Tarkovsky and Orson Welles... The Sacrifice has been conspicuously absent from MUBI in UK. Does F for Fake or The Other Side of the Wind count as the last feature? Or maybe I shouldn't think about masters. After all one of his best is not necessarily a masterpiece.

Also, we can rule out female directors because of the pronoun.

Feego wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 9:35 pm What are the chances of The Big Clock and Phantom Lady, both released by Arrow Academy and now apparently out of print, being released by Radiance?

And I would say Saraband is Bergman’s last film not Fanny and Alexander, but does anyone consider Saraband one of Bergman’s greatest?

domino harvey wrote: Tue Dec 23, 2025 4:34 pm L’annulaire?

Feego wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 9:35 pm What are the chances of The Big Clock and Phantom Lady, both released by Arrow Academy and now apparently out of print, being released by Radiance?

Finch wrote: Mon Dec 22, 2025 10:34 pm Low, I'd think. Fran generally doesn't like updating films that he'd probably consider as already having acceptable releases. I'd shoot Radiance an email and ask. You might get a definitive answer.

Peacock wrote:What were some of the takeaways from the Discord AMA?