Deaf Crocodile Announces Acquisition of Three Ultra-Rare Eastern European Genre Films
Since it’s the Halloween month of October (Friday the 13th even!), Deaf Crocodile is thrilled to announce its acquisition of three rarely-seen Eastern European genre classics for release in 2024 in newly-restored versions, co-presented with Seagull Films:
Our 4th release by legendary Russian fantasy master Aleksandr Ptushko following ILYA MUROMETS, SAMPO and THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN: his final film RUSLAN AND LUDMILA, a 2-part, 2-1/2 hour epic fantasy in a gorgeous new 4K restoration.
Belarusian director Valeri Rubinchik’s long-unseen folk horror masterpiece THE SAVAGE HUNT OF KING STAKH, in a new restoration of the 2-hour director’s cut.
Georgian filmmaker Georgiy Daneliya’s surreal, comic sci-fi gem KIN-DZA-DZA!, available for the first time ever in N. America.
Deaf Crocodile plans to release the three films in
Spring – Summer 2024
RUSLAN AND LUDMILA – 1972, Mosfilm, 150 min. The final film from Russian fantasy master Aleksandr Ptushko (ILYA MUROMETS, SAMPO), RUSLAN AND LUDMILA was a glorious and magical summation of his career: a 2-1/2 hour greatest hits package filled with the sweeping lyricism, bejeweled visual F/X and mythic storytelling that put him on par with Walt Disney, Ray Harryhausen and Mario Bava. Based on an epic fairy tale written in 1820 by Alexander Pushkin (Ptushko had previously adapted Pushkin’s THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN, and half-jokingly said they were related), the film opens with the seemingly-joyous marriage of bogatyr (warrior) Ruslan (Valeri Kozinets) to Ludmila (Natalya Petrova), the daughter of Prince Vladimir. (Like his earlier ILYA MUROMETS, the action of the film is set during the legendary era of the Kyivan Rus’ culture that pre-dated both modern Ukraine and Russia.) On their wedding night, Ludmila is spirited away by the long-bearded wizard Chernomor (Vladimir Fyodorov), and taken to his sinister palace where she’s held prisoner. On their epic quest to rescue her, Ruslan and his three rivals encounter some of Ptushko’s most unforgettable imagery: a giant’s monstrous, decapitated head slumbering on an open plain, magic rings and stone warriors, sorcery and sacrifice, all in the hope of reuniting lost lovers. Newly restored by Mosfilm for release by Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles.
“One of Ptushko’s richest works, a compendium of all the techniques and special effects he had developed in previous films. His miniature work reached its peak here, especially in the model of Chernomor’s icy kingdom with its gloomy castle perched atop a craggy cliff. Just as memorable are the sequences of Ruslan riding through the haunted woodlands at sunset …” – Alan Upchurch, Video Watchdog.
THE SAVAGE HUNT OF KING STAKH, 1980, Belarusfilm, 126 min. Dir. Valeri Rubinchik. “We have more ghosts than live people,” murmurs the pale, haunted mistress of the mansion of Marsh Firs (Elena Dimitrova) to a scholar of ancient folklore (Boris Plotnikov) who has arrived at her castle to research the bloody legend of King Stakh, a murdered 15th century nobleman whose spirit supposedly thunders through the local woodlands. (The Wild Hunt is a fixture of northern European folklore in which a sinister figure leads a chase followed by ghostly companions.) Part folk horror, part supernatural mystery, KING STAKH is a melancholy, chilling mixture of Terry Gilliam, Italian Gothic Horror, 1960s Hammer Films and THE WICKER MAN – and a major rediscovery for genre fans. The longer the young scholar stays in this mysterious house of “shadow, gloom, madness and death,” the more strange and surreal the imagery becomes: a mad widow in a white wig; a man bleeding spontaneously from his skull; a dwarf hiding in a decayed doll’s house; screeching ravens and maniacal puppet shows. Based on the novel by Belarusian writer Uladzimir Karatkievich, the long-unavailable KING STAKH has recently been restored from the original film elements in its extended 126 min. Director’s Cut by Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films for its first-ever U.S. release. (In Russian with English subtitles.)
KIN-DZA-DZA! – 1986, Mosfilm, 135 min. Dir. Georgiy Daneliya. Imagine Andrei Tarkovsky circa SOLARIS directing Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and you’ll come close to the existential weirdness of the wonderfully loopy Soviet-era sci-fi comedy KIN-DZA-DZA! Two average Muscovites – a plainspoken construction foreman (Stanislav Lyubshin) and a Georgian violin student (Levan Gabriadze) – encounter an odd homeless man on the street who asks, “Tell me the number of your planet in the Tentura?” In a flash, they’re teleported across the universe to the planet Pluke in the Kin-Dza-Dza galaxy – a Tatooine-like desert world whose inhabitants are hilariously noncommunicative (their main words are “ku” for good and “kyu” for very bad) and where common wooden matches are tremendously valuable. A deadpan, absurdist mixture of Kurt Vonnegut, Monty Python, Samuel Beckett and Jodorowsky’s never-made Dune where alien cultures are even more haphazard and WTF? than our own, the film is also a savage satire of bureaucratic idiocy and dysfunction no matter what political system you’re living under – or what planet you’re living on. Recently restored by Mosfilm for its first-ever U.S. release by Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles.
“Possibly the most underrated science fiction film of the past 50 years … A collapsed Ferris wheel provides a home for destitute desert dwellers. Graves are marked by balloons containing the deceased’s final breath. The colour of your trousers signifies social status, so they are powerful barter items… There is no convoluted plot, but instead a convoluted universe, and its incredulous victims ready to point out the farcicality therein.” – Joel Blackledge, Little White Lies
