Park Circus

Build Your Collection with Park Circus

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

At Park Circus, we believe in making it easy for you to enjoy classic films, in whatever format you choose to watch them. Which is why we like to keep you informed of the best ways to download such classics as Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning and Haroly Lloyd's Safety Last!

Here is a full list of titles available to download digitally with direct links to their individual pages:

Boudu Saved From Drowning: One superb performance, one master director.

Bent: A multi award-winning, powerful and moving love story.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno: Part original, part documentary. Fascinating.

Last Night: Award-winning, beautifully shot drama from David Cronenburg.

Marlene: A richly entertaining record of an encounter with a real-life legend.

The Pillow Book: An irresistable arthouse drama.

Safety Last!: The fourth - and best - of Lloyd's five famous "thrill" comedies.

Speedy: A superb valedictory to the silent era.

Wetherby: An engaging mystery starring Vanessa Redgrave.

Titles available from The Chaplin Collection:

The Chaplin Revue:

The Circus:

City Lights:

The Great Dictator:

The Gold Rush:

The Kid:

Limelight:

Modern Times:

Following this continued expansion of available titles on iTunes, Park Circus have also teamed up with Blinkbox to provide 3 titles to buy or rent. Two of which, The Best Intentions (screenplay by Ingmar Bergman) and Brother (directed by Takeshi Kitano of Battle Royale fame), have never before been available on digital.

For those who engage in the online cinema community, MUBI, here is a page devoted to several key Park Circus titles.

If you are keen to learn more about our home entertainment releases, then head over to our devoted page on the Park Circus Blog, filled with news, articles and interviews.

PARK CIRCUS OPENS FOR BUSINESS IN US

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:19:25 +0000

Park Circus announced today that it has opened a sister company, PARK CIRCUS LLC, in the United States of America.

Park Circus LLC provides an expansion into the US market for the company, which already has an international distribution and sales office operating in the UK.

Based in Los Angeles, Park Circus LLC is focusing on domestic sales activity within the US. A first step on the company’s ambition is an extension of its existing agreement with Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios to represent its library of classic feature films for the US market. Park Circus already represents MGM in the rest of the world.

In addition to this exciting development, the new US office will also provide existing studio clients, such as ITV and Film4, better access to opportunities in the US.

This new development is a bold move for a company that has become renowned for bringing wonderful movies back to the big screen around the world.

TICTOC TOE PARK CIRCUS CONNECTS TO THE SECRET SUPER-COMPUTER

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:19:24 +0000

Don’t get excited, Park Circus is not about to re-enact John Badham’s brilliant 1983 sci-fi thriller (currently available for theatrical bookings from Park Circus), we just want to announce some nerdy techy news.

Park Circus are delighted to be working with digital agency tictoc on a brand new website. Following a successful pitch, tictoc have been appointed to help develop a web presence which better reflects the changing and varied users of the site, the development of the organisation and to make the best use of available internet technologies.

Our vision for the site is to create a hub for all Park Circus online activity. With three quite distinct user groups, (B2B, cinema goers, home entertainment audiences) our challenge will be to create a site which works incredibly hard for us and can help achieve our goals of taking on more film libraries and increasing the number and scale of releases.

At Park Circus we only work with the best and we’ll break into any super computer to find them. Watch this space, change is acoming….

2012 KICKS OFF WITH A LITTLE DESPAIR

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

At Park Circus we are full of Despair. Not the kind of ennui that accompanies the New Year lull but the stunning new digital re-master of master German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s perverse, chocolate-scented melodrama which is now back in cinemas.

Starring Dirk Bogarde in his last role of note and cult goddess Andrea Ferreol, Despair is an adaptation of the great Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov’s between-the-wars novel of false doppelgangers, cuckoldry and murder. It ostensibly tells the curious tale of Russian exile and businessman Hermann’s growing obsession with feelings akin to astral projection, whereby he can step out of his body and watch himself. Played against the background of Berlin in the tightening grip of the National Socialists, Despair is a psychological thriller like few others. Menacing, surreal and unnerving, Despair is bizarre and brilliant even by prolific nihilistic director Fassbinder’s high standards.

Wittily adapted by Shakespeare in Love screenwriter Tom Stoppard, Despair was the most expensive film Fassbinder had ever made but he also believed it to be one of the most optimistic. Despair was nominated for the Palme D’Or in Cannes in 1978 and went on to win prestigious film awards in its homeland for Fassbinder, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and production designer Rolf Zehetbauer. Bogarde said later that he believed Despair was one of the most important films of his long career and that Fassbinder was a genius. Within a decade of making Despair, Fassbinder had taken a fatal overdose and his leading man had retired from acting for good.

A lavishly restored digital print of Despair will be screening at BFI Southbank and selected cinemas from Friday 6 January.

Why not also check out our blog post on When Werner Met Dirk.

Woody Allen Double On New 35mm Prints

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:55:34 +0000

New 35mm prints of Woody Allen’s 1980s features Hannah and Her Sisters and Zelig will take centre stage at a BFI Southbank Woody Allen retrospective when they are re-released on Friday 30 December 2011.

Celluloid purist Allen likes to see his films on print formats so these very exclusive (one per film) pristine new prints from Park Circus should warm the very cockles of his New York heart.

Allen’s inspired and hilarious fake 1983 documentary Zelig utilised vintage newsreel footage and blue screen technology to create an alternative portrait of the world in the 1920s and 30s where Zelig rubs shoulders with and then transforms himself into F Scott Fitzgerald, Al Capone, Charlie Chaplin, Adolf Hitler, Babe Ruth and many more. Comparable with Allen’s recent box office hit Midnight in Paris, Zelig was Allen’s homage and playful deconstruction of the Jazz Age.

By way of contrast Hannah and Her Sisters tells an all too modern and familiar tale. With its narrative that leads from one New York Thanksgiving party to another, Hannah and Her Sisters humourously unties the strings that bind actress Hannah (Mia Farrow) to her feckless husband Elliot (Michael Caine) and her more free-willed sister Lee (Barbara Hershey). The domino effect of connections made over the year impact on Lee’s self-regarding husband Frederick (Max Von Sydow), Hannah’s cocaine-addicted other sister Holly (Dianne Wiest) and hypochondriac clown Mickey (Allen). Only surpassed by Match Point and Midnight in Paris as Allen’s most successful film at the box office ever, Hannah and Her Sisters deserves to be seen on the big screen, again.

Both films will live again in cinemas in 2012. Park Circus – we come not to bury cinema but to praise it.

RICK�S CAFÉ REOPENS FOR BUSINESS: CASABLANCA BACK IN CINEMAS

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:24:04 +0000

It’s been 70 long years since heartbroken lovers Rick and Ilsa reunited (briefly) in war-threatened Morocco, and now the greatest love story ever told is heading back where it belongs - the silver screen.

Directed by dependable studio gun Michael Curtiz, from a giddy above-average script by the brothers Epstein- Julius and Philip, Casablanca was only ever intended to be a studio quicky, albeit one churned out in the interests of propaganda. But there must have been something in the waters of the Hollywood studio where it was filmed between May and August 1942.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as the ex-lovers at the edge of a maelstrom of freedom fighters, corrupt officials, gamblers, thieves and Nazis were electric. The Epsteins had transformed the ‘sophisticated hokum’ of Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick’s into a timeless romantic noir; the central themes of which – cynicism, loyalty, heroism and the need to do the right thing stuck like celluloid to a heated pressure plate.

Much imitated but never bettered Casablanca is one of the solid gold masterpieces of American cinema in the 1940s. See it as it is supposed to be seen, at the cinema on Valentine’s Day.

Casablanca (at 70) will be at key cinemas across the UK from Fri 10 Feb.

Park Circus and Miramax Join Forces

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:50:42 +0000

International film distribution and sales company Park Circus just got bigger.  

Park Circus is proud to announce a new deal with Miramax Films for the international distribution of their library titles. The collection includes some of the best films of the last twenty years including box office busting classics Pulp Fiction and The English Patient.  

Park Circus will be handling all theatrical sales of these titles outside North America and will be adding new digital DCPs and marketing materials into the mix.  

Your favourite movies are born again.  

For more information contact your usual sales contact at Park Circus or email bookings@parkcircus.com.

THE LAST WALTZ - DANCES BACK INTO CINEMAS

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

'This film should be played loud!'

***** "The Band live up to their myth in Scorsese's scorching testament." - Total Film

**** "A heady time capsule" - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

**** "Beautifully filmed" - Kate Muir, The Times

"Essential viewing" - ShortList

November 1976 - Jimmy Carter wins US presidential election, a huge earthquake hits Turkey, Microsoft is officially registered with the Office of Secretary of State and The Band holds its farewell concert.

Shot on Thanksgiving Day, 25 November, 1976, Martin Scorsese's THE LAST WALTZ is arguably the greatest concert film ever made. In 1976 musician Robbie Robertson made the decision to stop touring with his rock group The Band. To the consternation of the rest of the group, Robertson organised the mother of all goodbye gigs at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco where The Band had made their debut as a group in 1969.

Thanks to the involvement of impresario and rock concert promoter Bill Graham, the concert became an elaborate affair. Starting at 5pm and lasting long into the night, the performer guest list included Ronnie Hawkins, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Ronnie Wood, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr among many. It was the hootenanny to end all hootenannies.

Captured on seven 35mm cameras manned by the most brilliant cinematographers of their generation (Michael Chapman, Vilmos Zsigmond, Làszló Kovács) and directed by Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz marked the end of 16 years on the road for Robbie Robertson and The Band and every one of their rock royalty mates wanted to be there to mark the occasion.

Cited as one of a handful of rock concert film masterpieces, The Last Waltz is the essential film record of a cultural high point in American rock, country and blues music. It also bears witness to Scorsese's early talent for the documentary form.

For the first time since 1978, Park Circus is reissuing The Last Waltz for cinema release. Digitally restored to 2K with enhanced 5.1 audio, The Last Waltz is a must for fans of music, mayhem and nihilism. It started as a concert. It became a celebration. Now it's a legend.

THE LAST WALTZ is now back in cinemas at the BFI Southbank, London and key cities.

BOOKING ENQUIRY PRESS ENQUIRY

Martin Scorsese talks Colonel Blimp

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:38:21 +0000

As work begins on the run up to our re-release of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp later next year, Martin Scorsese talks about why this film is worth watching again and again:

'Every time I revisit The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which is once or twice a year, it grows - it becomes richer. With every passing interval of time - and that's what the film is about, after all - it seems to have become more resonant, more moving, more profound. I’m fascinated by the unusual choices of Powell and Pressburger, and by the storytelling. You could say that it's the epic of an ordinary life. And what you retain from this epic is an overpowering sense of warmth and love and friendship, of shared humor and tenderness, and a lasting impression of the most eloquent sadness.'

If you want to discover more about Park Circus Films, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

CHAPLIN: THE COLLECTION - Box Set - Out Now

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

To celebrate the much-loved and world famous actor, director and composer Charlie Chaplin, Park Circus is releasing a DVD Box Set containing some of his finest films.

A must-have for Chaplin fans, this Box Set contains 11 fully restored, classic titles: THE CHAPLIN REVUE (1959), THE CIRCUS (1928), CITY LIGHTS (1931), THE GOLD RUSH (1942), THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940), THE KID (1921), A KING IN NEW YORK (1958), LIMELIGHT (1952), MODERN TIMES (1936), MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947) and A WOMAN OF PARIS (1923).

Combining early shorts and award-winning features, the collection also include a host of exclusive extras:

* Behind-the-scenes footage

* Deleted scenes

* Documentaries

* Introductions

* Outtakes

* Photo galleries

* Trailer reels

CHARLIE CHAPLIN: THE COLLECTION is stocked by all major retailers throughout the UK.

ORDER NOW