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Two UK distributors are targeting audiences with rereleases of classic films this summer in a major counter-programming play against the superheroes.
BFI Distribution is tapping into Gen X’s nostalgia for the music of the 1980s and 1990s with the rerelease of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent epic Battleship Potemkin complete with a score by UK pop duo Pet Shop Boys; while Curzon is aiming to reach a young cineaste audience via a Michael Haneke retrospective with a Brady Corbet connection and a 4K restoration of Fabian Bielinsky’s seminal 2000 Argentinian heist film Nine Queens.
Battleship Potemkin, set aboard a naval ship where the sailors kickstart a revolution in reaction to the dire conditions aboard, was originally scored by Edward Meisel in 1926. BFI first acquired the exclusive distribution rights to Deutsche Kinemathek’s 2005 restoration of the film in 2007, releasing it on Blu-ray in 2012.
The Pet Shop Boys, who had written the score for the restoration, first performed it live to 25,000 people in Trafalgar Square in London in 2004. They were accompanied by the Jazz Dresdner Symphonic Orchestra.
Twenty years on, to coincide with the centenary of Battleship Potemkin, the BFI is releasing the pairing for the first time as a unified feature in 50 cinemas nationwide on August 22.
It will be accompanied by a Blu-ray and DVD release. “[UK] audiences are collectors,” explains John Ramchandani, head of BFI video publishing and online programming who is the BFI lead on the film. “They want to buy and own the physical media [for] their shelves”.
The BFI first worked with the Pet Shop Boys in 2020, restoring and rereleasing the band’s 1988 feature film, It Couldn’t Happen Here. When the live Q&A and launch events of It Couldn’t Happen Here were cancelled due to the Covid lockdown, the BFI maintained a relationship with Warner Music and Parlophone Records, which hold the Pet Shop Boys’ recording rights.
Now the BFI is screening a double bill of It Couldn’t Happen Here, and Battleship Potemkin on September 5 at BFI Southbank, as a “launch event for fans”, says Ramchandani. (Parlophone Records is releasing a vinyl and remastered CD on the same day.) The screening will feature a Q&A with the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant.
“It was always a wish of ours to release [Battleship Potemkin] with the Pet Shop Boys score because it brings it to a new audience, not necessarily just the film audience,” explains Ramchandani.
Earlier this year, BFI rereleased 1975 rock musical Slade In Flame using a similar marketing model, with a launch event attended and hosted by members of the band Slade. Typically, Ramchandani notes the main audience for this type of films skews older “The [social media] interaction for Slade In Flame predominantly came from Facebook [as opposed to TikTok or Instagram],” he says.
“These kinds of films appeal to Gen X,” he continues. “There seems to really be a moment for bringing music back. You’ve got Oasis[‘s reunion tour]. You’ve got Black Sabbath playing their last gig. And so, the audience wants that nostalgia feel, still wants to see these bands on stage or on screen.
“That’s why we focus on the event as that’s at the nucleus of the whole thing; and from that the rest of the campaign grows.”
Curzon
“Summer is generally not a great period because for arthouse cinemas, there are less [new] releases out there,” says Charlotte Saluard, head of sales at Curzon. “It’s a lot of blockbusters, but less of the indie films, so there’s a bit more space to work on these retrospectives.”
The main arthouse event of Curzon’s early summer offering was a retrospective of Michael Haneke’s filmography, an initiative which encompassed both the exhibition and distribution arms of the business.
The Haneke retrospective was put together by the company’s distribution arm, Curzon Film, which owns the rights, created the marketing materials, ran the PR campaign and toured around the country. This included a complete retrospective at BFI Southbank (which played all the TV movies and hosted various events) and plugging into the new Curzon Film Club strand at Curzon Cinemas. The latter encompassed introductions, events, and merch giveaways. It also played at other independent cinemas around the UK and has grossed £134,953 to date.
Curzon Film Club launched this summer and operates across all Curzon cinemas. This year it has also had a strand called Summer In The City, with a Pride strand during Pride month.
For Curzon Film, the Haneke retrospective is being followed by a diverse range of re-releases including Milos Forman’s Amadeus, Walter Salles’ Central Station, Fabián Bielinsky’s Nine Queens, and later in the year Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante.
A double bill at Curzon Soho of 35mm prints of 1997’s Funny Games and 2007’s Funny Games US lent itself to a Brady Corbet fan base. Corbet, who recently directed The Brutalist which famously featured an interval due to its lengthy running time, starred as an actor in the US version of Funny Games.
“In the interval we put up a 15-minute holding slide with a picture of [Corbet],” says Michael Garrad, a programmer for Curzon’s Film Club. “For The Brutalist- heads, an interval would have been [a reference]. It’s not often we get to do something so high concept.”
’Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective’ has featured 17 films across 60 screenings. The outreach has been tailored to a cinephile audience. “We’ve been working with [social media site] Letterboxd,” says Saluard.
Curzon ran a competition for Letterboxd members to win a DVD box set of all the films in the Haneke retrospective.
For both the Film Club programming and the anniversary screenings, Garrad and Saluard emphasise the appeal to Curzon members and regular customers. “It’s all about building loyalty and creating a community,” as Garrad puts it.
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