Clearcut to screen at the Vancity, March 10th

Those of you in Vancouver who share my love of the 1991 "political outdoor ordeal" film Clearcut, made in Ontario during a period of more-or-less exile by Polish filmmaker Ryszard Bugajski, should keep the night of March 10th free. The film will screen at the Vancity Theatre, with me introducing it; I may manage to get some quotes from my interview with Bugajski prepared before then, too (and might have other surprises in store, like a musical guest...). It will be screened from an illegitimate German DVD based on a TV broadcast master that Bugajski himself prepared a couple of years ago, but which he never intended for release on disc. Fact is, it looks pretty good, at least compared to all other options to see it since the film played Vancouver theatres back in the early 1990's. It has (I believe) the correct aspect ratio, for one thing, so you don't have to deal with that horrible toggling between stretched and pan and scan images that the VHS/ Youtube/ pirated US/ torrentable version all have; and though the colours are a bit stark and everything a bit dark, they're a vast improvement on the previous option. One happy note is that though the DVD is in fact illegitimate, made without his consent, Bugajski has given the screening his blessing. (He only has one 35 mm print of the film, with him in Poland, which he's not prepared to send to Vancouver, so he understands why we're using this particular source. The TIFF may have a print, too, note - but when there's only one known print on a continent, and maybe it's one of two prints in existence anywhere, people with an investment in preserving cinema can get reluctant to part with it...! We did ask...)

Read my previous big article on Clearcut here. Michael Gimenez has started a Facebook page for the film, as well - we may have news there, too...