SIRIUS - Deluxe Limited Edition (Blu-ray)

SIRIUS (SZÍRIUSZ) -- 1942, 103 min.  A truly marvelous rediscovery courtesy of the National Film Institute (NFI) in Hungary, director Ákos D. Hamza’s SIRIUS is an intensely romantic time-travel film with overtones of the Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymour-starring SOMEWHERE IN TIME and BACK TO THE FUTURE.  In the 1940s, a brash Hungarian playboy (László Szilassy) travels back two hundred years with a mad scientist to the mid-18th century world of wigs and pompadours, where he falls in love with a penniless opera singer (Katalin Karády) and makes enemies of all the aristocratic fools he encounters (including his own great-grandfather).  But can he make it back to the present before dawn with his new love – or will he lose her forever?  One of the first great divas in Hungarian film and music, lead actress Katalin Karády was brutally tortured by the Nazis during WW2 and saved the lives of a number of Hungarian Jewish children who were set to be executed by the Danube River, for which she was posthumously honored by the Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to victims of the Holocaust.  Beautifully restored from the original 35mm B&W nitrate negative by the NFI, and released for the first time on Blu-ray in the U.S. by Deaf Crocodile.  In Hungarian with English subtitles.

Special Features

• “SIRIUS Werkfilm” (1942, 3 min., B&W, silent) – this ultra-rare behind-the-scenes footage of SIRIUS during production was shot by a 19-year old studio trainee and shows the director and lead actors setting up for filming.  Purchased as a 9.5mm amateur home reel in 1985 and recently preserved by the NFI in Budapest

• New video interview with György Ráduly, director of the National Film Institute (NFI) – Film Archive on the making and preservation of SIRIUS, moderated by Dennis Bartok.  (In English)

• New video essay by journalist and physical media expert Ryan Verrill and film professor Dr. Will Dodson of Someone’s Favorite Productions.

• New commentary track by hall of fame comics artist, film historian, and author Stephen R. Bissette. 

• New artwork by Beth Morris

• Blu-ray authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.

Deluxe Edition Bonus Content

• Slipcase featuring new artwork by Richard Cox

• 60-page illustrated book

• New essay by film historian Rolf Giesen  

• New essay by film critic Walter Chaw

• Limited to 1500 units