Teuvo Tulio: SENSUELA + CROSS OF LOVE + RESTLESS BLOOD Limited Deluxe (Blu-ray) ***Preorder*** 11/25

• Limited to 1900

A mad, dreamlike combination of surrealist imagery and unhinged emotional intensity, the films of Finnish director Teuvo Tulio (1912-2000) are melodramas untethered from any sense of naturalism or narrative logic (or often good taste), operating in the same glorious, hallucinatory space as the subversive, Brechtian melodramas of Douglas Sirk and R.W. Fassbinder. 

His work has been restored in recent years by KAVI – the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland, for this first-ever worldwide Blu-ray release from Deaf Crocodile.

CROSS OF LOVE (RAKKAUDEN RISTI) – 1946, 99 min.  Grizzled old lighthouse keeper Oscar Tengström loses his daughter Riitta (Tulio’s frequent collaborator Regina Linnanheimo) to the pitfalls of the city and rakishly handsome Mauri (Ville Salminen).  
RESTLESS BLOOD (LEVOTON VERI) – 1946, 100 min.  Blonde wife Sylvi (Regina Linnanheimo) seems to have an ideal marriage to doctor husband Valter (Eino Katajavuori), despite his “innocent” flirtation with her kid sister – until her young son is killed by a speeding bus.  
SENSUELA 1973, 104 min.  Tulio’s last film – and arguably his greatest achievement – SENSUELA opens on Sámi reindeer herder’s daughter Laila (Marianne Mardi) saving wounded German WW2 pilot Hans (Mauritz Åkerman).  Hans quickly seduces her off to Helsinki, where she descends into a polyester maelstrom of fabulous clothes and nudie photography and hippie orgies.  Note: SENSUELA is intended for mature audiences and contains frequent onscreen nudity.

All 3 films in Finnish with English subtitles.

Special Features

• The only remaining fragments from Tulio’s early features STRUGGLE FOR THE HOUSE OF HEIKKILA (1936, 9 min. clip) and FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOUNG (1937, 22 min)

• Short documentary A FRENCH DISCOVERY - NUORENA NUKKUNUT (2015, 7 min., dir. Jani Jäderholm) on preserving the fragment of FALL ASLEEP WHEN YOUNG

• Two Finnish educational films from the 1940s, I WOULD LIKE TO BE A QUEEN (1947, 13 min) and SHELTERS FOR NEWBORNS, 1946, 9 min)

• Rare trailer for the Swedish-language version of CROSS OF LOVE (1946)

• New audio commentaries by Dr. Eloise Ross, Rolf Giesen and Heidi Honeycutt

• New visual essays by Reinert Kiil and Ryan Verrill & Dr. Will Dodson

• New artwork by Beth Morris.

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

Deluxe Bonus Edition Content

• 60 page booklet

• New essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

• New essay by Walter Chaw

• New essay by Dr. Eloise Ross

• New essay by Venla Mäkelä

• Slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam’s Myth

• Limited to 1900 units