Radiance has announced its April 2025 Blu-ray releases, namely Suzuki Seijun's A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness, Valerio Zurlini's Girl with a Suitcase, Kelly Reichardt's debut feature River of Grass, Jacques Rivette's Va savoir, and on Raro Video, Luciano Ercoli's Killer Cop. Details below.
A TALE OF SORROW AND SADNESS [HISHU MONOGATARI] (Japan 1977)
Limited Edition Blu-ray | 28 April 2025 (UK) | £17.99
The editor of a sports magazine grooms fashion model Reiko (Shiraki Yoko) to become a pro golfer, while retaining exclusive rights to her likeness. Reiko’s popularity soars after she wins her first tournament and she becomes a media sensation, but when she and her manager (Harada Yoshio, Zigeunerweisen) cause a hit-and-run accident, the victim begins to blackmail Reiko, intruding further and further into her personal life.
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (aka A Tale of Sorrow) was Seijun Suzuki’s comeback film after being blacklisted by the film industry for ten years. Though adapted from a popular manga, the bold visuals and absurdist plot twists are vintage Suzuki.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- High-Definition digital transfer
- Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
- Audio commentary by critic and author Samm Deighan (2025)
- New interview with editor Kunihiko Ukai (2025)
- Trailer
- Newly improved English subtitle translation
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jasper Sharp and an archival review of the film
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
GIRL WITH A SUITCASE [LA RAGAZZA CON LA VALIGIA] (Italy 1961)
Limited Edition Blu-ray | 28 April 2025 (UK), 29 April 2025 (US & Canada) | £17.99 (UK)
Aida (Claudia Cardinale, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Day of the Owl) has fallen for a rich playboy and arrives at his door to find it firmly shut and herself ignored. His younger, more sensitive brother, Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin, Cinema Paradiso) helps her and finds himself quickly besotted.
Cardinale gives one of her most tender and vulnerable performances in Girl with a Suitcase, an unsentimental coming-of-age story that deals as much with adolescence as class. A vital director of Italy’s post-war cinema, Valerio Zurlini’s small but remarkable body of work deserves to be discussed among the greats.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative by the Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Camelia and Titanus
- Interview with assistant director Piero Schivazappa (2006)
- Interview with screenwriter Piero De Bernardi (2006)
- Interview with film critic Bruno Torri on Zurlini’s career (2006)
- Visual essay about the film by Kat Ellinger (2024)
- Trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Giuliana Minghelli
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
RIVER OF GRASS (USA 1994)
Limited Edition Blu-ray | 28 April 2025 (UK) | £17.99
In a run-down small-town between Miami and the Everglades, Cozy (Lisa Bowman), a dissatisfied housewife, longs for an adventure. One night, at a nearby bar, she meets Lee Ray (Larry Fessenden), an equally disaffected handyman who’s never left home. As sparks fly between them, a gun accidentally goes off. Thinking they have committed murder, the pair decide to flee, but their naive natures and limited bank balances mean they don't get very far.
Cleverly playing on procedural drama tropes, Kelly Reichardt’s remarkably assured debut feature showcases her keen eye for observing the unsaid in this story about the stories we tell ourselves to escape the banality of everyday life.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- 2K restoration by Oscilloscope Laboratories
- Uncompressed stereo PCM audio
- Audio commentary by Kelly Reichardt and Larry Fessenden
- Audio interview with writer and curator So Mayer (2024)
- Larry Fessenden: Invisible Man, Renaissance Man, Monstrous Midwife – a visual essay by critic Anton Bitel on the career of actor and producer Larry Fessenden including his work with Reichardt and other independent filmmakers (2024)
- “Drive-by” outtakes
- Restoration featurette
- Trailer
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
- Limited edition booklet with new writing by Caitlin Quinlan
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
VA SAVOIR [WHO KNOWS?] (France 2001)
Limited Edition Blu-ray | 28 April 2025 (UK) | £17.99
Returning home with her travelling theatre troupe, actress Camille (Jeanne Balibar) finds the affections of her director lover Ugo (Sergio Castellitto) have waned after he takes an interest in Dominique (Hélène de Fougerolles), a vivacious student helping him search for an infamous missing play. In a bid to make him jealous, Camille reunites with her former lover Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé), now happily married to Sonia (Marianne Basler), and a farce-like series of love triangles ensue.
Theatrically exploring attraction, jealousy, and every emotion in between, Jacques Rivette’s quick-witted and zesty romantic drama turns a satirical lens on the city’s intelligentsia – for whom Paris will always be their home – to ask whether even they know what love is all about.
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- New 4K restorations of Va savoir (the 154-minute theatrical cut) and Va savoir+ (the 223-minute director’s original cut), presented on two discs
- Original uncompressed PCM stereo audio
- Select-scene audio commentary by screenwriters Pascal Bonitzer and Christine Laurent
- Archival interview with director Jacques Rivette (2001)
- Archival interview with star Jeanne Balibar
- Interview with critic Jonathan Romney (2024)
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
- Limited edition booklet with archival writing by Rivette expert Mary M. Wiles
KILLER COP [LA POLIZIA HA LE MANI LEGATE] (Italy 1975)
Limited Edition Blu-ray | 28 April 2025 (UK) | £17.99
Police inspector Matteo Rolandi (Claudio Cassinelli, The Suspicious Death Of A Minor) witnesses a massacre in a hotel when a bomb explodes and kills dozens of civilians. The prime suspect, a young political activist (Bruno Zanin, Amarcord), is shot dead soon after, despite being under the protection of General Attorney Di Federico (Arthur Kennedy, The Man From Laramie). As Inspector Rolandi continues his investigation, he soon discovers a terrifying conspiracy behind the act of brutal terrorism.
Based on the notorious 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, Killer Cop is a gritty poliziottesco from giallo master Luciano Ercoli (The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion).
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- High-Definition digital transfer, presented with both original Italian and English audio options, available on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- New audio commentary with Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
- Valeria's First: An Interview with Valeria D'Obici
- Interview with production manager Alessandro Calosci
- Reversible sleeve featuring artwork based on original posters
- New and improved English subtitle translation, and English SDH subtitles for English audio
- Limited edition booklet with new writing by Barry Forshaw
- Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging
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