Spirit Entertainment has announced that there will be three UK releases from the Criterion Collection in June, namely Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us and François Girard’s Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, and UHD and Blu-ray editions of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Additionally, Sean Baker's early career Prince of Broadway will be released on Blu-ray in May. Full details below.
PRINCE OF BROADWAY (USA 2008)
Blu-ray | 5 May 2025
A raw, disarmingly moving slice of neorealism, this early-career triumph from DIY auteur Sean Baker plunges into the world of West African immigrant Lucky (Prince Adu) and his Armenian Lebanese boss Levon (Karren Karagulian), two unlikely friends who peddle knockoff designer goods in Manhattan’s wholesale district. When a long-forgotten ex forces him to take care of a young son he didn’t even know he had, Lucky must figure out how to become a father without losing his edge in the counterfeit-merch game.
Capturing the chaos of urban life through expressive handheld camera work, remarkably naturalistic performances, and flashes of manic humor, Prince of Broadway is one of Baker’s most vivid explorations of the illusory nature of the American dream.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Sean Baker and restoration supervisor Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker and the other featuring producer and cowriter Darren Dean, associate producer and actor Victoria Tate, and actor Karren Karagulian
- New introduction by Baker
- Archival interviews with Baker and actor Prince Adu
- Two documentaries on the making of the film
- Restoration demonstration featuring Baker and Coco
- Trailers
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Robert Daniels
- New cover by Drusilla Adeline/Sister Hyde, with additional photography by Ivory Woods
THE WIND WILL CARRY US [BAD MA RA KHAHAD BORD] (France 1999)
Blu-ray | 2 June 2025
The mysteries of everyday life come into astonishing focus in one of Abbas Kiarostami’s greatest cinematic achievements. A slyly self-reflexive commentary on the director’s own artistic practice, The Wind Will Carry Us unfolds with unhurried majesty as it follows an undercover documentarian (Behzad Dorani) whose assignment to cover a small village’s funeral rites is continually frustrated by an elderly woman’s refusal to die. Along the way, though, he forges surprising, unsettling, and enlightening connections with those he meets.
Suffused with Kiarostami’s love for people, poetry, and the arid beauty of rural Iran, this meditative masterpiece reflects upon the boundaries between intimacy and alienation, tradition and modernity, with the utmost grace.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- 4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural sound-track
- A Week with Kiarostami (1999), a documentary by Yuji Mohara on the making of the film
- Interview from 2002 with director Abbas Kiarostami
- New video essay presenting Kiarostami’s poetry narrated by Massoumeh Lahiji, a longtime translator and creative collaborator of the director’s
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar
- New cover by Eric Skillman
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG [LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG]
(France | West Germany 1964)
4K UHD | Blu-ray | 9 June 2025
The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly.
Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colours, and told entirely through lilting songs by the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.
4K UHD & BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by Ciné-Tamaris and approved by Mathieu Demy, director Jacques Demy’s son, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Alternate uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Once Upon a Time . . . “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a 2008 documentary
- Interview with film scholar Rodney Hill
- French television interview from 1964 featuring Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the film
- Archival audio interviews with Legrand and actor Catherine Deneuve at the National Film Theatre in London
- Demonstration of the 2013 restoration
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Jim Ridley
- New illustration by Michael Phillip Dunbabin
THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD
(Canada | Netherlands | Portugal | Finland 1993)
Blu-ray | 23 June 2025
A rare film biography as boldly unconventional as its subject, writer-director François Girard’s visionary portrait of iconoclastic, world-renowned pianist Glenn Gould explodes the conventions of the form to illuminate the brilliant mind and innermost obsessions of a singular artist. Across thirty-two vignettes encompassing everything from dramatic sketches to documentary interviews to avant-garde animation, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould pieces together the story of Gould’s trajectory from child prodigy to celebrated concert pianist who turned his back on public performance to pursue his all-consuming fascination with recording technology. Led by a tour-de-force performance by Colm Feore and underscored by Gould’s landmark recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Girard’s film daringly deconstructs the enigma of genius.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director François Girard, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New audio commentary featuring Girard and cowriter and actor Don McKellar
- New conversation between Girard and filmmaker Atom Egoyan
- Glenn Gould: Off the Record and Glenn Gould: On the Record, companion programmes from 1959 produced for Canadian television
- Archival interviews with actor Colm Feore and producer Niv Fichman
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by author and film critic Michael Koresky
- Cover based on a theatrical poster by Pascal Dufaux
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