Criterion Collection In June Will Be ‘Mediative and Unorthodox’

We’re days away from new season but a new month, The Criterion Collection are 2 steps ahead  with the June 2025 line up which they promise will be ‘mediative and unorthodox.

The mysteries of everyday life come into astonishing focus in one of Abbas Kiarostami’s greatest cinematic achievements in The Wind Will Carry Us, released on 2nd June.

Following on 9th June comes Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colours, and told entirely through lilting songs by the great composer Michel Legrand, the film, starring Catherine Deneuve, is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.

A rare film biography as boldly unconventional as its subject, writer-director François Girard’s visionary portrait of iconoclastic, world-renowned pianist Glenn Gould, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, arrives on 23rd June.

Before we get to June, Criterion Collection UK  on 5th May will release Prince Of Broadway. An early entry into Oscar winning Sean Baker (Anora) filmography and a moving slice of neorealism.

Prince Of Broadway out 5th May New 4K Digital Restoration

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

Buy on Blu-ray from AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES andZAVVI

The Wind Will Carry Us – Out on 2nd June 4K Restoration

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

Buy on Blu-ray from AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES andZAVVI

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Out on 9th June New 4K Digital Restoration

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.

Buy on Blu-ray from AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES andZAVVI

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould – Out on 23rd June New 4K Digital Restoration

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 encoming 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

Buy on Blu-ray from AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES andZAVVI