MUMBAI: ITV Global Entertainment has announced over 20 new international home entertainment (DVD and Blu-ray) licences for the digital film restoration of Michael Powell’s masterpiece The Red Shoes, which premiered in Cannes/
The 20 new international home entertainment licenses include; Atlantic Films AB (Scandinavia), Magna Pacific (Australia), Filmax (Spain) and ITV DVD (UK).
ITV Global Entertainment and the Film Foundation together with Academy Award winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker (widow of Michael Powell) and director Martin Scorsese hosted the world premiere of The Red Shoes at the 2009 Cannes Classics Film Festival.
Scorsese said, "Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created a vision in The Red Shoes that has really never been matched. Truly the most beautiful Technicolor film ever made."
The Red Shoes stars Moira Shearer as talented young dancer Victoria Page, who finds herself torn between Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). Directed by Powell and Pressburger, featuring cinematography by Jack Cardiff, the film received two Academy Awards and was originally released in 1948 by the Rank Library, owned by ITV Global Entertainment.
ITV Global Entertainment director of home entertainment & digital Steve Gallant said "We’re delighted to be announcing these new international deals for Michael Powell’s brilliant and lovingly restored The Red Shoes. This is part of our ongoing film restoration commitment, preserving our critically acclaimed and hugely popular library of landmark British film titles for a new generation of film lovers."
ITV Global Entertainment director of operations Fiona Maxwell added, "It was a fantastic honour to be involved in this important and prestigious restoration culminating in this landmark event, attended by such renowned names from the cinematic world. The support and commitment of Martin Scorsese, Thelma Schoonmaker and Margaret Bodde of the Film Foundation in making this project a reality has been rewarded by the global interest in this restoration and these new deals are further testament to our ongoing commitment to the future potential of these titles.
