Andreas Frisk of the Swedish DVD label Klubb Super8 has written to inform me that the Japanese Avanz Entertainment DVD release of SWEDEN, HEAVEN AND HELL is unauthorized, and that the Klubb Super8 release is the only authorized release of the film to date."The Avanz DVD is most certainly a bootleg," he writes, "since it has burned-in subtitles and it looks like it's taped from TV." (Indeed, the Avanz disc transfer features a rotating TV station bug that reads "Ciao!" I cropped these out of the screen grabs in my previous posting.) "I have been in contact with Avanz," Andreas continues, "and the Italian company that hold the rights to the film, regarding an upload of the whole movie on Google Video that I found. The reply from Avanz confirmed my suspicions: 'We're not original licenser and almost public domain... a rights holder might have permitted it...' 'Almost public domain'... there is no such thing as 'almost' public domain. The worldwide rights holder is the Italian company that produced the film and they are still around, and it is with them Klubb Super 8 made a deal for our legitimate release. It would be great if you could somehow point this out in your blog. I have made an comparison of the two DVD's, check attached files."
I have reproduced the attachment above, which you can click to enlarge. It speaks very well indeed for the superior quality of the Klubb Super 8 release.
I should also mention, to those of you who read and enjoyed my "Cincinnati, Heaven and Hell" posting (thanks to those who wrote to me), that I've been tweaking it ever since it first went up on Sunday; I don't think I've ever revised anything else written for this blog to quite this extent, but this piece has continued to develop as its topic continues to entice my imagination. In other words, if you've read it before and liked it, you might want to read it again because it's probably different now and hopefully that much improved. In fact, I just added some new material to it within the last ten minutes.
