Overview: A Sardinian peasant is suspected of murder following an encounter with bandits. In order to survive, he has no option but to turn to banditry himself.

Winning multiple awards at the Venice Film Festival, Bandits of Orgosolo continues the traditions of Visconti and De Sica, yet with his own style and rhythms, Vittorio De Seta musters just as much power as the earlier masters.

Despite awards and plaudits on release this incredible film only now makes its debut on home video. Upon release, Bandits moved Martin Scorsese to observe: It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet.

Blu-ray Verdict: A portrait of misery and ignorance, in a Sardinia lost in its ancient traditions of isolation and distrust, Bandits of Orgosolo has all the makings of a quasi-documentary; in the tradition of Flaherty’s MAN OF ARAN where men are struggling against the elemental forces of nature as much as with each other.

Here, a shepherd finds himself unjustly involved in an escape of bandits, which resulted in the death of a police officer. His survival instinct pushes him to flee. He fears continental justice, the loss of his sheep, the prison that would prevent him from supporting his old mother and brother.

But it’s a dead end. He manages to escape the police, but not the poverty and violence, which push him into a life as a fugitive, a criminal, condemned and persecuted by everyone.

A harsh and merciless vision of the isolation and ignorance, imposed by the law of silence, in the pastoral communities of Sardinia, and filmed in the mountains in the center of the island, using only amateur actors, belonging to the local communities, without a shadow of a doubt, Bandits of Orgosolo is an excellent example of new cinema from the 1960s.

Special Features:
New 4K restoration from the original camera negative by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata
laboratory, in association with Titanus with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
New interview with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (2024, 28 mins)
New interview with curator and filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht (2024, 11 mins)
Trailer
Optional English subtitles
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Roberto Curti

www.radiancefilms.co.uk