Talking About Michael Schaack’s Felidae with our guests, Deaf Crocodile’s Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers, co-founders of Deaf Crocodile Films, as we explore their journey in film restoration and distribution, culminating in their latest release—the 1994 German animated noir Felidae. From their early days working together at Cinelicious Pictures to launching Deaf Crocodile during the pandemic, these passionate film preservationists have rescued nearly 70 films from obscurity thus far.
The heart of our discussion centers on Felidae, a dark animated detective story following Francis, a cat who moves to a new neighborhood only to find himself embroiled in a series of gruesome murders. The film, based on the first of Akif Pirinçci's novel series, pushes boundaries with its mature themes, graphic violence, and surprising commentary on eugenics. We dive deep into the challenging restoration process, including the race against time to preserve the deteriorating original negative, and the fascinating history of this ambitious international animation project that featured Boy George on its soundtrack.
Beyond Felidae, Dennis and Craig share incredible stories about their other restorations, including the rediscovery of Solomon King, a lost 1974 black action film they found through its soundtrack album. They discuss their philosophy on film restoration, the challenges of securing rights to forgotten films, and their commitment to preserving cinema history while making these works accessible to modern audiences.
This episode offers a rare glimpse into the world of film restoration and distribution, highlighting how passionate individuals are working to save important pieces of cinema history. Felidae stands as a prime example of their work—a unique, challenging animated film that deserves to be rediscovered by modern audiences, and we had a wonderful time discussing it with these dedicated film preservationists.
Welcome to Movies We Like • Deaf Crocodile Distributors Craig Rogers and Dennis Bartok on Felidae
About Dennis and Craig
About Felidae
Talking About Michael Schaack’s Felidae with our guests, Deaf Crocodile’s Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers
Join us for a fascinating conversation with Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers, co-founders of Deaf Crocodile Films, as we explore their journey in film restoration and distribution, culminating in their latest release—the 1994 German animated noir Felidae. From their early days working together at Cinelicious Pictures to launching Deaf Crocodile during the pandemic, these passionate film preservationists have rescued nearly 70 films from obscurity thus far.
The heart of our discussion centers on Felidae, a dark animated detective story following Francis, a cat who moves to a new neighborhood only to find himself embroiled in a series of gruesome murders. The film, based on the first of Akif Pirinçci's novel series, pushes boundaries with its mature themes, graphic violence, and surprising commentary on eugenics. We dive deep into the challenging restoration process, including the race against time to preserve the deteriorating original negative, and the fascinating history of this ambitious international animation project that featured Boy George on its soundtrack.
Beyond Felidae, Dennis and Craig share incredible stories about their other restorations, including the rediscovery of Solomon King, a lost 1974 black action film they found through its soundtrack album. They discuss their philosophy on film restoration, the challenges of securing rights to forgotten films, and their commitment to preserving cinema history while making these works accessible to modern audiences.
This episode offers a rare glimpse into the world of film restoration and distribution, highlighting how passionate individuals are working to save important pieces of cinema history. Felidae stands as a prime example of their work—a unique, challenging animated film that deserves to be rediscovered by modern audiences, and we had a wonderful time discussing it with these dedicated film preservationists.
Welcome to Movies We Like. Each episode, Andy Nelson and Pete Wright invite a film industry veteran to discuss one of their favorite films. What makes a movie inspirational to a cinematographer or a costume designer? Listen in to hear how these pros watch their favorite films. Part of The Next Reel family of film podcasts.
Andy Nelson:
Welcome to Movies We Like, part of the True Story FM Entertainment Podcast Network. I'm Andy Nelson, and that over there is Pete Wright.
Pete Wright:
Present and accounted for. On today's episode, we
Andy Nelson:
have invited film distribution company, Deaf Crocodile's cofounders, Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers, to talk about Fil A Day, a movie they like. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. Hello.
Craig Rogers:
Hello.
Dennis Bartok:
Thanks for having us on.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. We're thrilled to, to have you here to chat with us about what you two are up to, about this particular movie, which is a great one to chat about. And, just kind of like film distribution in general, which, you know, this is exciting because while generally on this show, we're talking about a wide variety of of people from different parts of the film industry, whether they're directors, cinematographers, composers, you know, makeup artists, whatever. This is our first time jumping onto the other side and talking to distributors and talking about kind of what that world is like, especially in the modern age where we are with, physical media, the way that the focus has shifted in physical media and and distribution. So let's just kind of start digging in.
Andy Nelson:
I'd love to hear a little bit about you two and your backgrounds. Dennis, do you wanna start?
Dennis Bartok:
Sure. Was born and raised mostly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My mom was an avant garde, artist, filmmaker, conceptual artist. So I I grew up around her, making experimental films with a 16 millimeter Bolex camera. And, she also had a brief career in Japanese b movies in the late nineteen fifties when she lived in Tokyo Wow.
Dennis Bartok:
Which is kind of an amazing, sideline. I studied filmmaking in the nineteen eighties at New York University, worked for a little while after college for Robert De Niro's production company in New York City. And then I came out here to LA in 1992. Worked on and off for about thirty years for a non profit film group called the American Cinematheque, where I was the head of programming for many years. I would pick what films we were screening.
Dennis Bartok:
I would track down the 35 millimeter or 70 millimeter prints. I would interview the filmmakers. So any everyone from Charlton Heston to Janet Leigh to Nicole Kidman to Guillermo del Toro came to the Cinematheque over the years. And then at the same time, I was also working as a screenwriter. I sold several scripts to twentieth Century Fox and to New Line.
Dennis Bartok:
And then, I produced and wrote an anthology horror film, called Trap Ashes that we recently restored and rereleased in four k UHD and Blu ray with episodes directed by Joe Dante, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman, and other filmmakers, kind of a tales from the creep creep show anthology horror film. And then in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I wrote and directed a supernatural horror film in Ireland called Males produced by Fantastic Films and starring Shauna McDonald and Ross Noble and Steve Wall that streamed on Netflix from, like, 2018 to 2020. So I've done a lot of things involving the film industry, for profit and nonprofit making movies, screening films. And then for the past ten years, Craig and I have worked together at now Deaf Crocodile is the third company we worked together at. The first was called Similicious Picks.
Dennis Bartok:
We restored and rereleased Eiichi Yamamoto's, psychedelic animated film, Belladonna of Sadness, Toshio Matsumoto's, amazing, transgender drama, Funeral Parade of Roses, Private Property. We next worked together, the company called Arbelos Films, where Craig oversaw the restoration of Bella Tarr's seven and a half hour, Satan Tango, and a number of other films. And then four and a half years ago, we started Deaf Crocodile together, and we now have close to 70 films in our library. We release a really wide eclectic range of, world cinema titles, both new and, vintage, a lot of world animation in particular. We're gonna talk about Felidae.
Andy Nelson:
Right.
Dennis Bartok:
And a lot of the films that we release, we restore in house. Craig is our our in house restoration wizard. So probably 60 to 70% of the movies we put out, we're we're actually restoring ourselves so that they can be destroyed.
Craig Rogers:
Wow. It doesn't seem possible. It's been four and a half years. That's amazing. Ten plus going back to Cinna Lucia seems right, but since it's just been the two of us with Def Crocodile, it's been such a whirlwind, it seems like two at most.
Andy Nelson:
Well, and to be fair, we're all in that COVID brain.
Craig Rogers:
That's true. We did we did decide to start up a new company during COVID. That was that was hard. Let's let's distribute let's distribute movies during COVID.
Dennis Bartok:
With and you started at absolute zero with no films in our library. Yeah. Basically, no money, nothing except our sort of know how and the fact that we had worked together previously and we said, okay, we're gonna go from here and now
Andy Nelson:
Here we are.
Dennis Bartok:
Four and a half years later, we've got a ton of films. We've been really fortunate to work with all these amazing filmmakers.
Andy Nelson:
That's awesome. Well, I just wanna shout out over at Cinelicious, one of the other releases that you did was Gangs of Wasseypur, which, Pete and I talked about over on our, NextReel podcast, which is quite quite a movie.
Pete Wright:
Oh my god. What a film.
Dennis Bartok:
Oh, it's amazing. Anurag Katiab. Yeah. We were really lucky to, license that and put it out. One of our favorites releases.
Dennis Bartok:
It's a delicious I I'm a huge fan of both contemporary and classic Indian cinema. We release through Deaf Crocodile several wonderful, contemporary Indian and Southeast Asian filmmakers. Achal Mishra's The Village House and Dewey. Boomba Ride is another amazing film.
Craig Rogers:
Children of the Sun, which is which is a great great, like, historical drama. Most of the all although those are available streaming, we we haven't had a physical release on them, but they're really great films that are are are getting overlooked. So please, if anyone listening, check out what we have streaming and and those films are really, really good.
Dennis Bartok:
And we would love to restore and release some rare and classic, Indian and Bollywood cinema. I'm a huge fan of filmmakers like Guru Dutt and Devanand and, you know, a lot of the the classic, actors of that period from the fifties, sixties, seventies. It's really difficult to find the materials and clear rights, I have to say. That is something we're still working on is is trying to put out some really amazing, rare and classic Indian cinema. We're not we're not giving up, but You'll get there.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. In ten plus years, we've we've been working on it, and it's it's tough.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, Craig, let's talk a little bit about your background and your history, where you came from, and and your passion for film and moving into it.
Andy Nelson:
It sounds like it was in particular the restoration side of things.
Craig Rogers:
My love of films began I was lucky enough to have a it was a store that that that that sold I think they bought out video stores. And so they just had, like, this giant room full of VHS tape used VHS tapes, and I would go there every week and get a stack. And I didn't know anything. I didn't know who anybody that I would you know? My mom mostly was like, oh, yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Humphrey Bogart is real good or, you know, or Francis Ford Coppola is supposed to be good. And and so she would throw out these names, and I'd see the the the tapes. And and so, like, every week, I would leave. I I think I bought, like, five tapes a week at least for going on for a long time. And that just introduced me to Coppola and Scorsese and De Niro, and those are the ones I really fell in love with at first.
Craig Rogers:
And then some of the old classics, James Cagney and and Humphrey Bogart, I really liked. The more I got into it, then I started noticing the, like, the the cinematography and Vittorio Storaro jumped out at me, and I was just like I I realized I'm like, man, that's that's just incredible. So I got into into, like, really liking that. I ended up moving from VHS to a LaserDisc player. And on the laser LaserDisc, I found this documentary called Visions of Light that was all about cinematography that was just an amazing documentary.
Craig Rogers:
That really got me, like, really liking it. And then weirdly, one evening, I think I think my mom called me and told me to turn on the TV. She's like, Javier, put it on, like, ABC, I think it was. And there was a a a miniseries, a really bad miniseries. So bad, it was supposed to be five nights, and I think after three, they can't they stop showing it.
Andy Nelson:
It gave up.
Craig Rogers:
But the key the key was is that one of the leads in it was a friend of mine from high school.
Andy Nelson:
Oh, okay.
Craig Rogers:
And for whatever reason, it just clicked in me that, like, oh, like, working in the film industry is it's just it's a job. Like, if that's what you wanna do, like, get a job in that industry. Because it didn't even as much as I love films, it never occurred to me, like, oh, I could be involved somehow. So almost immediately, I was like, well, I need to go to film school. Being a a Scorsese devotee, I'm like, well, I need to go to NYU.
Craig Rogers:
And then I saw how expensive it was, and I'm like, I am not going to NYU. And then yeah. So then reality set in, and and I actually found, like, it was more of a trade school out here in in Los Angeles called Columbia College Hollywood. Packed up, moved to LA, and and started going there to be a cinematographer because I wanted to be the next Vittorio Storaro. And in my very first cinematography class, I realized that that making those beautiful pictures involve mostly just math.
Craig Rogers:
And I was like, oh, no. That's not that's not for me. This has been horrible this day. But I fell in love with editing. And so got an internship at this at this, editing house that that put together press kits and and trailers.
Craig Rogers:
Absolutely loved it. Figured I'd probably go that direction. But then I ended up dropping out of school because I couldn't find a paying job. That internship was unpaid, and I I couldn't get a paid gig. So I've I kind of washed my hands of the industry altogether and decided in the mid nineties to go into travel, which was just before the Internet destroyed that industry.
Pete Wright:
Your timing so far is impeccable.
Andy Nelson:
So I
Craig Rogers:
I I found myself without a job and reached out to the place I'd had the internship. And then also a friend I'd met when I was in school was working at IMAX. And then the same week, I got two job offers to work at the editing place or work at IMAX, and I really was torn. I I kinda prefer to go the editing route, but I figured that's not as safe. So I took the safer route and went with IMAX, and I ended up there for eleven years.
Craig Rogers:
They had just done, Fantasia 2,000. They were just getting into trying to release, like, Hollywood films on IMAX.
Andy Nelson:
Sure. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
And so I was worked trying to figure out how to make that feasible, because we only had, like, really old school film recorders that took almost two minutes per frame to output. And then with the Hollywood films, they were trying to, you know, put them out, you know, at the same time as the film releases. And then IMAX wouldn't get the the materials until the last minute because they're working on the film until the last minute. And we're like, well, that doesn't that doesn't work.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Craig Rogers:
At at two minutes a frame. So I worked with a guy who who helped design the film recorder, and and we got the two minutes down to thirty three seconds. Still not fast, but considerably faster than it was. And then figured out a system of, well, instead of having one film recorder, we'll have 14. Split the film up and and and record out thousand foot rolls of IMAX film on 14 film recorders.
Craig Rogers:
The tricky part of that is that they all need to be exactly the same, or you're gonna see color and density changes every time there's a cut. It was kind of a nightmare, but we managed to to pull it off, and and that was eleven years at IMAX. Wow. And towards towards the end of it, I I was getting I I was introduced to the software called Phoenix, because we would use it to clean up scans of negative, because it it on an IMAX screen, even a a small piece of dirt is, like, giant. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Huge. Yeah. When I left IMAX, I realized, like, well, what I really kind of enjoy is film and history, and I like the idea of of, restoration. And I I know, again, being inspired by Scorsese and his film foundation, I'm like, I I wanna get I wanna do film restoration. So I decided to try it on my own, bought a you know, built a computer and got the Phoenix software that I was familiar with.
Craig Rogers:
And the first the first restoration gig I I got was with McGilvery Freeman Films.
Andy Nelson:
Okay. Fitting with IMAX. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Which we yeah. I reached out to him because he had, and and they were like, oh, that's interesting. You're you're reaching out now because we're actually just thinking about, like, Greg's old before he got into IMAX, he shot surfing films back in the sixties. And so he's like, I wanted to go back and and and restore those films.
Craig Rogers:
So I started restoring his old 16 millimeter reversal surfing films from the sixties, and I needed to find a place that could do a really good scan of 16 millimeter reversal. And there was this place called Sinalicious in Hollywood that was was raving about their their fancy new scanner. So I went in there and I was like, hey. Again, I need to get this scanned. And the owner of the place, I was there, god, well, half the day, I think.
Craig Rogers:
And we were talking, and before I left, he he offered me a job, which I wasn't expecting. I was supposed to go in there to get a film scanned. And it just coincided at the same time that that my husband was gonna be going back to school and only being able to work half time, and I was like, this probably should take this job. Wow. So I ended up might need it.
Craig Rogers:
So, yeah, I ended up as Synolicious, and then soon after, they they decided Synolicious decided, like, well, we've been doing all this restoration work for other companies, and they put out the films and get all the credit. And so the the owner was like, well, we should just start releasing stuff ourselves. He reached out to Dennis, and they started Synelicious Picks, which was like the distribution part of the company. And now we're all caught up. It's weird how so many tiny little decisions that that change the outcome of of where you end up.
Craig Rogers:
Right? I still wonder. I'm like, you know, would I be editing films today if I had taken that other job instead of IMAX? Like, who knows?
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. It's
Andy Nelson:
so hard to say.
Pete Wright:
I wanna talk about Death Crocodile. I'm the thing that fascinates me is the complex organism that is the ecosystem of the kinds of movies that you release. Right? You build this reputation for restoring and distributing these obscure and underseen films, and I'd like to know what drives your selection process. Right?
Pete Wright:
How do you determine which films deserve rediscovery? And what's it take to acquire the rights and decide what's gonna end up helping you make a profit?
Craig Rogers:
Well, does deserve's the wrong word because, pretty much all films deserve it. It's it's whether or not we can Yeah. We can do it.
Pete Wright:
That's fair. That's fair.
Dennis Bartok:
Yes. Some of the films we put out are ones that I kinda have a list in the back of my head of of rare and hard to see movies, going back to my days in film programming. And, in fact, two of them that we've restored and put out are, Jean Louis Roy's, wonderful black and white Swiss kind of anti nuclear war super spy satire, The Unknown Man of Chandigarh.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. It was our first first release and and still still one of my favorites. It's so fun.
Dennis Bartok:
And that was a movie that I had read about many years ago and just sort of filed away, like, hey, that would be great to see at some point, and it was just really hard to find. And then, The Savage Hunt of Key Stack was another one. Valerie Rubenchik's amazing Belarusian folk horror film that had kind of been on this little list for about twenty five, thirty years. So some of them are ones that that I've kinda been interested in for a long time, but a lot of the other ones are are ones that through serendipity or or people recommend titles to us. Solomon King, Sal Watts' amazing independent black action action crime film that he, produced, wrote, co directed, and starred in, made in Oakland, California in 1974.
Dennis Bartok:
Came about because I I came across a copy of the soundtrack album in a used record store and had all these amazing local Oakland R and B soul funk artists on it. I said, oh, it's fantastic music. I wanna track down the film. And then immediately, every reference was lost movie, has not been seen in over forty years, and I I
Craig Rogers:
remember he he sent me a I think there was a clip of this of the theme song on YouTube. And he's like, hey, hey. Check this out. I I found this record, and it says it's a lost movie. We we should probably look for it.
Dennis Bartok:
And I was like, that's where the movie lost.
Craig Rogers:
I clicked I clicked on the link in in the first notes of the music. I was like, yeah. I don't care what I don't care how good or bad the movie is. If that's the soundtrack, we need to find it.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. No, Sal. But I
Craig Rogers:
mean, I'm a I'm a Prince fan, so you know I like funk. And Yeah. Like, I heard that soundtrack, and I'm like, oh, we have got to find this.
Dennis Bartok:
You know, Sal Sal Watts had his own record label. He produced a local Oakland cable TV program that showcased local soul funk artists and street dancers. He had a string of urban street fashion stores called Mr. Sal's. He was sort of like the he had restaurants.
Dennis Bartok:
He was like the Berry Gordy of Oakley in the seventies. And then, you know, his media empire, unfortunately, collapsed in the eighties. He wound up going to jail on on, I think, trumped up tax charges. And when he died in 02/2003, there was no reference in his obituary to any of the work that he had done in film music. It only mentioned that he had owned the Mr.
Dennis Bartok:
Sal's fashion stores. And so we, again it's this it's kinda film detective work, tracked down his, his wife, his widow, Belinda Burton Watts, who is such an incredible, incredible person.
Craig Rogers:
The the interview with her on the disc is worth buying the disc. Like, even if you don't watch the movie, the interview with her is incredible.
Andy Nelson:
Nice. Okay.
Dennis Bartok:
And she said, I've been waiting for, you know, twenty five years for the phone to ring and and for you to call and say, you wanna restore Sal's movie, which she had worked on. They shot in, you know, businesses they owned, in their house. She's in the film at the very end. She had what she thought was the camera negative sitting in her closet for twenty five years. It turns out it was only the soundtrack elements.
Dennis Bartok:
Still, we had audio but no picture. We found
Pete Wright:
Oh, no.
Dennis Bartok:
What is apparently the sole surviving print of the original cut of the film at the UCLA Film and TV archive, which they very generously loaned to us for the restoration. But it was completely faded. It was like purple. And it was a release print. The camera negative, inter positive, inter negative, like, all those elements seem to have vanished many, many years ago.
Dennis Bartok:
So we had this one print that was purple and we scanned, like, ten seconds of it and Craig sent it to our colorist, Tyler, who lives in, Atlanta and said, k. Can we do anything with this? And he was unbelievably able to restore about 95% of the color. It's really, really difficult with materials that are that badly faded. But we were able to restore the film.
Dennis Bartok:
It's now screened all over The US. It's played twice on Turner Classic Movies. And most importantly, Sal's wife, his kids, his grandchildren, his
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Most of them most of them had never seen it.
Andy Nelson:
Wow. Really?
Craig Rogers:
They they had just they had just been told that, like, you know, oh, you know, grandpa everyone says that he made a movie, but they had never seen it. They hadn't seen it. Wow. And so, yeah, it was it was kind of amazing, and we had a screening in San Francisco where where a lot of the family was there. It was just funny when the the movie starts, and the first time he comes on screen, there was there was somebody sitting behind me, and then they just yelled out.
Craig Rogers:
They're like, that's my daddy. Because yeah. So most of them had never had never seen it. They just say they'd heard about it, but they'd never seen it.
Dennis Bartok:
And we've been able to, you know, pay royalties to his wife, Alinda. She did an incredible two and a half hour interview, moderated by Jonathan Marlowe that's on the disc that is as, I think, as important as the film itself. And we love the movie because it's this captures this incredible sort of time capsule of black fashion music culture. The the neighborhoods in Oakland in the mid seventies, many of which are are completely transformed and gone. So even from sort of like a documentary perspective, although it's a, you know, it's a fiction, it's a it's a action crime film, and it's sort of kinda dolomite meets Schaffd Bain.
Dennis Bartok:
But it's an amazing document that preserves what what black music and culture and fashion looked like at that time in Oakland, California. So that's you know, of the restorations we've done, that's probably the one that we're proudest of because the film was so completely lost. I think there was a thirty second TV commercial was all but survive of Solomon King until we, met Belinda and and worked on the restoration and rerelease. Wow. And we're just so happy that, you know, this film went from being completely disappeared to to playing on Turner classic movies across The US, and people could appreciate, Sal and Belinda's work all those years ago in Oakland is amazing and and return him to his rightful place in the history of Oakland music and film.
Dennis Bartok:
And that's great. That's the kind of work when we do that, that we're we're just really happy to be able to shine a light on some of these gems of film that have slipped through the cracks. Felidate being another one that was really difficult to
Craig Rogers:
It is it is great when the when the when they have slipped through the cracks and the, you know, the filmmakers just assume that Yeah. It's not gonna happen at all. It's gone. You know? Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Nobody cares. And then, you know, to to let them know is, like, no. Like, you know, people people do do care. I mean, I I I worked for a while as an art rep for some comic book artists. It was interesting to to, like, talk to some of these artists and and, like, as a fan, you assume, like, they are aware that people love their work, but they aren't.
Craig Rogers:
You know? They're just at home doing their thing. Their their perspective is completely different than than ours as fans. You know? They're they're they're, you know, they're just like, oh, that's something I did forty years ago, you know.
Craig Rogers:
Nobody cares about that. Everyone, you know. So, yeah, they it can be exciting for them as well that, like, oh, this this thing I did forty years ago and forgot about is, like, is Is somebody
Pete Wright:
still thinking about it? Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Somebody cares about it? What? Really?
Dennis Bartok:
We got an email this morning from, Jean Francois Leguioni, who is, this amazing French filmmaker and animator. This month, we've released his first film. It's an absolute masterpiece called Gwen and the Book of Sand. It's a post apocalyptic animated film about a teenage girl and her 173 year old nomad companion going on this epic journey across the sands, looking for the teenage boy that, the young girl, is in love with. It was, animated using this incredible painting style called gouache.
Dennis Bartok:
So it has this amazing visual quality, and it's never been released in The United States before. And he just today received the the Blu ray four k UHD, and he just sent this brief, say, I I just got it super it's magnifique, you know, Jean Francois. And I'm like, well, that's
Andy Nelson:
That's yeah.
Dennis Bartok:
That's why we do it. It makes it all worthwhile is when the filmmaker or their family, or the creative artists who worked on the movie as with Felidae, the director and the key animation team are almost all still with us and and were able to contribute to the the release, did interviews. And then when they saw the finished film, they're like, ah, so wonderful to see people finally appreciating. Something we did that that they invested so much creativity and art and hard work into. And in the case, it was like, Felidae, you know, was not a big financial success when it came out because it it's it's an r it's an r rated Don Bluth movie basically.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. An American tale except it's aimed at an adult audience.
Andy Nelson:
Right. Much darker.
Dennis Bartok:
Like the plague dogs are Watership Down. And and most animation then and now is is aimed at the family audience. And and apparently, they tried to market Felidae to families when it came out. How they marketed it when it first came out, it's just Oh my god.
Craig Rogers:
I you know, that's that's I don't know how they would have done that. I just realized that's that's who we should have tried to get an interview with is the marketing team back then. Yes. What were you thinking?
Andy Nelson:
No kidding.
Dennis Bartok:
You know, we interviewed we interviewed some of the animators and they're like, yeah. No. Families were taking their kids to see it and and there's
Pete Wright:
Oh my god.
Dennis Bartok:
Decapitated kitties and cats having
Craig Rogers:
sex and cats getting electrocuted and eviscerated. I mean, I saw Watership Down when
Dennis Bartok:
I was young and and eviscerated.
Andy Nelson:
I mean, I saw Watership Down when I was young, and and that certainly left its mark. But I feel like this one stepped up a few notches.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Watership Down has some violence, but the this film has just some it it's not just violence. There's there's some actual evil. No.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. It's it's pretty different.
Dennis Bartok:
It's incredibly dark. It's almost a jalo in some ways. I mean, it's Yeah. Like a film noir, a cult mystery jalo, you know, it it mixes up detective story. It mixes up a number of different genres.
Pete Wright:
But even the ugly cats are adorable. Right? Like, that's the challenge of this movie is context is everything.
Dennis Bartok:
Oh, yeah. Well and and, you know, we found out that a number of the key animators had worked for Don Bluth in, Ireland when he briefly had a a animation studio over there. And we also have have production sketches they've sent us, some of which included in the Bluerift booklet, where they would have a a rough sketch and it would say, kinda Bluthy. So they were aware.
Pete Wright:
Nailed it. Nailed it.
Dennis Bartok:
The style was very daunting.
Craig Rogers:
The animators were aware. They're like, I I've read the script. Why do you want it to look like a kid's movie?
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well and just even reading the books that it's based on. Before we get too far down into the into Felidae, I just had a few more questions about distribution because I think that there's an interesting element to the world of distribution where I mean, obviously, the films that you've distributed, you were able to get the rights, and they also had all of the elements and everything that you needed.
Andy Nelson:
And I feel like those are all key parts, obviously, of getting a a film distributed, especially some of these. As you said, they a lot of them were kind of forgotten or they just never even made it over here. Are there any that you would say are kind of I I don't know if holy grail is the really the term, but just films that you're like, oh, I'd love to distribute that, get it out in front of audiences, but either, like, it's stuck in some rights issues and no one has been able to untangle that web, or there just aren't the the right elements to actually give it a proper restoration. Do you have any that you're hoping one day you could magically find all of the right pieces to make it work?
Dennis Bartok:
Oh my god. There there are so many. There are some that that we tried for years. We spent about seven years trying to license the rights to Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg and got sold to g Kits, who do a wonderful job. And and they'll do a wonderful release with Angel's Egg.
Dennis Bartok:
But that that was a really frustrating one because we had spent so long pursuing it, and then it wound up going somewhere else. They are wonderful. It's it's like a incredible Bollywood movies from the sixties and seventies, like Jewel Thief, the Devanand movie I would love to restore and, or some of the films of Homi Wadia, who was, kind of like, India's equivalent of Ray Harryhausen. He did these incredible mythological movies in the forties, fifties, and sixties with all sorts of pioneering visual effects based on Indian mythology, like Aladdin and his Magic Lamp and, Sri Rambak Khanumon and others have not been able to find rights or elements for any of those. And then there are films that we spend five or six years patiently pursuing and we and we think have slipped out of our grasp.
Dennis Bartok:
And all of a sudden, a deal comes together. There's this amazing Estonian alien sci fi locked room mystery called Dead Mountaineers Hotel. Oh, yeah. It was made in 7980.
Craig Rogers:
We love that movie.
Andy Nelson:
We've talked about that one on our podcast.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. It's fantastic. So we spent about six years patiently pursuing the rights to the film with the, Estonian Film Center. And every six months, I would have it send an email saying, hey, we're still interested in Dead Mountaineers Hotel. And they would say, no, not now.
Dennis Bartok:
We're we're trying to raise money to see if we can get a grant to restore the film. And and literally this went on and on and on. I have I have like an email chain. It was like 45 emails.
Craig Rogers:
It was it was it was a little frustrating because we were like, we will pay for the scan and do the restoration ourselves. You don't need to raise money.
Dennis Bartok:
And so, Eric and I had pretty much given up. We were like, yeah. I don't think Dead Mountaineers Hotel is gonna happen. It's just one of those ones that it's like, it's almost there but not quite. And then about six months ago, I said, alright.
Dennis Bartok:
What the hell? Let me check-in. And our contact there said, okay. Yeah. The licensing.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. They they're they did a a new scan off of their elements. Craig is actually waiting to receive the hard drive from Estonia with with the new scan and take a look at it and and see what's gonna be required in terms of the restoration, and we'll share it with with, of course, our partners overseas, once it's finished.
Dennis Bartok:
But that's a movie that, you know, Craig likes to joke that often people will license films to us simply because we wear them down.
Pete Wright:
Sometimes that works. Yeah. I can think of vastly worse reasons to license things to you.
Dennis Bartok:
Savage Hunter Kean Stack and Felidae, both actually, were also examples of films that took years and years to clear the rights and get the elements. And I think the rights holders eventually were like, we just don't wanna hear from these guys anymore. Just we're just exhausted. Yeah. Alright.
Dennis Bartok:
I don't know why you want these films so badly, but we will license and we pay them.
Craig Rogers:
Felidade took so long. We went through, like, three different people. For the person we started with talking to, I don't think works there anymore. Then the second person halfway through, like, I think they went on maternity leave, so then we got to a third person. And every time, we'd have to start over from scratch because the the each new person had no idea what we were talking about.
Pete Wright:
I I got a question about the restoration process, if I can if I can change gears a little bit because I'm I'm so curious, especially when you bring I just watched the trailer for Solomon, and it is beautiful. I you know, hearing what you describe the condition of the source elements that you got, the result is beautiful. What's your stance on how much restoration is, is important to consider the film properly restored because we're not just talking about cleaning it up. We're talking about modernizing it. And, you know, are there things that you can't restore?
Pete Wright:
Is there I mean, you're putting your stamp on this aging piece of artwork for the future. What are your thoughts in when too far is too far? And, you know, are there
Andy Nelson:
How much grain to remove? Yeah.
Pete Wright:
How much to remove?
Craig Rogers:
If I'm ever gonna it's I I I'm gonna on the side of doing not enough. I always say that the my my goal at the end is is if you were there at the theater on premiere night, The print had never been run before, and it was a print off the original negative on on premiere night. That's what I want it to look like. Not better than that. So Grain, I rarely am gonna especially if if we're working from the original negative, I'm not touching the grain.
Craig Rogers:
It's film. It's got grain.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Grainy.
Craig Rogers:
You know? Yeah. Supposed to. If if, you know, if modern audiences don't like grain sorry. Tough shit.
Craig Rogers:
But in film film has grain.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
I'm not I'm not gonna make it look like it was shot digitally. The animation is the same thing. You know? The even that the vintage animation was shot on film, it's still gonna have some grain. And with animation, there's a there's a there's a whole another level that because it one, it's made by hand, and second, it's made in in layers of of cells.
Craig Rogers:
And if there's dirt on the cell, it's baked into when they shoot it. And each layer can keep adding more and more dirt because depending on the people doing it, some films, they were very, very good about making sure the cells were clean. And other films Not so much. It's kind of incredible. It's like there's so much dust and hair and stuff that was on the cells.
Craig Rogers:
Wow. That's the one where I I kinda try and split the difference. I'm like, I know it was always there because that's how they shot it. Yeah. Right.
Craig Rogers:
Right. But sometimes there's certain shots where there's so much, it's distracting from the scene. And I'll try and go in and and tamp it down a bit, get rid of some of that baked in dirt. Because I know, you know, there's the there's always the question of leaving it the way it was versus had they had the ability Would they have? Would they have.
Craig Rogers:
But in the case of the baked in dirt, I'm like, they had the ability. They just didn't clean it. Yeah. So, yeah, I I anyone, like, with Felidae was was was our one of our our second HDR. So we did an HDR grade, which that brings in another whole level of what should you and shouldn't you do.
Craig Rogers:
And I was happy to to read a couple of the reviews I've seen commented that the HDR is not over the top, and I'm like, good. Because that was my goal. Like
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
We wanted to to make sure we've got the the the full depth of color range, of all the colors. So it does look different than the non HDR version, but it's not, like, popping out at you. We did I think we went through it, like, three times with Tyler doing the grade, and I'd watch it. And and most of my almost all my notes were simply if a if a shot came on screen and and it distracted me at all that I'm like, oh, that that's bright. That was my note.
Craig Rogers:
Like, dial it back. Too much. You know? I I I don't want things jumping out at me. I want to be immersed.
Craig Rogers:
You know? We wanna be pulled in. I don't want things popping out at me. That that's at least how I feel about HDR is I want it to be more immersive, not not gimmicky.
Pete Wright:
Well, in in the spirit of of creating that sort of visual mix, right, you're mastering for today's and tomorrow's technology. Right? In the spirit of, I want this to look like it did when you would have seen it when it released in theaters and know better. In some respects, you kinda want it to look a little bit better because I'm watching it on gear that I never would have had access to before. Right?
Pete Wright:
And and as a consumer of a Dolby Vision setup, I kinda want it to look like it fits there. Right? Is there is there any thought that goes into that?
Craig Rogers:
The technology itself was gonna do that. Like, even if you if you watched the the standard if you didn't watch the HDR, you just took the regular Blu ray, and you had it playing back on an OLED TV, and you had it playing back on a on a old older TV right next to it, they're gonna look completely different. But that's not my master doing it. That's the that's the technology you're playing
Dennis Bartok:
it back on.
Craig Rogers:
Sure. So yeah. So my goal is to keep it looking like it's it was originally supposed to look. The OLED itself is gonna expand the contrast on its own.
Dennis Bartok:
Well and then there'll be, instances as with, like, the Savage Hunt of King Stack. We looked at a previous restoration that the rights holders had done. There's a scene in a graveyard where it's raining, and whoever did the restoration had used scratch removal software that thought the rain was scratches or dirt, and they literally removed it.
Pete Wright:
Oh. Oh my god.
Dennis Bartok:
So there's all sorts of stuff that that Whoops. Kinda get done in the name of I mean, color grade, we could have a whole conversation just about how color grade influences the style, the tone, the feel of a movie. And if you don't have the filmmaker or the original cinematographer there, you're trusting that whoever does the color grade is going to be, sympathetic and sensitive to how the film was supposed to look. One of the animated films that Craig worked on restoring previously for one of our previous companies was, Marcel Jankovic's The Son of the White Mare. And we're actually just about to release his last film, this this nearly three hour animated epic called the tragedy of man.
Dennis Bartok:
And Yankovich has passed away a couple years ago, but Craig was able to work with him on the son of the white, mayor restoration. And there were a couple instances where he asked Craig to radically change the color grade in certain sequences, you know, from I Craig, I don't know. It was like brown to purple or purple to green or something like a major change.
Craig Rogers:
We had the scans from the original negative, so I know what the cell animation looked like. And that's not what he wanted it to look like. And I was like, okay. But that's what it looked like.
Andy Nelson:
Well, and that's that's also a tricky line because I remember when William Friedkin did a re a restoration of the French Connection, when it first came out on Blu ray, I think, and radically changed the way that the color tones look through the whole film and got a lot of flack for it, and then they ended up doing a a different version that kind of put it back the way it had been. But that's another whole side of things of creators who come back later and go, oh, what? Let's just keep playing and kind of continue making modifications.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. I I interviewed Friedkin many times, and he was, oh my god, he was like a vaudeville performer. I saw him actually do pratfalls, fall out of a director's chain and get a laugh. He was a really interesting character.
Andy Nelson:
Oh my goodness.
Dennis Bartok:
He invited he invited me to do the the audio commentary with him, one of his movies, and I was so excited. I was like, oh my god. What's it gonna be? Is it gonna be French Connection or Exorcist or even The Brink's Job or whatever? And it was what's it The Guardian?
Dennis Bartok:
His occult killer tree spirit movie, which
Andy Nelson:
is one of his
Dennis Bartok:
silliest films. Yeah. Even the I haven't heard I haven't heard the commentary we did together in many years, probably since we did it, but Friedkin was like, what was I thinking? This is a really silly film. I think he said when The Exorcist came out, you know, it was in first run, limited release, I think, initially.
Dennis Bartok:
And he said he went to each of the theaters and tested their projection and sound. And if it wasn't up to par, he had them, you know, sort of Warner Brothers force forced them to upgrade.
Andy Nelson:
Good for him.
Dennis Bartok:
And he was very much, I think, at least, you know, I am when I interviewed him a fan of what digital technology had to offer because he said, would would I rather see The Exorcist on a DCP where every time it's gonna look like I intended it to, or a 35 millimeter print where after 25 or or 30 screenings, it's got scratches. The film may have broken and maybe jumps at the changeovers. I love film. You know, I wrote an entire I wrote a book about obsessive film collectors and film dealers that came out in 2016. And I screened thousands and thousands of prints over the year, when I was with Cinematheque.
Dennis Bartok:
But everything we do in terms of distribution is in the digital sphere now. Like, we go most of our films start analog, So we'll scan from, hopefully, the original 35 millimeter camera negative and transfer the sound materials. But then all the work that Craig does in terms of restoration, all the distribution we do, Blu ray, four k UHD, streaming, you know, sending digital DCPs. It's it it's all in the digital sphere now. And I see there's so much, especially in terms of restoration that you can do digitally, that you could never do photochemically.
Craig Rogers:
And if you've if you've got a good four k scan, and then you make a four k DCP, and it's played back on a proper four k projector, it's gonna look like film on the screen. The folks that demand they wanna see everything on a 35 millimeter print, they're just obsessed with seeing the damage. The a proper DCP is gonna still look like film. It's just not gonna have the damage, so it's the damage that they want, which I don't quite being someone who cleans that stuff up, I don't get. Right.
Andy Nelson:
You don't you don't want it out there. No. Exactly.
Craig Rogers:
They don't wanna see it on that first night at the premiere. They They wanna see it in the second run theater after it's been projected a thousand times. That's what they wanna see. I'm like, I don't okay.
Andy Nelson:
There's something something about that, I guess. Yeah. Let's shift gears and talk about, Felidae a little bit more now. We've brought it up a few times, but this is one of the films that, you two have restored. It just recently recently released it, and it's it's gorgeous the way that it was put together.
Andy Nelson:
But it and it's such an interesting film. I my first question for you two would be, like, how did this film cross your paths?
Craig Rogers:
I first saw it as a a crappy bootleg on YouTube being cat obsessed and loving animation and loving edgier stuff, it it checked all the boxes for me. And I was like, Dennis, we need we like, we need to do this movie.
Dennis Bartok:
It is. It's the third animated cat feature we've put out. We did Bela Chernovsky's, Cat City. It's this amazing, Hungarian kind of animated sci fi film in a in a kinda like danger mouse vein. Super fun.
Dennis Bartok:
And then, we we did Tamela twenty ten, a punk cat in space. It's amazing Japanese kind of meta psychedelic anime.
Craig Rogers:
Well, I saw I saw someone on Reddit, asked the other day. They're like, is Def Crocodile leading the the pack with with releasing films where the lead character is a cat? Everyone pretty much agreed that we were, and and I just I let them know. I'm like, yeah. It's not by accident.
Andy Nelson:
We're looking for more. I I am cat obsessed. I admit it.
Dennis Bartok:
Felidae was really difficult because, it was adapted from the first in a series of of very successful young adult kind of detective mystery novels all set in the world of of cats. Kinda, I guess, so you would sort of say maybe loosely based on a sort of Sherlock Holmes kinda pattern where there's murders and Francis, who is the hero of the stories, investigates and solves them. But the the books were written by a Turkish German immigrant, Akif Perinci, who unfortunately, in the last few years, has has kind of come out with some very, anti immigrant and hard right political statements in Germany and became kind of persona non grata in the mainstream. So when we approached the company that holds the rights now, they were they were not the original distributor for the film. They inherited it, bought it as part of the big film library.
Dennis Bartok:
They, you know, kind of kept putting this off. And finally, at one point, they were like, why do you wanna restore and release this film? Like, do you know what it's based on? And we're like, yes. But the the message of the film itself
Andy Nelson:
It feels the opposite of his opinions, which is interesting. Yeah.
Dennis Bartok:
And we think it stands on its own as this really wonderful, mysterious, entertaining animated feature for adults. So finally, we kind of wore them down. That was another instance of, like, every four or five months when we would follow-up, it seemed like the person we were dealing with left the company and so we had to start all over again. And then finally we had a license agreement and they couldn't find the film elements. Or the person that had found them for us left the company and the new person was like, yeah, we don't know where it is.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. I was like, I've got emails that they gave me a list. They they literally gave me a list of the elements you have available. And he's like, I don't
Dennis Bartok:
know where they are. I'm like
Andy Nelson:
Oh, jeez. Starting from scratch.
Dennis Bartok:
Well, and then, finally, we get the elements shipped to Pharos Post Group in Germany who did the four k scan and they said they sent us an email saying, hey, it's really good thing that you are scanning it now because we opened the cans and they're going vinegar. So vinegar syndrome is an irreversible process where, you know, essentially, the chemicals that are used to develop a film print continue very slowly eating away at the film stock itself. Produces acetic acid is that smells like oil and vinegar salad dressing. Once it starts, it can't be reversed. There are things you can do possibly to slow it down, but it will eventually destroy the film.
Dennis Bartok:
It will, you know, warp it until it's unusable.
Craig Rogers:
So, obviously, some at some point or a long period of its thirty years, it wasn't in climate controlled storage. Because thirty years, it should be absolutely fine if it was stored properly.
Andy Nelson:
Sure. I mean, there's plenty of older films that are are Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Nelson:
Blasted. Yeah. Interesting.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. So it's a good thing. Had we not, like, pushed and been very patient and persistent, within a year or two years, the camera negative will be unusable. Like, we're not gonna be able to do a scan. Like, it it ran through the scanner perfectly, but they're like, yeah, you you got it just in time.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. So this is probably the last scan that will ever be done off of the camera negative. Now I don't know if there's other material like, did they do an interpositive or an internegative for the film AV, but who knows where that is?
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It sounds like they don't even know where stuff like that would be.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Yeah. So we got to it just in time. We were, we were actually connected with the rights holder through the director, Michael Schack, who was a very, very successful and prolific, animator and filmmaker in Germany. In the eighties and nineties, did a number of successful movies, and has now left the animation business kind of loose on a beautiful farm out in the countryside.
Dennis Bartok:
And I think he was kind of bemused and and excited that we were interested in this film, which, at the time it was made, was the most expensive animated feature ever produced in Germany. And it was produced because it was so ambitious and complicated. They had satellite animation teams in Ireland, in Canada, in South Korea. And this is all pre Internet. So they're animating these sequences and then they're they're faxing images or they're FedExed and
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. They were saying, like, a a chunk a good chunk of the budget was just FedEx. They're just
Dennis Bartok:
There's no, like, we're gonna scan this and put it on a, you know, Google Drive or a Dropbox. Nope. It's all, like, I can't even imagine how complicated. And then the main off the main headquarters animation team was in Germany, in Hamburg, I think, where where Michael Schack at his offices at the time. But even when we did the interviews for the bonus features, we were talking to animators in Ireland, in LA, in Canada that are still all over.
Dennis Bartok:
Michael is in Germany now.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. They're still all over.
Dennis Bartok:
But we were really fortunate. Paul Bolger, who was one of the lead animators on the film.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. He did the he did the original character designer.
Dennis Bartok:
We commissioned him beautiful new artwork for the slipcase in the style of cell animation. And he's like, I haven't done this now in twenty five years.
Craig Rogers:
The deluxe edition cover is a fully painted background. The cats are a cell animation overlay. So it's it's literally how they would have made the film is how he made the the the cover for the the deluxe edition.
Dennis Bartok:
I think he said, do you want me to do this digitally? And Craig was like, no.
Craig Rogers:
Oh, yeah. No. Definitely not digitally. Not as happy and cheery and aimed for kids as the original either. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Andy Nelson:
Well, that's what's I mean, it's a very dark movie. I mean, we we mentioned the plague dogs Watership Down, but, I mean, this is a story about a cat who who moves to a new neighborhood and then suddenly is thrust into a world of murder as as dead bodies keep turning up. And and he kind of goes into detective mode with his buddy Bluebeard and starts trying to figure out, like, who is behind all of these deaths. And it's I mean, this is a dark, dark story, and and he's got some, some incredibly dark, nightmares as well that really kind of, kick things up to another level.
Craig Rogers:
The the night the nightmare sequences are really incredible. Like, that's that's that's some
Dennis Bartok:
dark stuff. Francis and his owner, the the can opener I love how they refer to humans as can opener from the film. And and since we have a a dog and two cats ourselves, we yes. We are absolutely can openers. As soon as he moves into the house, the first thing, he's like, there there's a weird smell of green mold and it's not coming from below, it's coming from above.
Dennis Bartok:
And immediately, you know, he he goes outside, he meets, Bluebeard, and they see a cat who's had its throat ripped out.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. That's not five minutes into the film.
Andy Nelson:
And and when you say ripped out, I mean, we're not talking about, like, shot in a way where you can't quite tell. I mean, it's it's right there in front of you. You're looking at it. Yeah. This is a graphic bloody film.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah.
Dennis Bartok:
It's really graphic. Well, the most, you know, spoiler alert, the the most horrifying moment in the film, one of the most disturbing in
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Pause now. Skip this if you haven't seen it yet.
Dennis Bartok:
Is when he discovers the beautiful, blind female cat Felicity has been murdered and and crucially decapitated. We're talking like Argento, Fulci level decapitation. And and even the the crazy religious cult of cats that he discovers upstairs, where the cats are willingly jumping into this, electric current and being electrified as like a kind of like a Jim Jones cult or or the the sequence at Carousel and Logan's Run where they're all, like, exploded. And and even in the dialogue, it says, truly, these activities were far beyond the Aristocats.
Andy Nelson:
Right. It even it even has the Disney reference. Yeah.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Now Francis has this great voice over, which, of course, is so typical of of like, film noir and detective stories that he's narrating the action as it's unfolding. But it's got so many weird amazing, you know, Josiah, the guardian of the dead when they go into the catacombs and discover this incredible ossuary charnel house filled with thousands of skulls and skeletons of dead cats. I mean, it really is, got a lot of horror, occult horror elements in the film in addition to being a kind of detective mystery.
Andy Nelson:
Which reminded me, actually, in the scope of detective stories, weirdly,
Craig Rogers:
one
Andy Nelson:
of the first films I thought it was the young Sherlock Holmes because that was, I mean, as a kid, it was probably my first Sherlock Holmes film that I watched, and it dealt with some occult story. It it it kind of had this detective story, but also very occult. And, also, going to things like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, like, these sorts of stories that we're watching as kids that definitely had these darker turns with kind of this cultish imagery, and this definitely fits into that vein.
Craig Rogers:
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is infamously why wasn't that rated r? Because I remember I saw it when I was a kid and, you know, there's some scenes in there where it's like, wow. If this wasn't a Spielberg film, this would have gotten an r rating. Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
But, yeah, it's definitely kinda in that vein where it's like it's got elements of the the noir. It's almost kinda got, like, a cop buddy thing with with with Francis and Bluebeard, which I love the Bluebeard character so much. But the more I think about, like, he he brings some levity and some some some laughs to the film. But as far as the plot goes, like, he's just kinda tagging along. Like, he just he's following Francis around and all and, and he's really just interested in finding food.
Andy Nelson:
But there's also this tragedy with him because later in the film, as they're starting to piece everything together, like, he's recognizing, like, things have happened to him also. And he like, he he's missing an eye, and he looks down at his paw at one point when he later in the film realizing, like, that these are the people that perhaps are behind exactly what has happened to him. Mhmm. And it's like that own his own recognition of all of that, I thought, was really, for me, powerful with that character.
Dennis Bartok:
Oh, yeah. No. It's really disturbing in a kind of plague dogs, you know, fashion. Like, they clearly these cats were being used for genetic experiments and to create a sort of pure master race of cats. I had to say it's a perfect this is a perfect time in the world we live in now to put out a film from Germany that talks about people wanting to sort of create a genetically pure master race.
Pete Wright:
Eugenics by way of cats. It's a subversive and yet maybe on the nose way to get a a dialogue going about, what's going on in the world, especially when the originator is, is leaning now in new directions, darker directions.
Dennis Bartok:
I subscribe to the is is it always right to punch a Nazi? Yes. It is always it's always a good day to punch a Nazi. I mean, I I
Craig Rogers:
Yeah.
Dennis Bartok:
I grew up in a world in which Nazis were absolute evil. What they did was was truly monstrous. And the fact that we're now living in a world where people are somehow questioning, like, no. I mean, I knew a film producer, Branko Lustig, and he was Croatian. And he went on to produce Schindler's List and Kingdom of Heaven.
Dennis Bartok:
And he was in the camps as a child, and he still had the concentration camp numbers tattooed on his arm. Like, no. Don't screw around with this shit. Oh. No.
Dennis Bartok:
Jeez. It's always a good day to punch a Nazi.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.
Dennis Bartok:
But it's my motto. So it it is great that we're putting this this German movie out from the nineties that has this really kind of strong, dark message about creation of a pure master race.
Pete Wright:
How does how does ideology, writ large impact your selection of films? I mean, it it this is one we're we're kind of getting to through the backdoor in this conversation about how you feel personally about the world at large and releasing a movie where whose timing is is right there. But I also noticed you do a a a lot of other films that have some interesting messages around, that that might be otherwise considered subversive, zero grad, dead mountaineers hotel. Like, these are these are movies that have interesting commentary on the the politics of the time. How does that define your motivation for securing rights to films that you restore?
Dennis Bartok:
I mean, I think most of the films we put out sort of sit at the the intersection of art house filmmaking and and genre filmmaking. Some are more on the art house end, some are more on the genre end. I think, primarily, it's movies that we get really excited about in terms of the visuals, the the narrative that have sort of slipped through the cracks of film history. I don't think we I don't know, Craig. We we don't sort of discuss the ideology so much.
Dennis Bartok:
But A
Craig Rogers:
lot of our films have been coming out of Eastern Europe, and they're from the time period towards the the the end of the Soviet Union. And that's what the artists were doing, you know. They were they were commenting on what was going on, and they had to do it in kind of subversive ways. They couldn't just outwardly say it, so they created art that said it. And it we haven't really actively been looking for, like, we need to make a statement on this, that, or the other.
Craig Rogers:
It's that's what the artists were doing, and those are the films that we've we've discovered and found and and and enjoyed. So, yeah, we haven't been actively looking for for stuff like that. I would say we would actively avoid stuff that that we strongly disagreed with, but we haven't but we haven't been actively looking for stuff that has these these messages in them. It's just that's what the artists were that's what they were creating at the time for where they were at at the time.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. We've actually passed on a couple films that really interesting movies, but depicted what we think is actual on screen cruelty towards animals, where animals were hurt or even killed in the making of the film. Not not animated as in food that but actual live action and Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Sure. Sure.
Dennis Bartok:
And Craig and I, you know, we've looked at them a couple times and said, yeah. No. I don't think we could put this out. It just doesn't seem right. In the case of of, like, Zero Grad and Kinzaza, which is this other amazing Soviet sci fi film, both of those are very much movies about the dissolution and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Dennis Bartok:
They they really are, like, the end of of the USSR. And, you know, we interviewed Kurin Shakhnazarov, who's the director of Zero Grad. And he's like, oh, yeah. No. This was actually the last movie of the Soviet you know, it was it was released in theaters when the Soviet Union was dissolving.
Dennis Bartok:
And there were people who would stand up in the theater and get in arguments that said this movie was either pro Soviet Union or anti. But he sort of confirmed. He said, yeah, no. The film was very much about the breakup of the USSR. And then ironically, you know, we've we've put out four films by the wonderful Russian filmmaker, Alexander Ptushko.
Dennis Bartok:
The first that we put out, Ilya Murometz, it's really fascinating because it's set during the period of the Kievan roots, which is the semi mythical forerunner of modern Ukraine and Russia. And Ilya Murometz was a little bit like King Arthur. It's not entirely clear that there was a real historical figure named Ilia Murometz, although it it there is a, a monastery in Kyiv today, I believe, that claims that they have the skeleton of the real Ilia Murometz, but probably was mostly mythical. But at the time the film was made in the late nineteen fifties, it was clearly meant as a pro USSR, sort of nationalistic story. And so really it's a really visually beautiful and has all these incredible visual effects.
Dennis Bartok:
But it's about Ilya Morimas, this great hero of the Khyvan Rus' who is defending it against these Mongol Tardar invaders. Well, we put out the film now though, and you have Ukraine being invaded from the outside by Russia. So it has a very different message, even though it's the same film. But because politics have changed so much, you can kind of look at it in a through a very different lens. While it is quote, unquote just a fantasy film, it has a very complex kind of political background and message, both the time it was made in the late nineteen fifties and the audience it was aimed at then.
Dennis Bartok:
And looking at it now in 2025, I love Alexander Patrychka's work. Sort of a combination of Mario Bhabha and and Ray Harryhausen and Nathan Duran who made these beautiful sweeping sort of folklore inspired movies. Ruslan and Lyudmila is gorgeous. The tale of Tsar sultan. But they, of course, they weren't made in a vacuum like Felidae, And and that is a really fascinating thing is to kind of look at them both how they were received and made at the time, but also how we're we're kind of interpreting them now through a very different lens, which changes day by day.
Andy Nelson:
Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. Especially now. Yeah.
Andy Nelson:
Jeez. Did did the book Felidae also I mean, I mean, assuming that the film was largely just based on the first book and that the first book had essentially this plot with it with the eugenics and everything. Obviously, it it sounds like it wasn't exactly the success that, Michael Schack had been hoping for with it. But, I mean, in your conversations with him, in in the initial days early when he started working on this, was the hope to actually kind of continue adapting more of the books?
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. I don't I don't remember anyone saying anything, but because that you know, it was still early nineties. It wasn't the the mentality wasn't then where, like, well, we're going to make 17 of these. You know? It was like, well, let's make one.
Pete Wright:
A Felidae cinematic universe.
Craig Rogers:
I mean, that that Let's let's make one. If it's a huge hit, then maybe they'd be like, Well, that did well. Maybe we'll do the next book, which is a shame because the the the like I said, I I I love the Bluebark Francis combo. Like, their their friendship is so great. It's I'm just so sad we got just the one movie.
Dennis Bartok:
I don't even think the books are currently in print in Germany where they were extremely successful. But I think the publisher has since stopped publishing them because of, the author's sort of very right wing.
Andy Nelson:
Well, I think Amazon even stopped carrying them. Like, I I think all you can get now are, like, you know, the third party copies of the books.
Craig Rogers:
Yep. So
Dennis Bartok:
you know? Yeah. Because the funny thing is, as soon as we announced the film, everybody asked, is it gonna have the English dubbed track on it?
Andy Nelson:
I read that there was a lot of, questions about that. Like, Cary Elwes actually had to answer in some, Reddit forum or something that yeah. He's just like I know people keep asking me if I was in it. It's like, it must have been a doppelganger of mine because I've never I've never done an English voice for it.
Dennis Bartok:
I I
Craig Rogers:
think I I found at least two different things online where it lists, like, the the the English voice actors, and they're completely different lists. And, ultimately, I think all of the people who did it, they weren't famous people. But there's at least two lists of of, like, famous actors that are accredited to this film that they had nothing to do with it.
Dennis Bartok:
I know it was Crazy People. It was like Patrick Stewart and Cary Elwes and all this. And I I maybe that was announced, like, when they were trying to sell the film at a market or something.
Craig Rogers:
And it could just be a fan, like, a fantasy casting, you know?
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. Well, the English dubbed track that eventually was done, unfortunately, it's it's the rights are not controlled by the the rights holder in Germany any longer. And this is this is the case, I I think, with most fans. I I understand that they they they, you know, for foreign language animation, they want the original dubbed version if it was released in English speaking territories. The reality is that those versions were usually produced not by the producer of the movie or the rights holder today, but by a distributor in The United States or The UK or Australia that no longer has the rights.
Dennis Bartok:
And in many cases, they don't even exist anymore.
Craig Rogers:
Well, it'd be like if if we wanted to if we wanted to create a a an English dub for Tamela and we paid for it. It would be we'd we'd have the rights to that English dub, not the rights holder of Tamela. So then thirty years later, someone wants to release Tamela again, and we're we're long gone. Like, who do they who do they reach out to?
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. And these are in in some cases, for dub diversions, they're well known actors. We don't know what the contracts were. We don't know if they're owed residuals, if the film gets released again using their dubbed voices. And so in the case of Felidae, we asked Wild Bunch Germany who owned the rights, and they said, yeah, we have no records.
Dennis Bartok:
We we have nothing in our legal files. So we can't we can't license you to include the English dub track because we we didn't produce it. I mean, they they're not the original distributor of the film anyhow, but they're like, yeah. We we don't know that we own it, so we can't license it to you. So we did ask, but and that's the case.
Dennis Bartok:
You know, we're we're putting out this wonderful Soviet animated film later this year called The Snow Queen, and it was released in the early sixties here in The US by Universal with some, you know, well known actors at the time like Tommy Kirk. Universal has nothing to do with the movie anymore and that English dubbed track wanted that they cut the movie down so it doesn't actually match the full length version. They they changed some of the film and appeared.
Craig Rogers:
That that also happens a lot is that the the dubbed version will be on a different edit as well. So they were not they're not even gonna sync.
Dennis Bartok:
The company that produced that at the time has no rights to the movie anymore and so we like, licensing English dub track for a movie that's put out over fifty five years ago. They're like, what are you talking about?
Andy Nelson:
Did you have to deal at all with, new rights and negotiations to get the Boy George song? Because, I mean, that was that was a nice surprise to have Boy George suddenly pop up singing singing the song for the film. But
Dennis Bartok:
No. That's that was, fortunately, you know, that since they commissioned that, I'm assuming it was a work for hire, and that's part of the soundtrack elements to the move.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. That's
Andy Nelson:
So that
Craig Rogers:
I owned it. Yeah.
Andy Nelson:
Okay. Good.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. It probably it might have been different if it were just a Boy George song that they used for the film. That they had, like sure. But this was I mean, it's literally Felly Day. Like Yeah.
Craig Rogers:
Right.
Andy Nelson:
That's the name of the song.
Craig Rogers:
I remember I remember the first time I watched it. I saw in the credits, I was like, boy, George. I'm like and and and why is it in English? Yeah. Right.
Dennis Bartok:
I know. That's
Craig Rogers:
a very good question.
Dennis Bartok:
He's like singing. I think part of the lyrics, so he's like singing fella day.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.
Craig Rogers:
Right. Right.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. No. That's just another one of the really weird, wonderful things about the movie that we
Andy Nelson:
Well, that Anne Dudley's score was great. She's a a great composer. It all comes together really nicely.
Craig Rogers:
I just it just reminded me, you you had asked about in the restoration of of things, how far do you change or modernize things? And there was definitely there was one thing in particular with Felidave that was they had all the elements. So we had the real one with all the opening titles, which with the open opening titles for almost all films, what they'll do is they'll create the optical with the titles overlaid over the picture, and then they'll cut that new optical negative into the the the real. Unfortunately, most places then just throw away the original negative that was just the background without the optical. They actually had both.
Craig Rogers:
So I had the original negative without the opticals.
Andy Nelson:
Because there's always a little, degradation in the image quality, yeah, in that optical.
Craig Rogers:
There there it's actually it's actually significant. And so we recreated all the opening titles. We we we matched the font. We matched the color. And so the opening titles, we were able to create recreate over the original negative so you didn't lose that that image quality in in the opening sequence.
Craig Rogers:
It's one of those rare occasions where we we created something new because I I usually don't wanna do something like that. But it but this case, it was like, it's the titles and the image quality is so much better. Yeah. And it's so rare that you have the opportunity to do that. Like, the the original backgrounds are usually not available.
Craig Rogers:
So we we took advantage of that.
Dennis Bartok:
But you could tell in a lot of old films whenever, a dissolve is coming up, picture quality gets it gets really, really muddy because that was an there was an optical effect.
Craig Rogers:
Oh, yeah. All of a sudden, the picture quality just dropped.
Andy Nelson:
Yep. The dissolve always gets real muddy.
Craig Rogers:
Yep. Yeah. Not just dissolves. A lot of times, I noticed it, which is funny. Like, this is long before I even knew knew what I was noticing.
Craig Rogers:
And it I I was I would I think it was the original Terminator where I was watching it, and then I every once in a while, the quality image quality would just drop. And I didn't know why. And then after watching it enough times, I realized, oh, every time there's, like, a big explosion or something because it's an obstacle effect. So every time there's some sort of special effect, the image quality would drop. And I was like, oh, it's it's every time they do an an effect, the image quality drops because they had to do optical effects, which is, you know, it's a duplicate of the negative, and that's why the image quality drops is, you know, before before all this stuff was done digitally.
Andy Nelson:
Well, it has been so much fun talking to, to both of you about, Felidae and all the tangents we've been going on. Thank you both for having joining us. No. It's perfect. It's fantastic.
Andy Nelson:
We love it.
Pete Wright:
It should have been.
Craig Rogers:
We love it. We love it.
Andy Nelson:
Tell everybody, like, what links should people be checking as far as, learning more about Def Crocodile and all the releases and and just finding you two out there on the socials?
Craig Rogers:
We're on most of the socials. Most active on probably Instagram, blue sky. Twitter, I still post too. I'll still post things there, but I I I don't interact there as much. Still on still post on stuff on Facebook.
Craig Rogers:
But most most interaction is gonna be blue sky, and, I'll try to I I try popping into Reddit and and keeping up with what people are are talking about there.
Andy Nelson:
Is that under under Def Crocodile or under or under you?
Craig Rogers:
No. I I it's my personal account. So Okay.
Andy Nelson:
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Craig Rogers:
And then, if you go to the website, the best way to keep up with us is if you go to the website, a a a pop up will usually come up and and offer you the to sign up for the newsletter, which I think at at most, really, we do, like, once a week. But, yeah, the that's the best way to to know to not miss out on announcements and whatnot. We've got our well, we got our, our our own podcast. So we'll we'll talk about the new release. That that podcast drops on the the Friday that we announce what's coming out next, and then we'll usually talk about the films that are are being announced and then go on tangents and talk about
Dennis Bartok:
god knows what. You can order our discs directly through us if you're in, The US, you know, at defcrocodile.com. You can also order through our distribution partner, Diabolic DVD, Jesse Nelson. Everyone there, we love. They've been great.
Dennis Bartok:
And they will also ship overseas. So if you're an international buyer, you could get our discs through diabolicdvd.com. And then also our our standard edition, so the the deluxe limited editions are available through us and diabolicdvd.com, and they are increasingly limited to, like, a thousand units.
Craig Rogers:
There's a there's a there's a small handful of other places. They'll they'll they pop up, but it's primarily us and Diabolic for the deluxe editions. And then like Dennis was saying, the the standard editions now are showing up kinda everywhere is is the goal.
Dennis Bartok:
Yeah. So on Amazon so we work with, MVD, music video distributors for the standard editions now on Amazon through a lot of brick and mortar stores around the country. So, you know, Felidae, Trap Dashes, Felidae, in fact, has has been selling really, really well, both for us and Diabolic and the Deluxe Limited as well as, now on Amazon. The standard edition, it's doing really well, which is great. I'm I'm so happy that we shared the reviews with with Michael Schack and Paul Bolger and a lot of the animators, and they're like, this is so cool to see this movie that that they all really loved and put so much creativity and heart into and and, you know, was not financially successful at the time.
Dennis Bartok:
Now many years later, people coming around and going, oh, this is fantastic. Finally getting a chance to see it. That's great.
Craig Rogers:
Well, yeah. Your Michael Michael Schack is, like you had said, is not even working in the industry anymore. And I had asked him because I I collect art, and I was like, you don't happen to have any of the original cells or anything, do you? And he's like, oh, he's like, let me look. And he, he's like, yeah.
Craig Rogers:
He's like, most of it's all gone, but he he had a a a handful of them, in his garage. And I was like, I I will gladly pay you for for one. And he's like, oh, no. Just give me your address. I'll just send them to you.
Craig Rogers:
No. He sent
Dennis Bartok:
us some of the original cells of Francis. Amazing. Oh my god.
Craig Rogers:
So there yeah. There's there's, like, a handful from, like, one scene, and it's it's not the background. It's literally it's just, like, Francis' head, but it's, like, it's it's so cool. But, you know, but he was so out of the industry. He's, like, yeah.
Craig Rogers:
They're in my garage. I think I I I'll I'll look.
Dennis Bartok:
No. No. That that really does that that is kind of what makes it all worthwhile is the filmmakers, I've been a, you know, filmmaker myself. And when somebody is able to show a lot of simp you know, hair and and, sensitivity to the original artwork and then try and shine a light on it and then audience rediscovers it and really gets into it, that does make it all worthwhile. And then we can share it with the filmmakers and they're like, this is great.
Dennis Bartok:
It took a long time, but now people love Ella Day or Delta Space Mission or or The Outcasts, or any you know, some of these movies that that we've been able to restore and put out. Yeah. And if people have suggestions of of rare favorite movies that they would love to see restored, you know, they can reach us through our website at defcrocodile.com and
Craig Rogers:
Oh, we get We're all making
Andy Nelson:
requests all the time.
Craig Rogers:
We do, and it's fantastic. We we had one person who sent us this big long list, and I there's four films on his list now that we've we've signed. So No kidding. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic.
Craig Rogers:
Yeah. Like, it's Cool. When we say send us your list, we mean it. We're like we we we will look into them.
Pete Wright:
That's awesome, guys.
Andy Nelson:
Well, Fellow Day is a film worth checking out. Everybody should check it. We will have links in the show notes, for the socials for these guys and Def Crocodile and everything. Again, both of you, we really appreciate you joining us here today.
Dennis Bartok:
Thank you so much.
Craig Rogers:
Thank you.
Andy Nelson:
And for everyone else out there, we hope you like the show, and we certainly hope you like the movie like we do here on Movies We Like. Movies We Like is a part of the True Story FM Entertainment Podcast Network and the Next Real family of film podcasts. The music is Chomp Clap by Out of Flux. Find the show at truestory.fm and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, threads, and letterboxed at the next reel. Learn about becoming a member at thenextreel.com/membership.
Andy Nelson:
And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, we always appreciate it if you drop one in there for us. See you next time.