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Jean Epstein
Poèmes Breton
(1929-1948)

Contents: Finis terrae (1929), Mor-Vran (1930), Les Berceaux (1931), L’or des mers (1933), Chanson d’Ar-Mor (1935), Le Tempestaire (1947) and Les Feux de la mer (1948).

This three-disc collection of films features films Jean Epstein directed during his ‘Bretagne period’ mostly during the sound era — short drama films and documentaries.

Potemkine Films / Agnès B. DVD
2014 DVD edition

Jean Epstein: Poèmes Breton (1929-1948), black & white and color-tinted black & white, 268 minutes total, not rated, including Finis terrae (1929), black & white, 82 minutes, not rated, Mor-Vran (1930), black & white, 25 minutes, not rated, Les Berceaux (1931), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, L’or des mers (1933), black & white, 69 minutes, not rated, Chanson d’Ar-Mor (1935), black & white, 43 minutes, not rated, Le Tempestaire (1947), black & white, 22 minutes, not rated, and Les Feux de la mer (1948), black & white, 21 minutes, not rated.

Potemkine Films / Agnès B. DVD,
EDV2390, unknown UPC number.
Three single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 PAL DVD discs; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 6.4 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 50 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 192 Kbps audio bit rate, and Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 stereo sound encoded at 224 Kbps audio bit rate; French language intertitles (Finis terræ only), optional English language subtitles (Finis terræ only); chapter stops; three plastic trays DVD in cardboard wraps; €39,90.
Release date: 3 June 2014.
Country of origin: France

This PAL DVD collection has been mastered from high-quality 35mm source materials, most of them held by La Cinémathèque française film archive. Several of the sound films were mastered in high-definition.

Finis terræ is presented with a custom music score.

The supplemental material includes an interview with Bruno Dumont (30 minutes); a restoration featurette (13 minutes); and the documentary, Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema (2011) by James June Schneider (68 minutes).

North American collectors will need a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.