Hello there, everybody, and welcome back to the Disconnected. I am here with and I'm gonna try this for the first time on air with him. See if I can do this, Eugenio er Kolani. I even got these the chef's kiss amazing. This is somebody that I have really become acquainted with over last year with his work at least, and I have been more and more impressed with what I'm reading and hearing. Producer contributor to all of these.
You work at acquisitions, interviewing people and pretty much everything that leads to us holding all of these wonderful boutique releases. So thank you so much for giving your time and coming on here to spend some time talking. It's amazing, absolutely happy to be here and chat. Shoot the breeze. If you don't know right now he is located in Rome, right I am. I am located in Rome. My life really at the moment, well for the past few years has been split between London and Rome, so at the moment
I'm in Rome working. In fact, I'm going to be starting a principal photography on a kind of a docu film hybrid documentary with the kind of a cinema twist, a film twist within it. We're going to start principal photography in less than forty eight hours on Monday, and we will be on the career of Luke Mirinda French French actor who became big in the early seventies, first half of the seventies in Italy. And yeah, it's quite an undertaking.
It's a big, big project, quite an ambitious documentary. It's set to be released in theaters, so it's not an extra, but people might like to know that. We have quite an array of interviewees. Tinto Bras, Sercho Martino, General Abizo, who's just ridiculously was a ridiculously prolific editor. He's the guy who edited The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
and all of the Dania Dania Films, Dania production. So so yeah, it's it's quite quite an ambitious project and I'm going to be shooting that throughout the rest of November. So yeah, so you have worked on a lot of the stuff. What do you what do you tell people you do? Because I'm curious how how the people that are in this industry, how they even described their job, because it feels like you probably have like fourteen different
part time jobs. Essentially, yeah, pretty much. I mean when I tell people who are not collectors of physical media, I mean my my my girlfriend, my partner, she is absolutely not a collector of Blu rays, although she appreciates it. And so when we kind of go out and the question arises, like, oh, what do you do, and I say, well, I'm a freelance producer for you know, home video releases. I kind of do the extras. The usually the answer is, oh,
are they still doing blue rays? That's that's It's very it's quite a disquieting experience because you've got a slice of the population that you know, sees these things as completely obsolete, and you know, really is there any money? Like you know, and then you've got you know, collectors and people within the business who dedicate their life to the preservation of films and the restoration and getting these these films out in the best edition possible. And it's very difficult
sometimes to kind of gel those those two realities together. I I'm kind of I define myself as a film historian slash producer. But you know, you have to wear a lot of hats, so, you know, especially when I started out I've been doing this now for a little less than sixty eight is although the first three years I was a d ing. I was an ad both in Italy, mostly in Italy to be fair, but also occasionally abroad. And then I've been doing this working on extras full time for the
past three years. So and and yeah, you you you, I was saying, you wear a lot of hats. You know, you you sometimes have to improvise as a camera operator, you end up doing subtitles. You you connect rights holders with labels, and it's it's yeah, it's very dynamic. Every every project and every label is a different relationship, requires different tasks and roles, and you know, it's it's it's ever changing. You never
really do the same set of things every time. Dynamic is probably the best word to put onto this, because not only are the labels different, but I imagine the experience with most of the films themselves can be very different because where you know, the the reels are kept, where the rights holders are, the actual ability for people to sign these over, and then on top of that, the willingness of people to participate in extras can be a completely
different jot. I'm sure, oh yeah, I mean, when it comes to finding the rights of films, that's what can be very complex. Another aspect is getting what you want from the rights holders. So you know, they will give you so many obstacles. So we'll give you this film but for subs or you know, you have to pay for the scan side, or we'll give you this film but only if you buy these two films or
you know that amount of money. More. So you have to kind of it's it's really it's it's it's a whole song and dance to try to get what you actually want. Not to mention some of these big companies in Italy, but the same same goes for you know, UK or US. Is their core business is not this. You know, sometimes their production companies. Sometimes they are distributing companies and this is kind of a side thing for them,
so they don't prioritize. So it's like, oh, you know they want the rights for this film, we didn't even know we had in our catalog, you know, And so sometimes they will take months to answer because you know, their their money, but you know, their core businesses elsewhere, so there it's not really a priority for them to answer. So it's tricky. It needs a lot of patients. But but yeah, I mean
it's it kind of comes with the territory you you have. You know, you have to deal with these companies and sometimes you will find that the rights holders they're willing to give you the film for a reasonable price, but they don't have the actual material. They don't have the master. So you have to find who owns the master. And there's a saying, really the real rights holders is the right holder is the person with the master, is the
person with the physical copy of the film. So sometimes you have you end up spending so much more time and money for the well not my money, but the label's money. Is to kind of convince two people to work together so that you know, the company that actually stores the materials and then you've got the rights holders. So it can get very tricky. And that's the reason why you know, some films, even major cult items, have not been released, you know, because we can't you know, we can't find
the material. You can't actually find the copy of the film, or the rights holders are being unreasonable, asking too much or taking too much time to do things, or another option is some films are entangled into a web of like failed companies. You have to kind of follow the paperwork, and then it kind of ended up a certain film has ended up in in a company in the catalog of a company who's gone bankrupt, and so that's a completely
whole you know, that's a whole different scenario to deal with. So it's it's tricky. And as far as the other point you were making convincing people, it's it's can be tricky. It can be very tricky at time. I mean, it depends. I mean, obviously, over the years, I've established a relationship with a lot of people, so they trust me and you know, they're they're fine with being interviewed and they're very collaborative. But at times you find people, you know that are busy, people that you
know don't want to talk about that film. You know, they don't have a problem being interviewed, but they don't want to talk about that film. And it's I think it says a lot of the fact that you know, sometimes you you know, the some films are released and don't have many extras, and the reason is because you know, people didn't want to talk about
it. You know, they were either ashamed or you know, that happens I'm afraid that a lot with actresses, for example, you know, they have families, and you know, maybe they don't feel comfortable talking about films that are a bit risky, you know that, you know, in which there was heavy doses of nudity or kind of very strong sexual overtones, and
they don't feel comfortable talking about that. But yeah, I mean, I mean, I personally like inventing when it's possible, when I had the time and the budget to do so, I like inventing kind of like for example, recently, Violence in a Women's Prison was released from eighty eight Films, and we had this massive interview with Claudio flag Ass. So it's forty eight forty nine minutes long, and I'm really happy about that interview. He kind
of is uncensored, as you'd expect from flag Ass. And then there's an interview with the ad but I didn't think it was enough, but I couldn't kind of find anybody else to interview, so we did all special about twenty minutes long on this obscure figure called Franco Caraco, who is and has an incredible I mean, he played he's an extremely problematic, problematic figure because he he was openly homosexual. He was gay, but he was required in the
films he did to play this absolutely offensive gay stereotype and he had. He's in loads of films. He's obviously in this film. He is quite a disturbing aspect of this film. I mean, his role really is is cringey, to say the least. And and so I worked with a with a friend of mine and a Italian gay association in Milan and had a lot of information about this act who's who died of HIV in the early nineties, and so we did a little specialists called the Gay Prince. So I, like,
you know, kind of finding ways of putting interesting content. And I'm fully aware of the fact that you know, most people might read that and go, you know, I don't give a fuck about this guy. You know, it's I hardly know who he is, what he's done. But the eight percent that you know kind of wants to dig in and kind of
dwell with these obscure figures of Italian cult cinema. It's it's basically there's no way they can access any sort of information if not through these kind of crazy ideas I have sometimes, you know, So I really try and and do the best I can to provide quirky, strange information you know, where it's possible, because as said, you know, you need the time and right.
Those historical and contextual interviews and featurettes. They really provide so much to these releases to make them rich and educational, to a point that I always get frustrated when people say they buy these and just watch the film and not some of the extras, because they, at least for me, watching the extras, well, first of all, it will make me appreciate the film way more than just by watching through the film with my brain dead mind paying
attention to it for ninety minutes. But hearing something like that and seeing why some of the choices were made, it makes everything just so much more real and human, and I just publicly thank you for that. It's the kind of thing that really gives credence to some of these films that people don't really
understand until they dive in. So definitely thank you. No, I mean, it's fun, it's a lot of fun, and sometimes it's the weirdest most I mean even even the kind of the really really bad films that I have more fun doing extras for because you know, like recently this year I produced extras for a German label. It's it has English. As a really really good addition, I have to admit breeders, Tim Kinkaid, tinkin kid film and from nineteen eighty eight, I believe, and it's an American film.
It's not very good, it's cheesy, it's all over the place, but you know, it's kind of one of those films that I saw in my formative years, you know, kind of you know when I went to rent films in the VHS era, and you know, you watch loads of stuff like this, you know, like David Dickutel and Jim Winowski and Tim Kinkaid and these kind of really sleazy like eighties films, and growing up,
I was like, you know who did these? You know who? So the idea of kind of providing extras in this case, We've got an interview with Ed French, who is a Oscar nominated Emmy Award winning special effects designer who did the special effects for this. And we've also got Francis Rains,
who's one of the leads. She's also happens to be the nephew of Claude Rains, and so that's who we interviewed, and so the idea to provide extras for these obscure films and is kind of I don't know, it's kind of more gratifying in a way than being the one hundred and seventh person to do extras for I don't know, V Beyond, which is great, but Europe part of like, you know, they've been loads of people before you, There'll be loads off you know, will never stop producing stuff for that
sort of film. But with Breeders, it's kind of like it it's breeders, Like who would have ever imagined the limited edition a limited edition media book this lavishly produced or Breeders a few years ago? I mean I wouldn't have so, so yeah, you are the first contributor to bring up media books
on this channel. So I have to ask, if you know the question or the answer to this question, why is Germany so hot on media books and no one else is because I would love to see media books elsewhere, but they seem to be the only one, and I've got forty of them because I love them. I sit here with my phone and read the booklets with Google lens to translate it for me word for word. Germany is as a market. I work a lot in I work with a lot of German
labels, and Germany is a world onto itself. I mean it's so weird. I mean they literally labels in Germany don't care about making their releases kind of appetizing for other markets because their market is just so big that it's enough, you know. They you know, it's such a massive home video market with its own rules, and you know, a whole massive list of labels. So I mean, for example, they x rated, which is a it's kind of a historically relevant label because I mean X rated in the VHS
era was releasing stuff that you know, people were desperately looking for. So I remember, you know, people traveling to Germany from Italy just to kind of grab an next video x rated sorry, x rated release. And they're really big. And a lot of labels in Germany are with the kind of soft box VHS kind of thing. You know, the VHS soft box BHS is in Italy didn't have as many like that, but apparently this thing transitioned into into the DVD and Blu ray era and yeah, they they they have
their own kind of internal logics. I mean, I I like I like media books. I do like media books. I mean a label that does really good media books, apart from an olist entertainment which I didn't mention, which did breeders and now what else was released recently? Oh yeah, Panic Bacterium, I believe was released a few years ago in the States from Code Red was taken. There is it? Code red? Yep? Okay, yeah, so apart from analysts, another label that does really good media books,
I mean they're super pretty is Wicked Visions. Wicked Visions, sorry, Wicked Vision. Wicked Vision does amazing media books. I did loads with them recently. Simbad of the seventh ce's the ninth quarter last year, I did, Oh no, this year. Ninth quarter was last year. This year YETI giant of the twentieth century. So yeah, it's I don't know why. I don't know why there's so big a media book. Although the question
probably is why on other territories exactly equally interested in media books. The first answer is probably they do cost more. They do cost more to produce. They are more complicated to package into boxes to distribute because they're bigger, they're bulkier, they're they're more fragile. The corners kind of can can snap or break or whatever, and so bend. Sorry, that's the word I was looking for. They can bend. So I believe it comes down to money.
I think it just easier and safer and more cost efficient to release them in other ways, other box sets or amarai. That makes sense. I think the first time I read about you that caught my eye was in The Tough Ones. I'd heard your name previously, but you did an interview with Umberto Lenzi in this one, and you wrote a little introduction to it,
and it was amazing. It is something that when something comes out on LENSI I always try to get it into my veins as fast as possible because it is so fascinating to read up on somebody that's had such an impact eighty eight films? Who else have you had such a major impact on some of their releases? I know you've got eighty eight films, you just started with Vinegar Syndrome, You've done stuff with Fractured Visions, a bunch of media books.
Who else is out there under your resume? Okay, so the Ones I have a long, kind of long standing relationship with you, know, I feel part of the family. In a way is definitely eighty eight films, no less entertainment in Germany, fractured visions. I'm definitely warming up quickly to vinegar syndrome. The first two collaborations have been very fruitful. Then, I well, I mean, I do, I've had a non and off relationship
because it's a way more complex system. But you know, the things I have done with Arrow have been have been very you know, very very nice. I mean, I remember fondly the massive undertaking that was Beyond the Door, Beyond the Tour limited edition, you know that was that was a fun, complex, complicated project, but a fun one. Then. Oh, of course, I have a brilliant relationship and I love working with them. We have loads of titles. I mean literally seven seven films still to be
released. I did extras for Caldron Films. Oh nice cauldron. I will with them from the beginning pretty much with American Rickshaw and then The Crimes of Black Cats and then Contrabands. Now they've they've announced a month ago, they've announced a whole bunch of titles and I'm I'm I'm working on those at the moment, pretty much done and then and then they're kind of you know,
other labels where I've done something. You know, it's more on a title by title situation because a maybe they don't release a lot of stuff I can help them with, so Wi con vision. I've literally worked on every single Italian film they've done for the past two years, but they don't release a lot of Italian films, so I could say they I have a great relationship with them. The same goes for Turbine in Germany or Cape Like Pictures again
Germany. I've done a couple of things for Severin, done one thing for Synaps, So yeah, it's you know, and sometimes you know, some labels they rather go archivval you know, other labels have other people doing extras for them, other producer service. But you know, it's I kind of jump around. I can't reveal what I'm working on. But I've just two months ago received a massive commission from Indicator. Oh nice, So a lot
of Indicator titles with my extras will be released next year. So yeah, it's it's Oh by the way, I mean, you mentioned Lency, so that's my cue to plug Troy Howard's book. I did the forward for Make Them Die Slowly, which I'm Happy is finally released and finding homes. I don't have it in front of me, I have it here and this will be my time to plug. Troy is actually going to be on the channel in the next two weeks at some point and we're gonna be talking about the
book quite deeply. So exciting times for a lot of people that are in this industry because physical media is far from dead. And one of the reasons we can see that is one of the labels you didn't mention is a new one, Treasured Films. This is out of the UK, I believe correct. Indeed, it is a UK based label and it recently a week ago probably announced their first title, which is The Last Hunter Anthony Endowson, Antonio Margheriti. And yeah, it was completely it hapn't completely out of the blue.
I was in London and I was at Darkfest, and I had brought over to Darkfest that brought over Ruggiero do Dato and Zdakova and they were all obviously as one would expect. There were loads of stands and you know, people selling all sorts of stuff, and I was I started a conversation. I struck up a conversation with Graham Graham Lloyd and he was like, you know, I want to do my own label. I was like, yeah, that's that's great, and you know, no, no, no,
no, I mean I'm going to contact you. You know, I want you to produce EXSS for it. I was like, sure, sure, sure, here's my email. But I you know, it's not I didn't take him seriously, but you know, you hit this sort of stuff a lot. You know, one day I'm going to do my own label. You know I'm going to do that, or we're definitely going to work together at some point. It's like you take it with a pinch of salt. But then he he did contact me and was like, you know, this
is this is a bunch of films I want to release. What do you think? And I wouldn't. I gave him my feedback and then yeah, the Last Hunter was picked and we yeah, hit the hit the ground running. Unfortunately, the only kind of really sour sour the spot about the whole Last Hunter Treasured Films is the fact that we I wasn't able to get John Steiner on board. And I'm you know, I love John Steiner. You know, he's he's kind of the in my eyes is the kind of the
quintessential cult actor, and he really delivers the goods. I mean, he is that the stage trained actor. He's incredibly he was incredibly talented. And I literally had an appointment with him. I had organized everything with a camera operator, you know, everything was set up for Thursday, and we were we had talked on the phone numerous times, and we had a phone appointment on that Monday, so two days before, three days before the interview,
just to confirm things, you know, and just had a chat. And that's when I discovered he had died the previous day on Sunday in a car accident. And it's it was doubly kind of frustrating because I had been wanting
to interview him in a long time. The first time I contacted him recently, I mean, you know, about a month and a half probably if that before before the car accident that killed him, he had said he wasn't really convinced, he didn't really want to do an interview, and I played a card I usually don't play because I don't like to and generally it can
backfire, which I told him. I was the grandson of Julia Petroni, who directed the very first Italian film he made, which is Blood and Guns with Austin Wells and Thomas Melian. Fans of westerns will I'm one hundred percent sure we'll know what I'm talking about. It's in the not that that actually gives a value, I mean, but you know, it is in the twenty in the twenty best Westerns list by Tarantino. And so that was the film that brought him to Italy, and actually Julio Julia Petroni gave him his
first not only his first Italian film, but his first major role. You know, he was exclusively a television actor, mostly a stage actor, and had appeared an a handful of films, but either uncredited or really big parts. And once he knew that, he said, yes, let's do it. I'll you know, yes, and didn't ask any money for it as well, you know, he was he was doing it, he was committed. And then yeah, he died just a few days before in the car
accident. So that was really really prostrating and sad. But besides that, we do have a strong lineup for this release, me and Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. We recorded an audio commentary. I also put together a video essay on the film. We've got interviews with Margie Newton, with Franco Migalicio did the soundtrack with Margheriti. Massimovanu was a stunt coordinator. The two photo galleries I managed to put together, and this booklet where both me and Troy
participate. So yeah, it's it's a nice package. And also I managed to connect Graham with the rights holders of The Outsider, which is a feature length documentary on the career of Antonio mcguhiti. So we're talking about audio commentary aside probably nearly two hours, three hours of special content. That's it's. Yeah, it was a for the first release. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's very good. It's very good. I mean, Graham really didn't,
you know, didn't hold back anything. He gave it one hundred. Yeah, it's I'm very curious to I'm really hoping people do appreciate it. I'm I'm sure it's gonna sell well. Yeah, and I'm curious to see all the details, see what they follow that up with. It's it's a great first title, one that I think will peak a lot of interest for sure. Is there anything else coming up that you can shed light that you might be contributing on. Obviously, stuff that hasn't been announced yet you can't,
but anything that has been that you'd like to speak. I can announce what the extras will be because the film has been announced, but not the extras. I can announce the extras for Tentacles. Oh nice. So we've got a thirty five minute interview with the video Jess obviously the director, covider and co writer of the film. We've got a twenty minute roughly twenty twenty five minute interview with Roberto di torre Pezzoli, who's the doop very nice.
We've got a fifteen minute interview but a very dense one with the nicolitte Ercole who's the costume designer. And then we've got something I'm very happy with which is going to be about an hour and five minutes. So it's a very very long kind of special featurette which is with a kind of a hidden secret
of Italian genre cinema. His name is Alberto pass City, also known as al pas City, and he's a special effects designer special effects artist who started his career in films actually as a production designer in the early seventies, very young doing sculptures. I believe among his first films as in that capacity, I think there was Caligula like into Brass. And then he passed on and
became a special effects designer and he worked with everybody. He worked with, fool Shoe, with Dado, with Dario Rigento, Jodamato, he worked on. He directed a handful of films that are weird as fuck, and I mean very entertaining. I mean absolutely low budget and weird. But I do suggest people. They're called Creatures from the Abyss is one and Flight to Hell,
and he is amazing. I mean I knew I was onto something when I talked to him on the phone, and so when I did go there with the camera operator, we kind of I said, you know, we're we're going to take an afternoon here, and we did. We really we.
I think we went away with about three hours worth of footage because this this guy, I mean, apart from the interview, I mean he showed us this massive kind of sound stage, he has these offices and all these kind of weird gadgets and and say, it's just it's gonna be quite quite a special feature. And he he did obviously the special effects of Tentacles, and that was actually his first film as a special effects design at Tentacles.
So yeah, so it's it's that's the package for that. Then there will also be a audio commentary with myself, Troy and Nathaniel, so which we actually going to record this evening. Well, I mean this evening for me, it's gonna be like early afternoon probably for Troy and Nathaniel. But yeah, so that's Tentacles. That's awesome, and it's it's gonna be a much better release than what was put out in the US because they barely put anything on the disc that came out here. So I can't wait, I mean,
correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't it completely vanilla? I believe so. I think there may have been a trailer If that, yeah, I don't really count that. It's just nice to see some companies still willing to put stuff into stuff like Tentacles. And to be honest, we're getting to that age where a lot of the people that affected these releases they're gonna be passing on. So these special effects, not just the special effects one,
but all of the features. They are vastly important because we have to archive the people that were a part of this and not just the film itself, because it can give that context that allows us to learn and to do things better for all of our films in the future as well. Yeah. Absolutely, And also there's there's not only death, but also health issues, mental
issues. You know, interviews. It might not seem like that, but for a person who's a lot older, you know, somebody in their eighties or even nineties, they interviews take a chunk out of you, you know, they you know, as much as I try to make it a pleasurable experience for them, you know, they have to stand straight. You know, they have a microphone, They've got lights on their face, you know,
which is particularly difficult during the summer. You know, they have to they have to remember always, you know, to look at the right you know, to look at me. They have to repeat the kind of the topic we're talking about, the subject of the question. So, you know, for somebody in their in their late eighties, interviews can be stressful, you know, As I said, I mean, we try to make it as positive and nice and comforting as we can, but it does take a
chunk of energy out of them. Well that's sorry. To cut you off there, just just curious, is there anybody that is let me scratch that, because I don't want to get too morbid with it. First off, is there any film that you can share that is locked up in rights problems? Like you mentioned earlier that you wish we were a good release of loads loads of films are locked into rights. Hell, well, I mean the obvious, the obvious one is I mean actually more than one owned by Popiadi.
I mean obviously the House with the Laughing Windows would be one. Another another film that is very complicated. Well, actually it's not complicated in itself, it's just that it's gonna be hard to unblock. The situation is the Arcane Enchanta, which quite a few labels are interested in. It's a mid nineties popi Avadi horror film, very atmospheric, and I know that. I
mean I've been approached by a few labels. But the problem is Alentis Filmoo, the company who owns not only that film, actually quite quite a big chunk of pupi Adi's career. They're not They're not willing, they don't want to. They just don't want to give the rights. And so you know, now I am asking help to poopi Abadi himself and maybe with poopy It's
help will be able to make things, make things right. Although yeah, femaleo is a tough cookie, but there's also on the other hand, there's also a lot of interest for poopi Avati recently, and that's why I was awkwardly grabbing something here, Zenda. Yeah, just came out from Media Films for medi eight films and not all souls except the dead or all deceased except the dead. So that's two pupi Avadi films released pretty much, I mean back to back nearly, so there is a lot of I mean, there
is an interest behind Poopiabadi. So I got all deceased on the way and I cannot wait for that one. Which one all deceased, Yeah, that's one. I was amazed. I couldn't believe it when they told me, you know, I was I had to produce sexs for that. I couldn't believe it. It was really a film, I could I never imagined it's even in Italy. It's it's extremely niche. It's not a famous Kubiavati film by any means, very much for ficionado's or Kubiavati or a sudden kind of
like wait quickly horror horror films from the seventies. So yeah, that was that was mind blowing. And they told me, yeah, we're crying all deceased except the dead. That's awesome. Uh. Well, I would love to be able to talk for hours and hours with you, because I feel like I could, but I got to be respectful to both of our time. I hope eventually in the next you know, six or seven months, maybe we can get you back on it again to do another talk. You
won't. Best of luck on the on the documentary though, that's that's really exciting that you're working on that. You Thank you. I appreciate your time. And everybody check out. Gosh, we got fractured visions. We got eighty eight films newly on Vin Gersonram releases this and don't open until Christmas. All of the German labels. The eighty eight film seems to be the biggest stable right now because they hit so many Italian films, which is great.
I just hope they keep them coming. Yeah, no, they're Oh, believe me, believe me, they are. They will good good to hear. Thank you again and from everybody great Please please look out for his work and we'll see you next time. Have a good one, tell me know.