Back in 2005, one of Second Run’s very first releases was Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od aniołów, 1961). Back then, the label had a guiding philosophy that it was more important to get a particular film out there in an English-friendly edition than it was to secure the best possible source, and so the fact that it was only available in a clearly elderly analogue tape master wasn’t considered a major drawback. The grey and smeary end result was, frankly, VHS quality, but the excellence of the film itself meant that it got surprisingly sympathetic reviews, thus vindicating their strategy at the time.

Jump forward nearly seven years, and the film finally underwent a state-of-the-art high-definition digital restoration, with the involvement of cinematographer Jerzy Wójcik. Although they’d never reissued one of their back-catalogue titles before, the improvements were too dramatic to ignore, as was the fact that this new version had only been released in Poland on an unsubtitled DVD (which came out about a year ago). Hence this revamped reissue – and they also took the opportunity to beef up the package as a whole, by replacing the original skimpy booklet essay with a far more substantial piece by David Sorfa and a slightly rewritten version of the Kawalerowicz biography that I originally wrote for Night Train (in the Polish Cinema Classics box). They also changed the cover artwork, reflecting their current preference for much more stylised treatments:

On top of all that, they asked me if I’d record my second 20-minute video appreciation for them, which was filmed in the afternoon of March 11 (I can be very precise about the date, because I hosted a Q&A with actor Robert Więckiewicz that evening), but I had to keep schtum about it until the release was formally announced. This was pretty straightforward – unlike the first time round, I knew in advance what the setup would be, and that I’d have to talk directly to the camera without notes, and we got the whole thing in the can in less than an hour.

My biggest problem during recording was a repeated inability to pronounce the character name ‘Chrząszczewski’ correctly (I’ve forgotten how many takes that one needed!), but I’m reasonably happy with how it came out. I have two complaints, one of which is completely my fault (at the very start, I left out the month from the film’s opening date), the other of which was an ill-advised edit (removing an explanation about the difference between the French town of Loudun, where the original alleged possessions took place, and the Polish town of Ludyń, where the events were relocated, thus making a later and uncontextualised reference to Ludyń sound like a straightforward case of mispronunciation), but I daresay I’m the only one who noticed.