US store sells disks with 'King Stakh's Wild Hunt'. Is it legal?

American online store The Deaf Crocodile, which specializes in the sale of collector's editions of little-known and lost films from around the world, has started selling Blu-ray disks with the film "King Stakh's Wild Hunt", which was pointed out by the publication Nasha Niva.

According to Euroradio's sources, Belarusfilm, which owns the rights to "King Stakh's Wild Hunt," had previously negotiated with American companies to sell the rights. This probably explains the appearance of a copy of the film in an American store. And most likely it is a legal release.

The store's website also says that The Deaf Crocodile has restored the film and is selling it under an agreement with Belarusfilm Studio.

If you look through the assortment of the shop, you will notice that the company also sells other projects from the post-Soviet space: from Poland, Russia, former Czechoslovakia and other countries.

There are tapes "Ruslan and Lyudmila" from 1972 by Alexander Ptushko, "City of Zero" from 1988 by Karen Shakhnazarov, "Kin-dza-dza" from 1986 by Georgy Danelia, etc.

It can be seen that the geography and arrangements of businessmen-filmmakers are quite wide.

The Americans offer to buy the film in three variants. The first is just a disk with the restored film and bonus video commentary by film historians and comic book writers. The second is a limited deluxe version that includes the disc and a book of essays about the film. And the third is a deluxe gift set that includes the deluxe version plus postcards, stickers and a coin dedicated to the film.

The most basic version costs $24.95, while the most expensive version costs $75.

The store owners have also restored the film, as they write, "from the original elements in an extended 126-minute director's cut version. It is claimed that this is the first release of the film in the United States.

Interestingly, at the same time as the Americans were negotiating with Belarusfilm to buy the rights to "Wild Hunt" in 2023, the state studio was also restoring the sound and video of the tape. Now it can be easily viewed online in high quality.

"King Stakh's Wild Hunt" - a cult mystical novel by Uladzimir Karatkevich, which was filmed in 1979 by director Valery Rubinchyk at the Belarusfilm studio. The movie caused a sensation and became one of the most popular films of that time.

However, Uladzimir Karatkevich himself did not like the adaptation: he thought that the director did not convey the main idea of the plot about the fate of Belarusians.

However, the film was well received by the experts - its authors received awards at film festivals in Canada, France, Italy, the USA and Belgium.

Experts consider "Wild Hunt" a rare example of gothic horror in Soviet cinema.