Picnic at Hanging Rock (4K UHD, #29)

This sensual and striking chronicle of a disappearance and its aftermath put director Peter Weir on the map and helped usher in a new era of Australian cinema. Based on an acclaimed 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay,Picnic at Hanging Rockis set at the turn of the twentieth century and concerns a small group of students from an all-female college who vanish, along with a chaperone, while on a St. Valentines Day outing. Less a mystery than a journey into the mystic, as well as an inquiry into issues of class and sexual repression in Australian society, Weirs gorgeous, disquieting film is a work of poetic horror whose secrets haunt viewers to this day.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Peter Weir and director of photography Russell Boyd, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Interview with Weir
• Program on the making of the film, featuring interviews with executive producer Patricia Lovell, producers Hal McElroy and Jim McElroy, and cast members
• Introduction by film scholar David Thomson, author ofThe New Biographical Dictionary of Film
• On-set documentary hosted by Lovell and featuring interviews with Weir, actor Rachel Roberts, and source-novel author Joan Lindsay
• Homesdale(1971), a black comedy by Weir
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by author Megan Abbott and an excerpt from film scholar Marek Haltofs 1996 bookPeter Weir: When Cultures Collide

  Cover by Eric Skillman