French director Jacques Demy didnt just make movieshe created an entire cinematic world. Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who appear or are referenced across titles. The works collected heremade from the sixties to the eighties and ranging from musical to melodrama to fantasiaare triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aime, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau.

Lola

Jacques Demys crystalline debut gave birth to the fictional universe in which so many of his characters would live, play, and love. Its among his most profoundly felt films, a tale of crisscrossing lives in Nantes (Demys hometown) that floats on waves of longing and desire. Heading the films ensemble is the enchanting Anouk Aime as the title character, a cabaret chanteuse whos awaiting the return of a long-lost lover and unwilling to entertain the adoration of another love-struck soul, the wanderer Roland (Marc Michel). Humane, wistful, and witty,Lolais a testament to the resilience of the heartbroken.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview with actor Anouk Aime from 2012, conducted by filmmaker Agns Varda
• Interview with Varda from 2012 on the origin of Lolas song
• Four short films by director Jacques Demy:Les horizons morts(1951),Le sabotier du Val de Loire(1956),Ars(1959), andLa luxure(1962)
• Restoration demonstration
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation

Bay of Angels

This precisely wrought, emotionally penetrating romantic drama from Jacques Demy, set largely in the casinos of Nice, is a visually lovely but darkly realistic investigation into love and obsession. A bottle-blonde Jeanne Moreau is at her blithe best as a gorgeous gambling addict, and Claude Mann is the bank clerk drawn into her risky world. Featuring a mesmerizing score by Michel Legrand,Bay of Angelsis among Demys most somber works.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• French television interview from 1962 with actor Jeanne Moreau on the set ofBay of Angels
• New interview with journalist Marie Colmant, coauthor of the bookJacques Demy
• Restoration demonstration
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

The angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owners delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through lilting songs by the great composer Michel Legrand,The Umbrellas of Cherbourgis one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Once Upon a Time . . . The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,a 2008 documentary
• Interview from 2014 with film scholar Rodney Hill
• French television interview from 1964 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the film
• Audio recordings of interviews with actor Catherine Deneuve (1983) and Legrand (1991) at the National Film Theatre in London
• Restoration demonstration
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jim Ridley

The Young Girls of Rochefort

Jacques Demy followed upThe Umbrellas of Cherbourgwith another musical about missed connections and second chances, this one a more effervescent confection. Twins Delphine and Solange, a dance instructor and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Franoise Dorlac), long for big-city life; when a fair comes through their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast (George Chakiris, Grover Dale, Danielle Darrieux, Michel Piccoli, and Gene Kelly),The Young Girls of Rochefortis a tribute to Hollywood optimism from sixties French cinemas preeminent dreamer.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• French television interview from 1966 featuring director Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the music for the film
• Conversation from 2014 between Demy biographer Jean-Pierre Berthom and costume designer Jacqueline Moreau
• Episode from a multipart 1966 Belgian television series on the making of the film
• Agns Vardas 1993 documentaryThe Young Girls Turn 25(in the DVD box set, appears on theUne chambre en villedisc)
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

Donkey Skin

In this lovingly crafted, wildly eccentric adaptation of a classic French fairy tale, Jacques Demy casts Catherine Deneuve as a princess who must go into hiding as a scullery maid in order to fend off an unwanted marriage proposalfrom her own father, the king (Jean Marais). A topsy-turvy riches-to-rags fable with songs by Michel Legrand,Donkey Skincreates a tactile fantasy world thats perched on the border between the earnest and the satiric, and features Delphine Seyrig in a delicious supporting role as a fashionable fairy godmother.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• French television interview from 1970 with director Jacques Demy and actors Catherine Deneuve, Jean Marais, and Jacques Perrin on the set of the film
• Donkey Skin Illustrated,a 2008 program on the many versions of Charles Perraults fairy tale
• Donkey Skin and the Thinkers,a 2008 program on the themes of the film, featuring critic Camille Tabouley
• Audio Q&A with Demy from the American Film Institute in 1971
• New English subtitle translation

Une chambre en ville

In this musical melodrama set against the backdrop of a workers strike in Nantes, Dominique Sanda plays a young woman who wishes to leave her brutish husband (Michel Piccoli) for an earthy steelworker (Richard Berry), though he is involved with another. Unbeknownst to the girl, the object of her affection boards with her no-nonsense baroness mother (Danielle Darrieux). A late-career triumph from Jacques Demy,Une chambre en villereceived nine Csar Award nominations and features a rich, operatic score by Michel Colombier.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Jacques Demy, A to Z,a new visual essay by film critic James Quandt
• Q&A with Demy from the 1987 Midnight Sun Film Festival
• Filmmaker Agns Vardas 1995 documentaryThe World of Jacques Demy
• Vardas 1993 documentaryThe Young Girls Turn 25,on the DVD
• Restoration demonstration
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation