Beasts of the Southern Wild on DVD/Blu-Ray

While we've had the fortune of traveling across the world to share our story, we know that we missed some of you along the way.

Well, we're very excited to report that Beasts of the Southern Wild will be released in the US on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 4, 2012.  So, whether you've been patiently waiting for Beasts to play at a theater near you, or you've seen it but you want to share it with friends and family, you can own your very own copy!

The DVD and Blu-Ray includes a number of features that we hope will give you an inside look into the film.  These include:

DVD Special Features

• The Making of Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Theatrical Trailer

Additional Blu-Ray Special Features

• Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Director Benh Zeitlin
• Audition video featuring Quvenzhané Wallis & Dwight Henry
• Glory at Sea, Benh Zeitlin's award winning short film
• "The Aurochs" and "The Music" featurettes

You can pre-order the DVD or Blu-Ray via Amazon, here or here.

Thank you again for your continued support and welcoming us into your hearts and homes.

Beasts in Estonia

The collapse of the Soviet Union almost saw the collapse of the Sõprus, but there were those determined to make sure it survived. Stories abound of people selling fur and kitchen appliances in the building, staging erotic cabaret acts and doing whatever else it took to make sure that Sõprus remained a movie theatre.

It's currently being run by Black Hand, a non-profit organisation that promises to "keep its fist clenched against the onslaught of mass culture that treats its subjects as statistical consumers". Which is nice. The crusading attitude has not only resulted in the aforementioned diverse programme but also in the publication of a regular cinema newspaper, La Strada, and a book and CD entitled Stalking Stalker exploring the classic Tarkovsky film (much of which was filmed in Tallinn). -- the Guardian

The oldest cinema in Estonia, Kino Sõprus translates literally Cinema Friendship.

A fitting site for Beasts to screen!  Find out how to see Beasts in Estonia at the Kino Sõprus website.

American Exotic - The Economist

Maybe that's how America should look on screen right now, I thought as I left the cinema. Maybe that’s the American genre now: magic realism. It used to be realism, at the movies as much as on the page, but the role of national chronicler has largely fallen to television these days. In another era, "Deadwood", "The Sopranos", "Mad Men", "Boardwalk Empire" and "Band of Brothers" would all have been movies, but the industry that would have made them is now largely dead. In a recent edition of the New York Times, Michael Cieply noted that of the20 biggest hits of last year, only two—"Bridesmaids" and "The Help"—were set in anything recognisable as North America. In 1992, it was 15 out of 20. It’s one reason the Academy has gone fishing overseas for its big winners in recent years—"The Artist", "The King's Speech", "Slumdog Millionaire"—always reserving a spot among the nominations for something flinty and homespun from the indie world: two years ago it was "Winter's Bone", which plunged audiences into the meth labs of the Ozarks. This year, it should be "Beasts of the Southern Wild". 

Read the full story at the Economist's More Intelligent Life.

Benh Zeitlin talks with the Sydney Morning Herald

Benh Zeitlin talks to Giles Hardie from the Sydney Morning Herald about showing the movie outside of Louisiana, the pigs, Miley Cyrus, and the "pile of movies" he wants to make.

Welcome To My Bathtub

There is a very small town in Kentucky called Allensville, a farming town, a place where friends gather.

— Stephen Capps

Despite being an imaginary place, “The Bathtub” hit home with people all over the world.  It made us realize everyone has their own special place somewhere. A place where you feel understood, a home -- a place fiercely loved and fiercely protected.

Inspired by the testimonials we heard, we asked fans to take a minute and send us a photo and share their own personal Bathtub.

Down the street from where I live in Maryland is a state park: Patapsco State Park, named for the river that runs through it. 

This bend in the river is my favorite spot. It's more of a solitary than a community attachment, I suspect. Many people march right by, on their way to the rapids a quarter mile up the trail, which the guide map tells you that you WANT to see; where there are picnic tables, then up a hill to a parking lot. 

But when I stand at this bend, I feel the power of the universe surging through me, then pulling me in all directions, kind of like Hushpuppy verbalizes in the film. In fact, when she uttered that line, my riverbend flashed through my mind...

— Cindy Rosenberg

In a hammock with my boyfriend is my bathtub.

— Ricky Emmons

My Bathtub is a blanket fort with my girlfriend.

— Dalton Day

My Bathtub is my parents' garden in the Cotswolds, south west England.

— Emily Kinder

My Bathtub's name was Engavaagen. I lived there for nine months, six years ago. A day doesn't go by without me thinking of it.

When I was nineteen my parents told me that they could either send me to a university for a year or abroad. It wasn't a difficult decision. My parents weren't very well off, but they somehow sent me to one of the richest countries in the world; Norway. My parents were of an evangelical Christian persuasion, so they sent me to a sort of religious international boarding school for young missionaries. The boarding school was just outside of a small Norwegian town above the arctic circle, a stone's throw away from the shores of a fjord. You could walk to the tip of the peninsula and look out to sea. The islands dotted the horizon and the mountains circled round you. 

Part of me thinks it is wrong to say that Engavaagen is my Bathtub. As I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild I was saddened to know that there is no place like that currently in my life, no community. Engavaagen wasn't mine, it didn't "make" me . . . not like it made the Norwegians who grew up there. But I loved it, I loved it. I walked and walked and walked around it and loved the sky and the sea and the islands and every inch of it, as though it were a person and not a place. 

I was sent to Engavaagen to grow in my faith and to get closer to God. God and I are no longer on speaking terms and I have no religion to speak of, but Engavaagen remains. After I left, it hurt to even look at a picture of it or talk about it very much. One day I'll try to go back, but plane tickets to Norway run about $2,000 these days. A vacation like that will be beyond me for at least five more years. I might not be meant to go back.

Now I live in Portland, Oregon, and I think my task is to carry and plant Bathtubs and Engavaagens wherever I happen to be. Or at least, not to pine for something far off and ignore the place in front of me. 

— Marylin H

Fiercely protecting this little corner of my universe for over 40 years! My Bathtub is my back yard in Minneapolis, MN, USA!

— Vicki MacNabb

The bathtub in my back garden, Capetown, South Africa.

— Bryan Little

Email us (beasts@beastsofthesouthernwild.com) a photo or illustration of a place that you consider YOUR Bathtub, put ‘Welcome to My Bathtub’ in the subject line, or tweet it to @thebathtubber, using #mybathtub and we’ll add it to our website.