I thought there were still legal issues between Jittlov and Richard Kaye, and that’s why it’s never been re-released? Or is it really just Jittlov’s fear of getting screwed over yet again?
Richard Kaye died in 2004, so it’s definitely more Jittlov’s fear of being screwed over again. I know that Mike has the negative of the film back now (which is likely melting in his basement - argh!), and is certainly under the impression that he has all rights to the film too; he says that Kaye sold the film to SGE illegally without his signature, and therefore the rights are his by default, though I suspect the truth might be more complicated than that.
Anyway, have been long ruminating on the idea of kicking off a Jittlov project on here for a while, as I’ve been collecting stuff for the last couple of years, including a few shorts on (faded) 16mm and German and Spanish dubs of WOSAT (the latter on Betamax!), among others. A lot of the existing rips were done in the VCD days and could be hugely improved upon! Many of the shorts will probably never see an official release due to music rights issues (he never got clearance for Petula Clark’s “I Know A Place” in Animato, for example).
EDIT: Forgot to add that one of the main obstacles in the film being re-released is that Mike is dead set on further editing the film to make his official Director’s Cut (he sees it as only 60-70% complete), and not releasing it until then. So in the absence of finding a distributor he trusts, he has to fund that himself, which is unlikely.