The aim of this petition is to convince John Ramchandani, the head of Video Publishing & Online Programming at the BFI, to release the French science fiction film Hu-Man (1975) on home video for the first time in a dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition. The only fiction feature by documentary director Jérôme Laperrousaz, starring Terence Stamp and Jeanne Moreau, is a film experience urgently needing a home release.

Hu-Man premiered in France on September 30, 1975, and was followed by a limited release on October 1, 1975, when it played at four cinemas in Paris: the Colisée, Quintette, Madeleine, and Montparnasse-Pathé. Despite receiving favourable reviews from critics, the film failed at the box office. However, it soon found some success at home and abroad. The film was then shown at fantasy and science fiction festivals in Vannes and Clermont-Ferrand, was nominated for Best Sound at the 1st César Awards in Paris, won the Grand Prix Golden Asteroid at the 14th Trieste International Science Fiction Film Festival (where Terence Stamp also won the Silver Asteroid for Best Actor) and garnered critical acclaim at the San Sebastián, San Francisco and Belgrade International Film Festivals. Following a moderate success on the domestic and international festival circuits, the film was broadcast twice on French television in 1977 and 1981 before disappearing for nearly 20 years.

In 1998, Northern Irish film director, historian, and critic Mark Cousins interviewed Terence Stamp for his now-defunct BBC interview series Scene by Scene. Sometime during this episode, they watch and discuss clips from Hu-Man that show Stamp's character in different dangerous situations, all filmed for real without special effects, according to Stamp. The segment of the episode showing the scenes is included above, with the clips starting at 01:21. These sequences gave viewers possible leads to track down the film but without success, as they tried contacting Mark Cousins and Terence Stamp's agent to find its whereabouts, but they never got a reply from Cousins and Stamp's agent couldn't help.

The film has long been hard to find and the reasons for it never being released on any home video format in its native France or anywhere else have been as obscure as the film itself, but rights issues have recently been brought to light. Sometime after the film's French theatrical run, volcanologist Haroun Tazieff, who was a technical advisor for the volcano sequence shot at Erta Ale in Ethiopia, decided to claim the footage as his own, and legal proceedings followed.

On May 8, 2013, a 25-minute edited short version of Hu-Man was screened as part of the Terence Stamp season at BFI Southbank in London. The taster screening, introduced by Stamp and the film's director, Jérôme Laperrousaz, was very well received and gave audiences a sample of something rare and special. When asked online by an audience member why the full-length 105-minute version couldn't be shown, BFI Southbank replied: ''the director did have a print, but it was very faded and time and cost restraints meant we were unable to present a properly restored print. However, we worked together with Jérôme Laperrousaz and Terence Stamp to make something happen for the retrospective, and the result was about 25 minutes' worth of colour-corrected clips projected digitally.'' Considering the film's cult status and demand, if the BFI can edit and remaster a quarter of its footage for the exhibition, then surely they can restore and release the entire film on home video. Hopefully, the aforementioned legal issues can be resolved.

The next best thing came in August 2015. A French-language 86-minute cut of Hu-Man (recorded from its 1977 French television broadcast) surfaced on the French torrent site L'Univers Étrange et Merveilleux du Fantastique et de la Science Fiction, which is dedicated to uploading torrents of old science fiction, fantasy, and horror films from all over the world. Subtitles were later created by a user of the private torrent tracker Cinemageddon, and the film became available to watch and download on lost media sites. Despite having 19 minutes of the original film cut with degraded picture quality and not in its proper aspect ratio, viewers were able to enjoy this long unseen obscurity. However, like myself, they still want to see a remastered and uncut print of the film, which makes this petition all the more valid and crucial.

The proposed dual-format edition must present a newly remastered and restored print of the complete 105-minute film with its original English and French-dubbed soundtracks and optional English subtitles. Any special features to be included are at the distributor's discretion as it always puts out an array of extras with its releases, though one special feature should be the 25-minute short version because it reconfirmed the film's existence after being believed lost for many years.

I have been interested in the film for a long time, ever since first reading about it in Phil Hardy's The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies (1984) and in other science fiction film and television books. The reviews in these books merely outlined the film's plot with little critique, but online reviews were more insightful and positive; one described the film as a ''visual feast'' and others generally praised its aesthetics and the performances of the lead actors, especially that of Stamp.

Those who attended the Terence Stamp season at BFI Southbank felt honoured to have seen a 25-minute version of his legendary Hu-Man, and I was privileged to see the 86-minute cut when it became available, but these versions further validate the main objective of this petition—to restore and release the entire 105-minute film. It would be a travesty if this did not happen because, aside from the film's cult status, Stamp risked his life to make it, and that alone warrants an official home video release. After the short version was shown, it was reported that the film's print was quite faded and in danger of decaying even further, which makes a restoration critical. Therefore, I ask all you film fans and buffs out there who are interested in this petition to sign and share it with others because if it becomes successful, it could lead to a remastered, restored, and uncut home release of this cinematic gem.