(Dir. Michel Hazanavicius, 2023)
Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and all major VOD platforms 9/12
The opening night selection of last year’s Cannes Film Festival was this wacky horror comedy, a remake of Shin’ichirô Ueda’s cult hit One Cut of the Dead. It follows a director (Romain Duris, L’Auberge Espagnole) making a live, single-take, low-budget zombie flick in which the cast and crew, one by one, actually turn into zombies. Oscar® winner Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) milks the film’s hilarious and meta-to-the-max premise for all it’s worth, while also crafting a sly love letter to the art of filmmaking. What’s on screen unfolds in typical cheesy B-movie fashion, while the off-screen hijinks offer a celebration of the unpredictable and collaborative nature of film sets. Featuring a hysterically unhinged turn by Oscar® nominee Berenice Bejo (The Artist) and serving up blood-soaked high farce par excellence, Final Cut revels in its affectionate embrace of goofy genre fun.
Bonus Features:
- Making-of Documentary
- Theatrical Trailer
Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
(Dir. Nancy Buirski, 2023)
Available on DVD and all major VOD platforms 9/5
A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. With beguiling performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two loners who join forces out of desperation, blacklist survivor Waldo Salt’s brilliant screenplay, and John Schlesinger’s fearless direction, the 1969 film became the only X-rated film to ever win the Academy Award® for Best Picture. Its vivid and compassionate depiction of a more realistic, unsanitized New York City and its inhabitants paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty movies with complex characters and adult themes. But this is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy: it is about the deeply gifted and flawed people behind a dark and difficult masterpiece; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. Featuring extensive archival material and compelling new interviews, director Nancy Buirski illuminates how one film captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity.
Bonus Features:
- Extended Interview with Midnight Cowboy Cinematographer Adam Holender
- Theatrical Trailer
(Dir. E. A. Dupont, 1929)
Available on Blu-ray, DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/26
Tired of playing supporting roles in Hollywood, Anna May Wong traveled to Europe in search of better parts. And did she find one! Her electric, sexually charged performance in Piccadilly is a revelation. Wong is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese dishwasher who overnight becomes the toast of the town — and the object of every man’s desire. The camera adores Wong — her beauty glows in every frame. Piccadilly was the brilliant apex to director E. A. Dupont’s trilogy of theater films (Varieté and Moulin Rouge), showcasing his signature mix of great acting, dazzling imagery and balletic camera movements. Remastered by the BFI National Archive and presented in High Definition
Bonus Features:
- Audio commentary by film historian Farran Smith Nehme
- Introduction to the 1929 sound version
- Neil Brand on the score for Piccadilly
- San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival panel: “Dangerous to Know:
- The Career and Legacy of Anna May Wong,” moderated by B. Ruby Rich
(Dir. Lisa Rovner, 2020)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now and Amazon 9/26
The advent of electronic music in the 20th century was a radical break from all musical traditions that came before it. Narrated by legendary multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, Lisa Rovner’s superb Sisters with Transistors showcases the music of and rare interviews with female electronic pioneers Clara Rockmore, Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Éliane Radigue, Maryanne Amacher, Bebe Barron, Suzanne Ciani, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, and Wendy Carlos. As Rovner’s documentary demonstrates, these women—many of whom were classically trained musicians, brilliant mathematicians, or a combination of both—relished the freedom of electronic music, even as they were discriminated against because of their gender and because of their chosen medium. Through their inventiveness and rebellion, these trailblazers’ music went on to influence musicians working in a variety of genres, and proved the worthiness of going electric.
Bonus Features:
- Women Behind the Machines: A Conversation on Women in Tech
- Lisa Bella Donna Concert
- Q&A with Lisa Rovner, Director of Sisters with Transistors
- Electronic Music: The Sound of Liberation Panel
- Theatrical Trailer
(Dir. Emmanuel Carrère, 2023)
Available on Blu-ray, DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/12
Famed author Marianne Winckler (Juliette Binoche) goes undercover to investigate the exploitation of the working class in Northern France. She eventually lands a job as a cleaner on the cross-channel ferry and develops close connections with the other cleaning women, many of whom have extremely limited resources and income opportunities. As she learns more about the plight of these workers, Marianne struggles with her deception toward them and tries to rationalize that it’s for the greater good. A longtime passion project for star and Academy Award®-Winning Actress Juliette Binoche, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS is adapted from Florence Aubenas’s bestselling non-fiction work Le Quai de Ouistreham (The Night Cleaner) and marks Emmanuel Carrère’s return to directing for the first time since THE MOUSTACHE in 2008. Carrère has achieved world renown and acclaim as an author and has been described by The New Yorker as “France’s best-known writer of literary nonfiction.”
Bonus Features:
- Trailers
Magnum Cop (Poliziotto Senza Paura)
(Dir. Stelvio Massi, 1978)
Available on Blu-ray and digitally on Kino Now and Amazon 9/12
Magnum Cop (Poliziotto Senza Paura) is a gritty Italian action film with an eye-opening performance by Joan Collins (Dynasty) as decadent seductress Brigitte. Wally Spada (Maurizio Merli) is an ex-cop making ends meet as a private detective who gets mixed up in an investigation of a missing girl. This leads him to Austria's underworld and a prostitution racket run by a sleazy femme fatale (Collins). Director Stelvio Massi was inspired by Raymond Chandler’s famous detective Philip Marlowe – making Spada a “more human, less violent cop” than the ones Merli was used to playing. So while Magnum Cop has its share of hair-raising action, it’s also a charming character piece that shows Merli’s range as an actor.
Bonus Features:
- Audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson, and Eugenio Ercolani
- Alternate English audio track
(Dir. C.B. Stockfleth, 2023)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/5
An inside look at The Elephant 6 Recording Co., the ’90s rock collective that launched Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples in Stereo, and other bands. Around 1985, a group of Louisiana high schoolers began experimenting with whatever random instruments and gear they could find. Influenced by psychedelia, and with little to distract them, they birthed a musical revolution.
Bonus Features:
- Trailers
(Dir. Stig Björkman, 2023)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/12
One of the country’s preëminent and prolific serious writers, Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 100 novels, including Them, We Were the Mulvaneys, and Blonde. In this candid and revealing documentary, she provides insight into her life, creative process, and the events that have shaped her writings, including the 1967 Detroit Riot, the Chappaquiddick incident, and the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe. Featuring readings by Oscar® winner Laura Dern.
Bonus Features:
- Trailers
(Dir. Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2023)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/26
An expatriate French couple (Denis Ménochet and Marina Foïs) operate an organic farm in the Spanish countryside. However, their earnest enthusiasm reeks of patronizing privilege to the handful of “hill people” families who have toiled on the land for generations. Tensions between locals and foreigners boil over in this edge-of-your-seat thriller.
Bonus Features:
- Trailers
(Dir. Alexander McGregor Birrell, 2022)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/12
Thriller writer Ben, struggling for inspiration, retreats to an isolated rural cabin to start on his latest novel and to escape the growing tension with his boyfriend Jamie. Working late into the night, he wakes to find a wounded man in the cabin, claiming to be a hunter whose car had broken down nearby. Intrigued and attracted to the mysterious and handsome intruder Ben decides to secretly use him as inspiration as the antagonist for his new book: a savage murder believed to have taken place in the very cabin he has rented. As the man begins to help him enact increasingly dangerous and detailed scenarios for the story’s captive protagonist, Ben becomes aroused by the prospects, but finds himself rebuffed by a homophobic slur. Searching the man’s car, he uncovers stolen property belonging to several other young men hinting he may be a serial killer, a perfect twist for Ben’s novel. Discovering his own car sabotaged, and unable to escape, Ben enters a lethal game of cat and mouse. But it’s only when the fate of Ben’s boyfriend Jamie is revealed that Ben’s dark, erotic, fantasy becomes a stark, inescapable, reality.
(Dir. Lee Galea, 2022)
Available on DVD 9/19
This infectiously fun and totally queer Aussie TV series from Lee Galea (Monster Pies) follows the tumultuous romantic love life of cute-as-a-button twink Adam (Will Hutchins) as he is surrounded by helpful friends and family. This is the complete Series 1.
Bonus Features:
- Deleted Scenes and Bloopers
About Kino Lorber
With a library of over 4,000 titles, Kino Lorber has been a leader in independent art house distribution for over 45 years, releasing 35 films per year theatrically and garnering seven Academy Award® nominations in nine years. The company also brings over 350 titles annually to the home entertainment and educational markets through digital and physical media releases. Kino Lorber handles ancillary media for an expanding family of distributed labels – including Zeitgeist Films, Milestone Films, Cohen Media Group, Menemsha Films, and Greenwich Entertainment – and licenses titles digitally to all major TVOD and SVOD platforms. In recent years, Kino Lorber has expanded its own direct digital platforms through the launch of TVOD service Kino Now and the acquisition of MHz Choice and Topic, the two leading North American streaming services featuring international series.