Kino Lorber Unveils August Releases Including Afrofuturist Dramas, BAFTA Nominees & More

Kino Lorber has unveiled some of the details of their August 2022 Blu-Ray and DVD releases from their Kino Lorber, Kino Classics, Cohen Media Group and Greenwich Entertainment imprints. Get all the details on this incredibly packed lineup below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1l6lg8Au_M]

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS

Street Date: 8/2/22 (DVD Only)

Synopsis: In northern India, a breathtakingly beautiful Himalayan community attracts tourists by commingling South Asian and Swiss Alps aesthetics. Debut filmmaker Ajitpal Singh tells an unconventional story of feminist strength while “accentuating the [region’s] spectacular exteriors and wide-canvas nature shots” (Variety). One local woman competes with her neighbors for business while battling the strictures of patriarchy, a local infrastructure from hell, and religious superstitions. She saves money, uses feminine wiles to subvert the corrupt powers-that-be, and piggy-backs her son up and down the mountainside to medical appointments with condescending doctors. In the end, our heroine’s tightly wound grit must find release… in triumph, or madness, or both. (Sonya Chung, Film Forum)

Bonus Features: Trailer

NEPTUNE FROST

Street Date: 8/9/22

Synopsis: Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.

Bonus Features: Audio commentary by filmmakers Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman | Deleted Scenes | Trailer

TEY (TODAY)

Street Date: 8/9/22 (DVD Only)

Synopsis: Tey (Today) is a beautiful, sensual, humane tale starring Saul Williams (Neptune Frost) and directed by Alain Gomis (Félicité). In a village outside Dakar, the gods – or the stars, or destiny, have spoken: Satché (Williams) must die by the end of the day. Until nightfall, the film follows him making his goodbyes to those around him – his family, his friends, his lover, his children, his wife. Initially fêted by his community with an enthusiasm tainted by melancholy, Satché, the one chosen to disappear, soon finds himself set apart from those closest to him, in beautiful scenes that seek to show those elements of friendship, desire, sadness, affection and anger that are usually left unsaid.

Bonus Features: Trailer

OLGA

Street Date: 8/30/22

Synopsis: A talented young gymnast from Kiev, played by real-life former Ukrainian national team member Anastasiia Budiashkina, moves to Switzerland to pursue her Olympic dreams in Elie Grappe’s award-winning drama. Set in 2014, the film follows 15-year-old Olga as she tries to make friends on her new team and adjust to life in her new home. As she relentlessly trains in preparation for the European Championships, her friends and family back in the Ukraine are taking to the streets in what would become known as the Maidan Revolution. Olga is left a powerless, distant bystander as her mother, an investigative journalist, faces danger and violence in her work challenging the brutal Yanukovich regime. The historic events depicted in the film are intricately linked with the subsequent Russian invasion, providing rich insight into the current situation in the Ukraine, yet Grappe’s camera never strays from the point of view of a remarkable young woman struggling to find her way in the world. Can Olga reconcile her personal goals as a gymnast with the living history unfolding in her homeland? This tense yet delicate portrait of exile, ambition, and identity won the SACD Prize at Cannes Critics Week and features a star-making turn from its fearless lead.

Bonus Features: Trailer

COMING APART

Street Date: 8/16/22

Synopsis: Rip Torn gives one of the great screen performances as a psychiatrist secretly filming his own mental breakdown in Milton Moses Ginsberg’s classic exploration of dark eroticism and self-referential cinematic form. Anticipating the camcorder-driven diary films of today, the entire film is shot into a mirror from a single camera angle in a one-room apartment. Joe becomes a voyeur of his own reflection with the camera his only means of communication. Until finally encased in his reflection, Joe ends up filming his own disintegration. Although entirely scripted, this fierce, frank and explicit film seems improvised. The acting is so explosive it seems uncontrolled and the sex scenes have been described as real and pornographic. In dramatic opposition to Hollywood’s narrative filmmaking aesthetic, Ginsberg calls attention to the presence of the camera, abandoning cinema’s “omniscent eye” for a deliberately conscious “camera eye.” Truly ahead of its time, Coming Apart remains a visionary and transformative piece of American cinema. New 2K Restoration.

Bonus Features: “From the Paris Premiere,” an interview with Milton Moses Ginsberg (2004, 3 Min.) | Rip Torn Memorial, filmed at The Actors Studio (2019, excerpt) | Coming Apart: 50th Anniversary Interview (2019, 31 Min.) | KRON: Along the Avenue of Time (2020, 105 Min.), an experimental feature by Milton Moses Ginsberg | Milonga in a Lonely Station (2020, 5 Min.), a short film by Milton Moses Ginsberg

APPLES

Street Date: 8/2/22

Synopsis: Amidst a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery. Through images deadpan, strange and surreal, Greek writer-director Christos Nikou posits a beguiling reflection on memory, identity, and loss, exploring how a society might handle an irreversible epidemic through one man’s story of self-discovery. Are we the sum of the images we compile and display of ourselves, or are we something richer, and deeper?

Bonus Features: Director Christos Nikou in conversation with Taika Waititi | Trailers

THE BURNED BARNS

Street Date: 8/23/22

Synopsis: Two titans of French Cinema are brought together for this crime drama set in the snow-covered French countryside on the border with Switzerland. The body of a young woman is found savagely murdered near the isolated Burned Barns farm run by Rose (Oscar®-winner Simone Signoret) and her family. The police work begins and the investigating judge, Pierre Larcher (Alain Delon), soon comes to suspect that Rose’s family, and in particular her sons, may have played a role. Signoret and Delon are outstanding as two forces playing a game of wits with profound consequences. Featuring a stunning soundtrack by electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre.

Bonus Features: Interview with crew (26 min.) | Trailers

SYMPHONY FOR A MASSACRE

Street Date: 8/30/22

Synopsis: In this stylish heist noir from director Jacques Deray, master director of the French crime film, five men tied to businesses with varying degrees of legality pool their money to go in on one huge narcotics deal that can set them up for life – and test their loyalties. Restored in 2K from a 4K scan of the surviving 35MM interpositive (the negative is lost), the film boasts stunning black and white photography, supported by a lush and memorable score. Deray assembled an impressive cast of stars, including Charles Vanel (WAGES OF FEAR), Michel Auclair (THE DAY OF THE JACKAL), future director José Giovanni (TWO MEN TO KILL) who also co-wrote the film, and Jean Rochefort, in a brilliant casting against type from his largely comedic roles up until then. This rediscovered crime thriller is sure to please fans of classic film noir.

Bonus Features: The Score of SYMPHONY FOR A MASSACRE – an evaluation of the film by François Guérif, screenwriter and film noir historian, along with Jean Rochefort biographer Jean-Philippe Guerand (28 minutes) | Re-release trailer

ALI & AVA

Street Date: 8/23/22 (DVD Only)

Synopsis: Sparks fly as two people develop a deep connection despite the lingering legacy of past relationships. A compelling love story enveloped in music and imbued with humor. BAFTA nominee for Best British Film.