Street Date: 4/5/22
Synopsis: The Immortal is a thrilling standalone feature that further explores the characters from the hit crime series Gomorrah. It’s 1980. A devastating earthquake sends buildings crashing down. Yet from underneath the rubble, the cry of a newborn baby emerges. It is none other than Ciro di Marzio (Marco D’Amore). From that day on, he will be known as “The Immortal”. What they say is true: no one and nothing can kill the Immortal. From his past as an orphan to his present-day Baltic exile, from his first petty thefts to all-out gang warfare: Ciro confronts head-on whatever comes his way, in a world in which immortality is just another form of damnation.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: THE RED STAR is a mockumentary following Laila Salama (Thelma Fardín), a mysterious woman who may have contributed to the 1960 kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. The film’s director, Gabriel Lichtmann (Héctor Díaz), covers her story through a series of interviews to a cast of pintoresque characters. Putting together the pieces, Gabriel discovers a secret hidden for decades from the annals of history.
Bonus Features: Trailer
Synopsis: In this portrait of parental sacrifice and the love of a father for his son, former wrestler Kakhi (played by real-life Olympic champion Levan Tediashvili) embarks on a journey from his home in the Republic of Georgia to visit his son Soso (Giorgi Tabidze) in the Russian-speaking neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. There he finds him living in a shabby boarding house populated by a colorful group of fellow Georgian immigrants. Soso is not studying medicine, as Kakhi believed, but is working for a moving company and has accrued a $14,000 gambling debt to a local Russian mob boss. Kakhi sets his mind to helping his hapless son out of his debt, leading to situations as often comic as they are dire. Lensed by Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (The Trial of the Chicago 7, Nebraska), Levan Koguashvili Brighton 4th won three major awards at the Tribeca Film Festival – Best International Film, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay – and is Georgia’s official submission to the 94th Academy Awards®.
Bonus Features: Trailer
Synopsis: In a return to the realistic “Street films” of the German silent era, Robert Siodmak (Criss Cross) directed this comedy drama of intersecting lives within the rooms of a working-class boarding house. Aribert Mog (Ecstasy) and Brigitte Horney (Munchausen) star as Peter and Hella, a young couple waiting for the opportunity to be married. When Peter receives a job opportunity in Dresden, he intends to surprise Hella with the news. But when word spreads among the other lodgers, it creates a series misunderstandings that could jeopardize the couple’s happiness.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide | Alternate “happy” ending
Street Date: 3/22/22 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992) is a provocatively entertaining and hugely influential film essay from Mark Rappaport (From the Journals of Jean Seberg). It uses a collage of film clips from throughout Hudson’s career, and a winking performance by Eric Farr as a Hudson stand-in, to highlight the homosexual subtext in his work. Subversive, hilarious, and profoundly enlightening, its use of video became a model for the future of film criticism as it mutated on YouTube, TikTok and beyond.
Kino Classics is also including some of Mark Rappaport’s other brilliant investigations into film history on this disc: Blue Streak (1971) is an expansion of what a “blue movie” really means; John Garfield (2002) is a concise portrait of the pugnacious actor, Sergei/Sir Gay (2017) is an exploration of Sergei Eisenstein’s sublimated desires, and Conrad Veidt—My Life (2019) is an in-depth examination of this anti-Fascist actor who was famous for playing a Nazi in Casablanca.
Bonus Features: BONUS FILMS BY MARK RAPPAPORT: BLUE STREAK (1971, 9 minutes) | JOHN GARFIELD (2003, 16 minutes) | SERGEI / SIR GAY (2016, 36 minutes) | CONRAD VEIDT—MY LIFE (2019, 60 minutes)
Street Date: 3/29/22
Synopsis: The murder of a Hamburg barmaid seems an open-and-shut case until a recently demobilized Nazi soldier, reassigned to the police force, suspects it’s the work of a serial killer. His efforts to bring the murderer to justice run afoul of the Reich, which fears the culprit is Aryan—not the foreigner, gypsy or Jew they would prefer. Director Robert Siodmak, the greatest practitioner of Hollywood noir (Criss Cross, The Killers, Phantom Lady, et al.), returned to Germany in the 1950s to finish his career. This was the most powerful film of those later years, a subtle yet scathing payback to the Nazis that chased him from his homeland. Based on the true story of murderer Bruno Lüdke, Siodmak creates a tense policier that’zs also a psychological drama exploring how some of those who did not flee the Reich struggled to maintain their integrity and morality in the face of overwhelming corruption and evil. — Eddie Muller, Film Noir Foundation
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Imogen Sara Smith
Synopsis: Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel – the first Muslim Arab to win Israel’s MasterChef – is on a quest to make social change through food. And so, she founded the A-sham Arabic Food Festival, where pairs of Arab and Jewish chefs collaborate on exotic dishes like kishek (a Syrian yogurt soup), and qatayef (a dessert typically served during Ramadan). A film about hope, synergy and mouthwatering fare, Breaking Bread illustrates what happens when people focus on the person, rather than her religion; on the public, rather than the politicians.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: In 1890s New York City, evocatively recreated on a shoestring budget, Jewish immigrant Jake (Steven Keats) has assimilated seamlessly into the American community…until his wife from back home (Carol Kane) arrives on his doorstep. Sumptuously shot in black and white, director Joan Micklin Silver’s loving, funny debut feature became an unexpected hit, and the rare independent American film to garner an Oscar® nomination for Kane’s heartbreaking, but ultimately empowering turn. Cohen Film Collection is proud to present a gorgeous new 4K restoration of this American classic.
Bonus Features: Two new interviews with director Joan Micklin Silver by Shonni Enelow | Archival audio commentary track with director Joan Micklin Silver and producer Raphael Silver | Archival interviews with key cast and crew members | Original opening title sequence and outtakes with audio commentary by Daniel Kremer, author of an upcoming book about Joan Micklin Silver | Restoration Trailer
Synopsis: When the Westphal family learned that their 6-year-old Kyle was on the Autism spectrum, they feared they might never develop a real connection to their child. Withdrawn and constantly wrapping himself in fabric and blankets, Kyle was retreating from the world around him. Determined to find a way to connect, his parents embarked on an intense and radical journey which involved compassionately joining Kyle in his unique behaviors. Twenty years later, the entire family looks back at Kyle’s journey with candor and humor. Let Me Be Me reveals what happens when a boy who used fabric as his shield to hide himself grows up to become a fashion designer, forging connections with friends and family along the way.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: MAU is the first-ever, feature-length documentary about the design visionary Bruce Mau. The film explores his unlikely creative journey and ever-optimistic push to tackle the world’s biggest problems with design. Over the span of his career, this creative dark horse has completed the transformation from world-class graphic designer to designer of the world. He has gone from advising global brands like Coca-Cola and Disney to rethinking a 1000-year plan for Mecca, Islam’s holiest site. And from working with the greatest living architects (Rem Koolhaas & Frank Gehry) on books and museums to rebranding nations such as Guatemala and Denmark. Bruce Mau is a pioneer of transformation design and the belief that design can be used to create positive change in our world.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: Berlin, 1931. Jakob Fabian works in the advertising department of a cigarette factory by day and drifts through bars, brothels and artist studios with his wealthy and debauched friend Labude by night. When Fabian meets the beautiful and confident Cornelia, he manages to shed his pessimistic attitude for a brief moment and falls in love. Not long after, he falls victim to the great wave of layoffs sweeping the city, plunging him back into a depression, while Cornelia’s career as an actress is taking off thanks to her wealthy boss and admirer – an arrangement that Fabian finds difficult to accept. But it’s not just his world that is falling apart; all of Germany is about to self-destruct. Veteran German director Dominik Graf (Beloved Sisters) wowed audiences at the Berlin Film Festival with this dazzling adaptation of Erich Kästner’s classic of Weimar literature, set amid the twilight hedonism of pre-Nazi Germany.
Bonus Features: AUDIO COMMENTARY BY FILM CRITIC OLAF MÖLLER • TRAILER
Synopsis: Based on the best-selling series of novels by Antonio Manzini, Rocco Schiavone: Ice Cold Murders is a devilishly entertaining Italian crime series that follows the idiosyncratic adventures of cranky and unorthodox detective Rocco Schiavone (Marco Giallini). In Season 1, Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone is exiled to Aosta, a touristy snowbound Alpine town far from his beloved home city of Rome. Already in a bad mood, he is immediately confronted with a series of bizarre cases.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 4/5/22
Synopsis: Before creating such silent masterworks as Metropolis, Spies, Die Nibelungen, and Woman in the Moon, Fritz Lang and screenwriter Thea von Harbou crafted the screenplay for this four-hour exotic epic for director Joe May (Asphalt). Conrad Veidt (The Hands of Orlac) stars as the vengeance-crazed Maharajah of Bengal, who seeks to build an imposing temple in which to entomb his former wife. But his diabolical plans are thwarted upon the arrival of two adventurers: a British architect (Olaf Fönss) and his fiancée Irene (Mia May). A masterpiece of Orientalist fantasy, The Indian Tomb’s labyrinthine plot is punctuated by thrilling action sequences and ambitious special effects. Late in his career, Lang would return to the story and remake the diptych as The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb (1959).
Bonus Features: “Turbans over Woltersdorf,” a visual essay written by David Cairns and Fiona Watson (2022, 45 Min.)
Street Date: 4/19/22
Synopsis: The first and only narrative feature by American documentarian James Blue (Oscar®-nominated for A Few Notes On Our Food Problem), The Olive Trees Of Justice holds the dual distinctions of being the only French film to have been shot in Algeria during the Algerian War, and to have been the winner of the Prize of the Society of Film and Television Writers at the inaugural Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962.
Bonus Features: AMAL (dir. James Blue, 1960, 20 minutes) | Trailer
Synopsis: Screenwriter and director Miklós Jancsó was the creator of a unique film language centered around his mastery of the tracking shot. The first internationally recognized representative of modern Hungarian filmmaking, in his works he examined oppressive authority and the mechanics of power. The Round-Up (1966) depicts a prison camp in the aftermath of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. After the Hapsburg monarchy succeeds in suppressing a nationalist uprising, the army sets about arresting suspected guerillas, who are subject to torture. Jancsó’s camera stays in constant, hypnotic motion, meditating upon and exalting its characters’ resistance and perseverance in the face of brutal, authoritarian repression. A true classic of world cinema. Restored in 4K from its original 35mm camera negative by National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive. The Red and the White (1967) is a haunting, powerful film about the absurdity and evil of war. Set in Central Russia during the Civil War of 1918, it details the murderous entanglements between Russia’s Red soldiers and the counter-revolutionary Whites in the hills along the Volga. The epic conflict moves with skillful speed from a deserted monastery to a riverbank hospital to a final, unforgettable hillside massacre. With his brilliant use of exceptionally long takes, vast and unchanging landscapes and Tamás Somló ‘s hypnotic black and white photography, Jancsó gives the film the quality of a surreal nightmare. In the director’s uncompromising world, people lose all sense of identity and become hopeless pawns in the ultimate game of chance. Restored in 4K from its original 35mm camera negative by National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive.
Bonus Features: DISC 1: THE ROUND-UP audio commentary by film historian Michael Brooke | Short films by Miklós Jancsó: Red Indian Story (1961), Presence (1965), Second Presence (1978), Third Presence (1986) || DISC 2: THE RED AND THE WHITE audio commentary by film historian Jonathan Owen | Short films by Miklós Jancsó: Autumn in Badacsony (1954), Harvest in Orosháza (1953), With a Camera in Kostroma (1967)
THE ROUND UP, THE RED AND THE WHITE, THE CONFRONTATION, WINTER WIND, RED PSALM AND ELECTRA, MY LOVE
Synopsis: Screenwriter and director Miklós Jancsó was the creator of a unique film language centered around his mastery of the tracking shot. The first internationally recognized representative of modern Hungarian filmmaking, his extraordinary works examined oppressive authority and the mechanics of power. Kino Lorber is proud to present six of his classic features restored in 4K from their original camera negatives by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive.
Bonus Features: DISC 1: THE ROUND-UP audio commentary by film historian Michael Brooke | Short films by Miklós Jancsó: Red Indian Story (1961), Presence (1965), Second Presence (1978), Third Presence (1986) || DISC 2: THE RED AND THE WHITE audio commentary by film historian Jonathan Owen | Short films by Miklós Jancsó: Autumn in Badacsony (1954), Harvest in Orosháza (1953), With a Camera in Kostroma (1967) || DISC 3: THE CONFRONTATION audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger | WINTER WIND audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan || DISC 4: RED PSALM audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger | ELECTRA, MY LOVE audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan
Synopsis: From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995) is a profoundly illuminating exploration of Jean Seberg’s career from the brilliant filmmaker Mark Rappaport (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies). Mary Beth Hurt (The Age of Innocence) portrays Jean Seberg, who reflects on her life as it is illustrated through her work. It follows her as she is plucked from obscurity to star in Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan (1957), to the critical drubbing that followed, her resurrection as a star in Godard’s Breathless (1960) and through her death in 1979. From the Journals of Jean Seberg is a revelatory interrogation of film history, and women’s place in it, that examines Seberg’s involvement with the Black Panther Movement while also touching on the careers of Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Clint Eastwood.
Bonus Features: Bonus films by Mark Rappaport: Becoming Anita Ekberg (2014, 17 minutes), Debra Paget, For Example (2016, 37 minutes), Anna/Nana/Nana/Anna (2019, 31 minutes)
Street Date: 4/12/22
Synopsis: Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson, two-time Academy Award® nominee for Breaking the Waves and Hilary and Jackie), a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times: the deportation of thousands of children from the United Kingdom to Australia. Children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead, and been sent to children’s homes on the other side of the world.
Many were subjected to appalling abuse. They were promised oranges and sunshine: they got hard labor and life in institutions. Almost single-handedly, against overwhelming odds, and with little regard for her own well-being, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
Bonus Features: Trailers
MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE
Street Date: 4/19/22
Synopsis: My Afternoons with Margueritte is the story of life’s random encounters. In a small French town Germain (Gérard Depardieu, Cyrano de Bergerac), a nearly illiterate man in his 50s who is considered the village idiot, takes a walk to the park and happens to sit beside Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus, The Hedgehog), a little old lady who is reading excerpts from her novel aloud.
She’s articulate and highly intelligent. Germain is lured in by Margueritte’s passion for life and the magic of literature from which he has always felt excluded. As Margueritte broadens his mind by reading excerpts from her novel, Germain realizes that he is more of an intellectual than he has ever allowed himself to be. Afternoons spent reading aloud on their favorite bench transform their lives and start them both on a new journey—to literacy and respect for Germain, and to the deepest friendship for Margueritte.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Synopsis: In this newly restored late Brit Noir classic, director Val Guest (EXPRESSO BONGO) whips up an absorbing and entertaining murder mystery based on the Hillary Waugh novel Sleep Long, My Love and inspired by the Brighton Trunk Murders of the 1930s. After discovering a woman’s body in a lonely beach house, a pair of Brighton detectives painstakingly assemble a jigsaw puzzle of clues as they attempt to track down her murderer.
Bonus Features: Trailers
DEMENTIA
Street Date: 4/26/22
Synopsis: An entirely unique and utterly bizarre film, John J. Parker’s DEMENTIA is a 1950s-style foray into the mind of psycho-sexual madness. Set entirely in a nocturnal twilight zone that blends dream imagery with the cinematic stylings of film noir, DEMENTIA follows the tormented existence of a young woman haunted by the horrors of her youth, which transformed her into a stiletto-wielding, man-hating beatnik. Accompanied by George Antheil’s sci-fi score, the camera follows a “Gamin” (Adrienne Barrett) on a surreal sleepwalk through B-movie hell, populated by prostitutes, pimps, and would-be molesters – all photographed by William Thompson (PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE). Two years after its original release, a narration track of foreboding psychobabble (diabolically spoken by Ed McMahon) was added and the title was changed to the more sensational DAUGHTER OF HORROR. This edition presents the original cut of DEMENTIA, digitally remastered from the 35MM negative, as well as the complete DAUGHTER OF HORROR (from a 35MM print), and the original theatrical trailer.
Bonus Features: The complete feature recut and re-released as DAUGHTER OF HORROR | Trailer
Synopsis: With advancing Alzheimer’s and a determination to do things his way, Jimmy has decided to throw himself a fabulous FUNeral before his intentional death, teaching his guests, estranged brother, salt-of-the earth caretaker, sharp-witted death doula, a novice obituary writer, and an ethereal cosmic being — that sometimes the art of living just may be the art of dying. (Inspired By A True-ish Story)
Bonus Features: Director’s cut of the LOONARTICS infomercial, Jimmy’s fictional moon real estate business. | Rare footage of Jimmy as a cruise ship director in the 1980’s! | Trailers
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
