Kino Lorber has unveiled some of the details of their May 2023 Blu-Ray and DVD releases from their Kino Lorber, Kino Classics, MHZ Choice, Milestone Cinematheque, Cohen Media Group, Greenwich Entertainment, First Run Features, Menemsha Films and Raro Video imprints. Get all the details on this incredibly packed lineup below:
Street Date: 5/2/23
Synopsis: In the pulse-pounding thriller On the Edge, a Spanish subway train operator in Brussels witnesses his estranged son Hugo fall to his death off the edge of a platform. Leo had not seen his son for years, but is spurred to investigate the mysterious circumstances of his passing. He discovers that Hugo was involved in a bloody heist, the discovery of which puts Leo in the crosshairs of the police. Leo’s skills in tracking and apprehending violent criminals, as it turns out, are not those of public transit employee.
Bonus Features: Trailer
Street Date: 5/2/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Berlin, 1942. Cioma Schönhaus (Louis Hofmann, star of the hit Neflix series Dark) is a young Jewish man who won’t let anyone take away his zest for life, especially not the Nazis. Since the best hiding spots are in plain sight, Cioma audaciously adopts the identity of a marine officer to escape being deported like his family before him. Drawing on his art school background, he joins a network of underground rescuers and becomes infamous for his masterfully forged IDs – created with just a brush, some ink, and a steady hand – that save the lives of hundreds of Jews by allowing them to escape the country. Meanwhile, he throws himself into the city’s nightlife and even finds a fragile hope for love during the darkest moments of the war. His talent and propensity for boldness puts him in more and more danger, however, until his only chance of survival is one last forged document – with his own name on it. Based on a true story.
Bonus Features: Trailer
Street Date: 5/2/23
Synopsis: Neurotic prep school English teacher Jake Singer (Chris Eigeman, Metropolitan) seeks therapy after he gets dumped. Along the way, he meets and woos a gorgeous and wealthy widow (Famke Janssen, GoldenEye) while his shrink (Ian Holm, The Lord of the Rings) – who may or may not be real – badgers him with Freudian mind games. Director Oren Rudavsky’s witty and sexy romantic comedy, based on a novel by Daniel Menaker, won Best Narrative Feature in the Made In New York section of the Tribeca Film Festival.
Bonus Features: Deleted Scenes | Featurette: Psychotherapists discuss the film | Theatrical trailer
FILMMAKERS FOR THE PROSECUTION PLUS NUREMBERG: IT’S LESSON FOR TODAY
Street Date: 5/30/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Adapted from Sandra Schulberg’s monograph, Filmmakers for the Prosecution retraces the hunt for film evidence that could convict the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trial. The searchers were two sons of Hollywood – brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg – serving under the command of OSS film chief John Ford. The motion pictures they presented in the courtroom became part of the official record and shape our understanding of the Holocaust to this day. Seventy-five years after the trial, French journalist and filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz returns to the German salt mines where films lay burning, uncovers never-before-seen footage, and interviews key figures to unravel why the resulting film about the trial – Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today by Stuart Schulberg – was intentionally buried by the U.S. Department of War. Klotz’s riveting film also fills in the gaps of how these groundbreaking materials were sourced, and poses still-pertinent questions about documentarians’ obligations to posterity. Also included on this disc is one of the greatest courtroom dramas in history, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (1948). It shows how the international prosecutors built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis’ own films and records. The trial established the “Nuremberg principles,” laying the foundation for all subsequent trials for crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Bonus Features: The Making of Nuremberg: Its Lesson For Today booklet [only accessible via DVD-ROM] | Additional Interviews
Street Date: 5/23/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Set in the suburbs of Boulogne-Sur-Mer in northern France, The Worst Ones captures a film within a film as it follows the production of a feature whose director turns to the local Cité Picasso housing project for casting. Eager to capture performances of gritty authenticity, the director selects four working class teenagers to act in the film to the surprise and consternation of the local community, who question the director’s choice of “the worst ones.” As the director and crew audition, rehearse, film, and interact with their hand-picked cast, jealousies are stoked, lines are crossed, and ethical questions arise, with thought-provoking and at times darkly funny results. Winner of the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, The Worst Ones announces directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret as exciting new voices in French cinema.
Bonus Features: “Chasse Royale” (2016 short film by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret) • Theatrical trailer
Street Date: 5/9/23
Synopsis: From the masterful Max Ophüls (Letter from an Unknown Woman, The Earrings of Madame de…) comes There’s No Tomorrow (Sans lendemain), a bittersweet melodrama with a dash of film noir. Edwige Feuillère (From Mayerling to Sarajevo) commands the screen as a woman of bourgeois origin, now reduced to dancing in a disreputable nightclub to support her young son. When her lost love (George Rigaud, I Walk Alone), now a successful doctor, suddenly reappears, she puts on the charade that her life has been far more fortunate. But maintaining such an illusion won’t come easy. A ravishing and tragic screen romance, There’s No Tomorrow glitters with Ophüls’ trademark sophistication and opulent camerawork.
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Adrian Martin | Trailer
Street Date: 5/9/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: Described as The X-Files by way of The Office, UFOs is an out-of-this-world comedy-drama about a gang of UFO investigators in 1978 France… but not everything is as it seems. The truth (and plenty of laughs) is out there!
As Season 1 begins, the dreams of brilliant space engineer Didier Mathure literally go up in smoke when his much-hyped new rocket explodes on take-off. His career at rock bottom, Didier finds himself sidelined as the head of GEPAN, an obscure and improbable research group specializing in UFOs whose members seem to be living on another planet themselves! With the help of his new oddball friends, a shower of flamingos is the first mystery Dider has to solve if he wants to get his career back on the rails. It’s a nightmare job for an out-and-out rationalist, and Didier is determined to find a way out as soon as he can. But an extraordinary event unsettles his convictions and opens the doors to a world where anything is possible.
In Season 2, Didier has been ousted from GEPAN and has now become a UFO evangelist himself – much to the chagrin of his ex-wife Elise, a down-to-earth scientist recently promoted to head the French space agency, CNES. When the sudden manifestation of a giant ball of cotton candy in a nuclear power plant sets off alarm bells at the highest levels, Didier is called back into action and the GEPAN gang have a big new mystery to solve. Convinced that an extraterrestrial being is trying to make contact, Didier will do everything he can to uncover the truth – even as powerful forces conspire against him.
Street Date: 5/16/23
Synopsis: From François Ozon (8 Women, Swimming Pool) comes a powerful family drama in which a daughter is forced to reconcile with her father and their shared past after he contacts her with a devastating final wish. When André (André Dussollier) suffers a debilitating stroke and calls on his daughter Emmanuèle (Sophie Marceau) to help him die with dignity, she finds herself faced with a painful decision. Based on Emmanuèle Bernheim’s memoir and an Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival, Everything Went Fine’s matter-of-factness elicits moments of humor that renders an otherwise weighty topic accessible. Steering clear of the moral arguments such issues often raise, the film instead focuses on the reckoning Emmanuéle has with her stubborn and unrelenting father and how to help him, with Ozon tackling a difficult subject with exceptional intelligence and sensitivity. Featuring stunning central performances by Marceau and Dussollier as well as a scene-stealing cameo by Charlotte Rampling as André’s ex-wife..
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 5/30/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: An exploration of the timeless relationship between human civilization and Earth’s rivers. Spanning six continents, this visual and musical tour-de-force is by turns celebratory, cautionary, and ultimately hopeful that we are beginning to understand rivers in all their complexity and fragility. Narrated by Oscar Nominee Willem Dafoe. With music by the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Radiohead.
Bonus Features: Trailers
Street Date: 5/30/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: After years of living with mysterious symptoms, a young girl from Brooklyn and a Duke University scientist are diagnosed with a disease said to not exist: Chronic Lyme disease. The Quiet Epidemic follows their search for answers, which lands them in the middle of a vicious medical debate. What begins as a patient story evolves into an investigation into the history of Lyme disease, dating back to its discovery in 1975. A paper trail of suppressed scientific research, and buried documents reveals why ticks – and the diseases they carry – have been allowed to quietly spread around the globe.
Bonus Features: Resource Guide
WARTIME GIRLS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
Street Date: 5/16/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: The thrilling and epic drama series WARTIME GIRLS tells the story of three young Polish women who band together to fight against the Nazi occupation of their country during the outbreak of World War II. Irka, Ewa and Marysia each come from very different backgrounds and social standings: Irka was raised by well-educated parents in a patriotic family, Ewa was brought up by petty criminals, and Marysia is a daughter of a wealthy Jewish industrialist from Lodz. Their paths cross together in occupied Warsaw as the Second World War intensifies.
Street Date: 5/9/23
Synopsis: From its first release at an underground theater in Paris, this account of France’s occupation under Nazi regime has been acclaimed as one of the most moving and influential films ever made. Director Marcel Ophüls interviewed the residents of Clermont-Ferrand who remembered the occupation, as well as government officials, writers, farmers, artists, and German veterans. Here, in their own words, is the story of how ordinary citizens and leaders alike behaved under military siege. Originally refused by French TV, the film garnered international success and acclaim – including an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary – while shattering the myth of an undivided and universally resistant France under the Vichy government. A triumph of on-the-ground filmmaking, THE SORROW AND THE PITY remains gripping, appalling, and exhilarating for its transparent view upon humanity.
Bonus Features: Marcel Ophuls Visual History (40 minutes, courtesy of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, ©2017 A.M.P.A.S.) | Re-release trailer
Street Date: 5/16/23
Synopsis: The young, naive Annie (Clio Goldsmith) enters a hotel to spend the night – without knowing that it’s a special kind of hotel that serves more than breakfast. Curiously, she walks around and watches the maids doing their job. She’s especially fascinated by a forbidden room, where a silent, strange man lives.
Street Date: 5/16/23 (DVD Only)
Synopsis: La Civil unfolds with documentary-like precision as it details the human impact of drug cartels in Northern Mexico. Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez, in a galvanizing performance) learns her daughter Laura has been kidnapped when a baby-faced teenager orders her to pay 150,000 pesos if she wants to see Laura again. With no police support, Cielo embarks on her own investigation, peeling back layers of Mexico’s societal corruption in an increasingly desperate effort to save her child. Inspired by true events, Belgian-Romanian director Teodora Ana Mihai delivers a bold and suspenseful debut feature, collaborating with Mexican co-screenwriter Habacuc Antonio De Rosario and world-renowned co-producers Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Cristian Mungiu, and Michel Franco.
Bonus Features: Deleted Scenes | Behind-the-Scenes Footage | Theatrical Trailer
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.