Kino Lorber June Releases

Kino Lorber Announces its June 2019 Home Video Releases
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ferrante Fever (Greenwich Entertainment, DVD)
DVD Street Date: June 4, 2019
DVD SRP: $29.95

Documentary / 74 min / NR / Color

Director: Giacomo Durzi
Featuring: Jonathan Franzen, Ann Goldstein, Roberto Saviano

Synopsis: With over 10 million copies of her “Neapolitan Novels” sold in over 50 countries, Elena Ferrante is a global literary sensation. She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and HBO recently turned the first book in the quartet, My Brilliant Friend, into a miniseries hit with more seasons to come. The world- hopping documentary Ferrante Fever journeys between New York City’s cultural hub and Ferrante’s native Italy, exploring how an anonymous author’s visceral tales of love and friendship gained such an enthusiastic following. Hillary Clinton, Roberto Saviano, Jonathan Franzen and others weigh in on the Ferrante “craze” and what makes her work-and her mysterious persona-so uniquely captivating.

Bonus Features: Ferrante Fever in the Words of the Readers / Trailer

Devil’s Kiss (Redemption, Blu-ray and DVD)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 11,2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1976 / Horror / 95 min / NR / Color

Director: Jordi Gigó
Starring: Silvia Solar, Olivier Mathot, José Nieto Evelyne Scott María Silva

Synopsis: From the film vaults of Eurociné-the mind-boggling company that brought you Zombie Lake, Crimson, and Orloff and the Invisible Man-comes this riotous French/Spanish co-production, originally titled La perversa caricia de Satán (“The Perverse Caresses of Satan”)! When the Countess de Moncourt (Night of the Howling Beast‘s Silvia Solar) is left destitute by the suicide of her husband, she resumes her former identity as Claire Grandier-comely Goth and medium! Teaming up with Dr. Gruber (Eurociné regular Olivier Mathot), a down-on-his-luck telepath, they accept an invitation from an eccentric duke to stage a séance at his candle-lit castle, as a follow-up to a funky fashion show of hilarious “avant garde” wear. Impressed by Claire’s command of the supernatural, the duke invites her and Gruber to room at his chateau. Working from a dank cellar with the help of a lascivious dwarf, Claire-aided by Gruber’s telepathic powers-succeeds in reanimating a pauper’s mutilated corpse and sending it on a mission of revenge…but how will she control this doddering zombie should Gruber succumb to his weak heart? Devil’s Kiss was the first and only horror film directed by “Georges Gigo”-the French pseudonym of Spanish-born Jorge Luís Gigó Aznar, who can be seen as the fashion show announcer. A moody mélange of Frankenstein, Dracula, Lovecraft, and Munster cheese, it’s the sort of atmospheric, lecherous, ultimately insane witch’s brew that could only come from the cauldrons at Eurociné! – Tim Lucas

The Man Who Drove With Mandela (Jezebel, DVD)
DVD Street Date: June 11,2019
DVD SRP: $29.95

1998 / Documentary / 80 min / NR / Color

Director: Greta Schiller
Featuring: Joseph Bale, Adriaan Bassier, Ashley Brownlee

Synopsis: In 1962, a man known as “The Black Pimpernel” travelled incognito across South Africa organizing armed rebellion against the apartheid regime. Wanted by police for seditious activity, his cover was that he was the chauffeur to a well-dressed and elegant white man in a gleaming Austin Westminster. The black man was Nelson Mandela. The white man was Cecil Williams.

We all know what happened to Mandela following his arrest. But what happened to the man he was with? The Man Who Drove With Mandela, directed by Greta Schiller (Before Stonewall, Paris Was a Woman) tells the story of South Africa’s liberation struggle from a new and unexpected perspective: that of Cecil Williams – prominent theatre director; committed freedom-fighter; gay man.

Bonus Features: Teddy Award Interview with director Greta Schiller

Detective (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 18, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1985 / Comedy-Drama / 98 min / NR / Color

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Claude Brasseur, Nathalie Baye, Johnny Hallyday

Synopsis: Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective (1985) is an invigorating deconstruction of film noir that adds a dash of Grand Hotel (1932) melodrama and Body and Soul (1947) boxing drama, all tied into an arresting Godardian knot.
In a luxury Paris hotel, two detectives (Laurent Terzieff and Jean-Pierre Léaud) are working on the vexing case of an assassinated prince. In a nearby room, boxing trainer Jim Fox Warner (Johnny Hallyday) is getting his young protégé ready for a fight. But Jim owes big money to the mob, as well as to the Chenals, a bickering husband and wife (Claude Brasseur and Nathalie Baye). In Godard’s fractured, poetic style, the tension ratchets up between these groups until they reach a bloody breaking point.

Bonus Features: Booklet essay by Nicolas Rapold, editor of Film Comment / Trailers Selected scene commentary by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque

First Name: Carmen (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 18, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1983 / Crime Drama / 84 min / NR / COlor

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Maruschka Detmers, Jacques Bonnaffé, Myriem Roussel, Christophe Odent

Synopsis: Jean Luc-Godard’s First Name: Carmen (1983) is a radical reinvention of Bizet’s opera, updating the story of sexual obsession with bank robbery and kidnapping.
Godard himself appears as doddering Uncle Jean, who lends his house to his niece Carmen (Maruschka Detmers) while he is recovering in a mental institution. Carmen and her gang of youthful pals stage a bloody robbery of a bank, during which she falls in love with one of the security guards (Jacques Bonnaffé). Her gang is in the planning stages of an even bigger crime-the kidnapping of an industrialist (or his daughter), using the shooting of a documentary on luxury hotels as a pretext. This bizarre crime spree of sex and death is told via Godard’s dizzying deconstructive style and DP Raoul Coutard’s eye-popping colors, creating a singular work of art to rival Bizet.

Bonus Features: Le changement à plus d’un titre: Changer d’image (a short film by Jean-Luc Godard, © INA 1982) / Feature and short film commentary by film historian Craig Keller / Booklet essay by film critic Kristen Yoonsoo Kim / Trailers

Helas Pour Moi (Kino Classics, Blu-ray and DVD)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 18, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1993 / Comedy-Drama / 83 min / NR / Color

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Laurence Masliah, Bernard Verley

Synopsis: Jean-Luc Godard’s Hélas pour moi (1993) is a provocative film about faith and desire starring Gérard Depardieu. Inspired by the Greek myth of Alcmene and Amphitryon, it investigates the story of a god inhabiting the body of a man to experience the pleasures of the flesh. The incident is told through the eyes of a publisher, Abraham Klimt (Bernard Verley), who is interviewing the inhabitants of a Swiss village regarding the strange story of Rachel (Laurence Masliah) and Simon Donnadieu (Depardieu). One summer Simon leaves on a business trip, but soon after a doppelgänger arrives in the village purporting to be Simon. He appears to be a god in human form, and he pursues Rachel in a series of philosophical seductions that explore divine and physical ecstasy. One of Godard’s most beautiful films (shot by DP Caroline Champetier), Hélas pour moi is a thought- provoking and sensuous work of art.

Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film critic Samm Deighan / Booklet essay by film critic Jordan Cronk / Trailers

Lost in the Stars (Kino Classics, Blu-ray)
Blu-ray Street Date: June 18, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

1974 / Drama / 97 min / G / Color

Director: Daniel Mann
Starring: Brock Peters Melba Moore Raymond St. Jacques

Synopsis: Alan Paton’s world famous novel of racial oppression, Cry the Beloved Country is transformed into a tragic and beautiful film musical unlike any you’ve ever seen. Gilded by Kurt Weill’s (The Threepenny Opera) powerful music and lucid lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, and guided by Daniel Mann’s (Playing for Time) sensitive direction, this one-of-a-kind film is both a heartbreaking indictment of a cruel society and a poetic testament to the millions of forgotten lives ground beneath the heel of apartheid. Brock Peters (To Kill a Mockingbird) is a black South African minister searching the unfamiliar urban alleys and shanty towns of Johannesburg for his missing son.

Bonus Features: Interview with Edie Landau / “Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera,” a promotional film for the American Film Theatre / Gallery of trailers for the American Film Theatre /  English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

Galileo (Kino Classics, Blu-ray)

Blu-ray Street Date: June 18, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95

1975 / Drama / 145 min / PG / Color

Director: Joseph Losey
Starring: Topol, Edward Fox, Colin Blakely, John Gielgud

Synopsis: Fiddler on the Roof‘s Topol and a cast of British theatrical aristocracy (including Sir John Gielgud, Patrick Magee, and Tom Conti) recreate the troubled life and anxious times of 17th-century physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Under the direction of Joseph Losey, who originated the American stage version in 1947, The AFT’s Galileo focuses Bertolt Brecht’s characteristic mosaic of theatricality and immediacy into a keenly cinematic drama that pits public responsibility against private doubt. Neither coward nor hero, Brecht’s Galileo reveals the troubling human side of the struggle between science, government and religion, a conflict that is perhaps more relevant than ever.

Bonus Features: Interview with Topol /  Interview with Edie Landau / “Ely Landau: In Front of the Camera,” a promotional film for the American Film Theatre / Gallery of trailers for the American Film Theatre /  English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

Divorced Dad (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray and DVD)
Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 25, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $34.95
DVD SRP: $29.95

Comedy/TV / 49 min / NR / Color

Director: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy, Conor Sweeney
Starring: Matthew Kennedy, Gilles Degagne, Adam Brooks

Synopsis: Inspired by a dream, a newly-single man (Matthew Kennedy) eases the pain of his mid-life crisis by launching a public-access talk show. But no matter how innocuous the topic, each episode devolves into chaos, veering from slapstick comedy into supernatural horror, driving the Divorced Dad ever closer to his emotional breaking point. Produced by the Canadian filmmaking collective Astron-6 (The Editor), Divorced Dad is a nostalgic nightmare that toys with the technology of no-budget, ’80s video chat shows in a way that relishes, rather than mocks, the outdated conventions of the medium. Divorced Dad originated as a web series, and was promptly banned from YouTube upon the release of its brilliant “My Sis” episode. Kino Lorber now presents all five episodes of the series, plus previously unreleased episodes, extended cuts, and a wealth of special features.

Bonus Features: The original five episodes: “Dale,” “Fruits of My Labour,” “Home Improvements,” “My Sis,” and “Fitness” / Two bonus episodes: “Cooking With Dad” and “The Curse of the Pharaoh’s Code” / Alternate footage / Audio commentaries / “Merry Christmas from Santa Claus” /  Chowboys: An American Folktale (2018, 9 min.), the final film from Astron-6 / Optional English subtitles

The Tamarind Seed (Scorpion Releasing, Blu-ray and DVD)

Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: June 25, 2019
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $19.95

1974/ Drama / 125 min / PG / Color

Director: Blake Edwards
Starring: Julie Andrews, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Dan O’Herlihy, Sylvia Syms, Oskar Homolka

Synopsis: From the legendary director of The Pink Panther, Experiment in Terror, The Party and Victor Victoria. A man and a woman on opposite sides of the Cold War fall for each other in this romantic espionage drama from writer-director Blake Edwards, based on the best-selling novel by Evelyn Anthony (The Defector). Screen legend Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music) plays Judith Farrow, an assistant to the British Home Office who is vacationing in the Caribbean. Sparks fly when she meets Soviet military expert Feodor Sverdlov (Omar Sharif, Doctor Zhivago, Juggernaut), but when Judith’s superiors question his intentions, Judith must decide who to trust-and who to love. Two of the film’s best features are the terrific color photography by the great Freddie Young (Lawrence of Arabia) and original musical score by celebrated maestro John Barry (Out of Africa). The stellar cast includes Anthony Quayle (The Guns of Navarone), Dan O’Herlihy (RoboCop), Sylvia Syms (Ice Cold in Alex) and Oskar Homolka (The Seven Year Itch).

Bonus Features: 1972 interview with star Omar Sharif | 1974 interview with Omar Sharif | Interview with director Blake Edwards | Trailer

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