Breathless will be returning to the big screen at Film Forum as will an upcoming Lorber Films release, TWO IN THE WAVE about the friendship between Goddard and Truffaut during the early days of the New Wave and beyond. Includes amazing archival footage and commentary from two of cinema’s greatest auteurs.
Poster and boxcover designs are tricky things to manage. The designer’s impulse to create something conceptual and unique must be balanced by the distributor’s need for clarity and commercial appeal. As might be expected, Kino Lorber’s ad campaigns often go through many stages before reaching the final versions. Here, and in the future, we’ll post some examples of various films’ design evolutions.
FALLEN ANGELS
The re-release of Wong Kar-Wai’s Fallen Angels cried out for a splashy design.
Here is the previous DVD jacket:
When planning the 2009 reissue, we ran a number of DVD boxcovers up the flagpole. The first design was intended to replicate the style of the original Hong Kong release poster.
Here, incidentally, is the original HK poster:
That seemed a little busy, so we stripped it down to a more sultry, understated cover:
Maybe too sexy. Let’s go for a more romantic look:
Hmm… nice, but it doesn’t convey the frenetic visual style of the film. Try again:
Nice, but this approach has already been used in an overseas edition. Keep going:
Finally, we found a simple image that conveyed visual energy and romantic intensity:
And then… it was off to work on Happy Together. (To be continued)
Enthusiasts of Carl Jung are strongly encouraged to read a story that ran in the New York Times on September 16, 2009 about his famed diary, “The Red Book” (click here to read the entire story). Considered the most influential unpublished book in the history of psychology, it has been released this week by W.W. Norton & Co.
To learn more about Carl Jung and have a rare glance at his famed Red Book we are offering two exceptional DVDs at a specially reduced price. Through the month of October THE WORLD WITHIN and MATTER OF HEART is available for 30% off retail.
On October 6th Kino is releasing a new series of Classical Educational Shorts curated by Skip Elsheimer and produced for DVD by Bret Wood.
Here are some sneak-peaks.
HOW TO BE A MAN
Click here for more information
HOW TO BE A WOMAN
Click here for more information
We have also set this up a specially priced 1-click bundle.
Kino International (www.kino.com) has signed a distribution deal with MK2 to release Yorgos Lanthimos’ award-winning film Dogtooth (2009) in the United States; Kino is planning to release the film later this year.
“We are excited about introducing Yorgos Lanthimos and Dogtooth to U.S. audiences. It’s a hilarious absurdist statement about the complications of life in the 21st century and it totally deserved its Best Film prize at the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) last spring,” says Donald Krim, Kino International’s President.
Besides its top prize from the Un Certain Regard section, Dogtoothcame back from this year’s Cannes Film Festival with the Youth Prize. At the recent Sarajevo International Film Festival, Lanthimos received the Special Jury Award, and lead actresses Mary Tsoni and Aggeliki Papoulia were awarded the festival’s Best Actress award.
Director Yorgos Lanthimos studied film and television direction at Stavrakos Film School in Athens. Since 1995, he has directed feature films, theatre plays, and a large number of TV commercials. He was also a member of the creative team which designed the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.
Dogtooth can currently be seen at the Contemporary World Cinema section at the Toronto International Film Festival.
MK2 handles international sales for Dogtooth. For more information, please contact Rodrigo Brandao at rodrigo@kino.com
Rummaging through the latest post from David Bordwell’s invaluable blog (regarding the Cinema Ritrovato Festival) I came upon his discussion of Louis Feuillade’s The Trust (1911). To wit:
“In Le Trust, a businessman indulges in a bit of corporate espionage. He hires a detective (the sinister René Navarre) to kidnap an inventor and squeeze a secret formula out of him. The detective resorts to some unusual methods, such as hiring an actor to dress in drag and impersonate a rival’s wife. The inventor is kidnapped but outwits his captors with a trick that could have come straight out of Les Vampires. The plot’s outrageous surprises are played straight and brisk, and we can see Feuillade moving toward the compact, inventive staging of Fantomas and Tih-Minh. How could Le Trust not be my favorite movie of the week?”
It’s great…He’s right! (as he usually is). And luckily enough, Kino’s shiny new Gaumont Treasures set (out Sept. 1st) contains a whole disc of 13 early Feuillade shorts (the other two discs are devoted to pioneers Alice Guy and Léonce Perret). The Alice Guy set is a fascinating glimpse into the development of narrative at Gaumont, as you can trace her work from one shot comedies (like Wonderful Absinthe (1899)) to more complex multi-shot stories (as in the fascinating satire, The Consequences of Feminism (1906)).
The greatest find on the Perret disc for me was the fog-choked morbidity of The Mystery of the Rocks of Kador (1912), which equates film viewing with hypnosis. An experimental psychologist recreates a tragic event on film, in order to shock his patient into confronting her repressed memories. It’s a stunningly self-reflexive sequence, and must be seen to be believed.
Click here to download the Gaumont Sell Sheet
Anime news! Hayao Miyazaki has been slated to appear at this year’s Comic-Con on July 24th, a few weeks before his latest wonderment, Ponyo, opens stateside (on Aug. 14th). A reclusive sort, he rarely leaves his home at Studio Ghibli, so this is rather exciting news. Urged out of his shell by friend and fellow animator John Lasseter (Pixar’s godhead), it’s a reason for anime fans to rejoice.
Well, Kino and Kimstim are offering up another bit of anime gold, which should be viewed alongside Miyazaki’s latest: The Astonishing World of Tezuka Osamu. Known worldwide as the “Father of Anime” (and the creator of Astro Boy), Tezuka’s stunning work was a major influence on Miyazaki (and Pixar), and this wide-ranging collection offers up a delicious sampler of his skills. Wielding a strong socio-political message along with delicate brush (and pen and ink) work, the disc includes the apocalyptic anti-fascist parable Tales of the Street Corner (1962), the dizzying experiment in POV Jumping, and his environmentalist Walt Disney homage Legend of the Forest (1987) (considered to be his masterpiece).
Judge for yourself:
Kino International Opens Karen Shakhnazarov’s The Vanished Empire (2008) on July 10 at The Quad Cinemas in NYC
New York, NY - June 21, 2009 - Kino International is proud to announce the theatrical release of The Vanished Empire (2008), the latest feature film by Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov (Jazzmen, Zero City, The Rider Named Death).
Following the film’s US premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where The Vanished Empire closed the director’s first comprehensive retrospective in the United States, Kino International is giving Shakhnazarov’s contemplation on Soviet youth a nationwide commercial run.
Set to open on July 10, 2009, at the Quad Cinemas in New York City, The Vanished Empire will also play in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and other urban centers throughout the Summer and Fall of 2009.
A love-letter to Soviet urban life during the 1970s, The Vanished Empire centers on a high-spirited teenage love triangle: childhood friends Sergey Narbekov (Alexander Lyapin) and Stepan Molodsov (aka Styopa, played by Yegor Baranovsky) both fall for the beautiful Lyuda Beletskaya (Lidiya Milyuzina) - and as a result, are forced to re-evaluate their childhood attachments.
In the background of this life-altering romance, Soviet culture (and the Soviet state machine) is at the peak of its power and on the verge of an irreversible collapse. As the three youngsters struggle with the typical teenage discoveries, which include the triad of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, the overarching Soviet ideology that shaped their childhood begins to lose its power in the face of a bigger cultural change.
Stealing antique Russian books and selling them at a used bookstore has become a habit (and means of survival) for Sergey; with the profits, he manages to purchase a new pair of jeans or the latest Rolling Stones’ album in the local black market. And while the police actively condemn the illegal exchange of western goods, they seem resigned to simply repress, but not stop, what is already an irrevocable part of Russian daily life.
Winner of two Russian Golden Eagle Awards for Best Director (Karen Shakhnazarov) and Best Supporting Actor (Armen Djigarkhanyan), The Vanished Empire is an “absolutely sublime” (20/20 Filmsight) examination of a unique moment in Soviet history. (The Golden Eagle awards are given by the Russian Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)
Excitement is growing for our first time Blu-Ray Release of Kevin Rafferty’s hit documentary HARVARD BEATS YALE 29-29.
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Nov 09
Kino’s 2010 Catalog on Press
As of this morning the 2010 Kino Catalog has completed its press run at Ripon Printers in Wisconsin. Ripon has been kind enough to send of some photos of the production process (see below).
This season we will send out our largest ever edition with 72 pages of new and classic DVDs, a complete index, and a few surprises. The new catalog will also have the largest circulation yet (70,000), demonstrating that interest in specialty DVDs remain strong.
If you have ordered from us in the past 2 years and receive our mailings you should expect to see your copy around thanksgiving. If you live in the US or Canada and would like to receive a copy please signup at http://www.kino.com/video/catalog.php . Want to save paper? We are also working on an electronic version - stay tuned!