Kino Lorber (Firm)

In Hollywood's studio system, sets and equipment are used over and over again. Mark Rappaport shows not only opera boxes and stage rooms, which seem to be part of the permanent décor in MGM backstage musicals, but also curious connections such as a Spanish wall with orientalist ornamentation that appears in various films or the famous portrait painting by Gene Tierney in Laura, which surprisingly can be seen again in On the Riviera.

It was the swinging 30s. The big bands of the 40s. It was San Francisco night life – Baghdad by the Bay. And the crowds were packing the nation’s premiere all-Chinese nightclub, Forbidden City. Like the Cotton Club of Harlem which featured America’s finest African American entertainers, Forbidden City gained an international reputation with its unique showcase of Chinese American performers in eye-popping all-American extravaganzas.FORBIDDEN...

The pseudonymous Agnes was a pioneering transgender woman who participated in an infamous gender health study conducted at UCLA in the 1960s. Her clever use of the study to gain access to gender-affirming healthcare led to her status as a fascinating and celebrated figure in trans history. In this innovative cinematic exercise that blends fiction and nonfiction, director Chase Joynt (No Ordinary Man) uses Agnes’s story, along with others unearthed...

A powerful testament to one man's commitment to his family, and his endurance in working to provide them with a brighter future. Kasongo, a 28-year-old man living in Congo with his wife and daughters, dreams of purchasing a plot of land on which to build his family a home. He sees his opportunity to earn money by selling charcoal, culled from the ashes of a mighty hardwood tree that he has felled and baked in an earthen oven. Loading up the bags of...

A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. With beguiling performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two loners who join forces out of desperation, blacklist survivor Waldo Salt's brilliant screenplay, and John Schlesinger's fearless direction, the 1969 film became the only X- rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its vivid and compassionate...

A young Egyptian filmmaker gains first-hand accounts of corruption and abuse within the security forces from Egyptian police officers. Narrated in English by the filmmaker, WHOSE COUNTRY? reveals not only why police injustice can be considered a leading cause of the 2011 Revolution but also how the perpetuation of injustice within the security force itself led to widespread dissatisfaction amongst the lower ranks. A fascinating look at how victimization...

Go behind the scenes of the largest Vermeer exhibition ever mounted, now on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Capturing the imagination of the art world – with glowing reviews, global publicity, and tickets sold out through the entirety of its run – the Rijksmuseum's Vermeer retrospective is nothing short of an historic event. Suzanne Raes’s film follows curators, conservators, collectors, and experts in their joint mission to shine a new...

In 1924, documentary film pioneers Robert and Frances Flaherty and family traveled to the Samoan island of Savaii to record the native life and make a film that would try to match the success of Nanook of the North. Restored in 2K with native sounds and traditional songs that Flahertys daughter recorded over a half-century after they shot it, Monica Flaherty's MOANA is a beautiful work of docufiction and an important piece of film history.

During the early 1990s, San Francisco was the epicenter of body modification and gender nonconformity, with transgender pioneers like Patrick Califia and Tala Brandeis fighting for visibility, alongside the voice of a bold S/M community. From pushy bottoms to macho femmes, BLOODSISTERS immerses the viewer in the San Francisco leather dyke scene, shattering assumptions about gender and lesbian sexuality, while broadening the discussion about personal...

When Dr. Haing S. Ngor was forced into labor camps by the Khmer Rouge, little did he know he would escape four years of torture and be called upon to recreate his experiences in a film that would earn him an Academy Award®. For the Chinese-Cambodian doctor, “Nothing has shaped my life as much as surviving the Pol Pot regime. I am a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust. That’s who I am.” And little did anyone know that some twenty years later,...