Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, such as documentary films, classic and rarely seen films from earlier periods in the history of cinema, and world cinema. In addition to theatrical distribution, Kino Lorber releases films in the home entertainment market and has its own streaming services for its digital library.
Abel Ferrara is an American filmmaker, known for the provocative and often controversial content in his movies and his use and redefinition of neo-noir imagery. A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best known movies include the New York-set, gritty crime thrillers The Driller Killer (1979), Ms .45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992) and The Funeral (1996), chronicling violent crime in urban settings with spiritual overtones.
Glenn Frankel is an American author and academic, journalist and winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. He spent 27 years with The Washington Post, where he was bureau chief in Richmond (Va.), Southern Africa, Jerusalem and London, and editor of The Washington PostMagazine. He served as a visiting journalism professor at Stanford University and as Director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Author of five books, his latest works explore the making of an iconic American movie in the context of the historical era it reflects. In 2018 Frankel was named a Motion Picture Academy Film Scholar. He was named a 2021-2 research fellow of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York for a book about Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Matt Wolf is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and producer. His notable films include Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Teenage, Bayard & Me,Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Spaceship Earth. In 2010, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. His subjects include youth culture, artists, archives, music, and queer history.
Sembene! is a 2015 documentary film focusing on the life of Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, who is considered to be the father of African cinema. It is co-directed by Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman. The film's world premiere took place at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015. It also played at the Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival.
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is a 2017 American biographical documentary film directed, written and co-edited by Alexandra Dean, about the life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. It had its world premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and released theatrically on November 24, 2017. The film was broadcast in the United States on the PBS biography series American Masters in May 2018. As of April 2020, it was also available on Netflix.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Matt Wolf about Marion Stokes and the television news archive she created.
Nancy Florence Buirski was an American filmmaker, producer, and photographer. She wrote, directed, and produced the documentary films A Crime on the Bayou (2020) and Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (2022).
The Disrupted is a 2020 American documentary film, directed by Sarah Colt and Josh Gleason. Colt also served as one of the film's producers. The movie focuses on America's middle class, which the directors state is becoming increasingly impoverished and is struggling to make ends meet.
Acasă, My Home is a 2020 German/Romanian/Finnish documentary film directed by Radu Ciorniciuc. The film is about nine children and their parents who lived in harmony with nature in the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta for 20 years until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city. It was filmed in the course of 4 years, with production starting in 2016. As the movie progresses, it follows the evolution of the family’s life throughout the years of living in the capital. “The 11 family members lived in isolation from society: without documents, without education or access to health care. Now, all nine children in the Enache family have documents, go to school, are seen regularly by doctors, and adults have stable jobs.”
China: A Century of Revolution is a series of television documentary films about the history of China in the 20th century. Produced by Ambrica Productions for PBS, the films were written and directed by Sue Williams and first aired in the United States from 1989 to 1997. The first installment, China in Revolution, 1911–1949, was broadcast on September 27, 1989. The second installment, The Mao Years, 1949–1976, was broadcast on April 13, 1994. The third installment, Born Under the Red Flag, 1976–1997, was broadcast on July 9, 1997.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, or simply Bardo, is a 2022 Mexican epic psychological black comedy-drama film co-written, co-scored, edited, produced, and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The film stars Daniel Giménez Cacho alongside Griselda Siciliani, and follows a journalist/documentarian who returns to his native country of Mexico and begins having an existential crisis in the form of dreamlike visions. The title refers to the Buddhist concept of the bardo, a liminal state between death and rebirth. It is Iñárritu's first film to be fully filmed in Mexico since Amores perros in 2000.
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol, it was initially intended to be an in-person/virtual hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022, it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor of a wholly virtual festival due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 9, 2021.
Costa Brava, Lebanon is a 2021 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Mounia Akl from a screenplay by Akl and Clara Roquet. It stars Nadine Labaki, Saleh Bakri, Nadia Charbel, Ceana Restom, Geana Restom, Liliane Chacar Khoury, Yumna Marwan and Francois Nour.
Becoming Cousteau is a 2021 American documentary film directed and produced by Liz Garbus. It follows the life and career of Jacques Cousteau.
The Rescue is a 2021 documentary film directed and produced by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. It follows the Tham Luang cave rescue, a 2018 mission that saved a junior association football team from an underwater cave.
Jeff Lipsky is an American screenwriter and film director. He has written and directed such films as Flannel Pajamas (2006), Twelve Thirty (2011), Molly's Theory of Relativity (2013), Mad Women (2015) and The Last (2019). He is also one of the co-founders of the now-defunct film distribution studio October Films.
The 60th New York Film Festival took place from September 30 to October 16, 2022. Noah Baumbach's White Noise was selected to be the Opening Night film of the festival, while Laura Poitras' documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was chosen to be NYFF's Centerpiece. Elegance Bratton's 47th Toronto International Film Festival premiere movie, The Inspection, was selected to be New York Film Festival's closing film, while James Gray's 75th Cannes Film Festival premiered movie, Armageddon Time, was selected to be the festival's celebration movie for its 60th anniversary.
Saint Omer is a 2022 French legal drama film directed by Alice Diop and starring Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda. It is Diop's first narrative feature after working as a documentary filmmaker. In the film, Rama (Kagame) is a pregnant young novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Malanda), a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her 15-month-old child by leaving her on a beach to be swept away by the tide, in order to turn the tragic event into a literary retelling of Medea. It is based on the French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of the same crime. Diop attended Kabou's trial in 2016.
Gasoline Rainbow is a 2023 American drama film, written, directed, shot, and edited by the Ross brothers. It stars Tony Abuerto, Micah Bunch, Nichole Dukes, Nathaly Garcia and Makai Garza.
