Kino Lorber (Firm)

LIGHTNING OVER BRADDOCK: A RUSTBOWL FANTASY is as eccentric a picture of America as has emerged in the last two decades. Like Buba’s earlier short films, it chronicles the decline of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a hard-luck town which once flourished as “Pittsburgh’s shopping center.” It concerns a director (Buba, playing himself) trying, without much success, to make a movie with a crazy street hustler named Sal, who considers himself responsible...

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.

A STATE OF MIND follows two North Korean schoolgirls and their families in the lead up to the "Mass Games" — the biggest and most elaborate human performance on earth — and in the process reveals more of North Korea than ever before. Following on from the 2002 award-winning documentary The Game of Their Lives, VeryMuchSo productions was granted permission from the North Korean film authorities to make a second documentary: an observational...

When a Chinese-American police officer kills an innocent, unarmed Black man in a darkened stairwell of a New York City housing project, it sets off a firestorm of emotion and calls for accountability. When he becomes the first NYPD officer convicted of an on-duty shooting in over a decade, the fight for justice becomes complicated, igniting one of the largest Asian-American protests in history, disrupting a legacy of solidarity, and putting an uneven...

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...

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 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...

Loving Highsmith is a unique look at the life of celebrated American author Patricia Highsmith based on her diaries and notebooks and the intimate reflections of her lovers, friends and family. Focusing on Highsmith’s quest for love and her troubled identity, the film sheds new light on her life and writing. Most of Highsmith’s novels were adapted for the big screen; the best known of these are Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley....

This entirely African American-conceived and produced ensemble drama is the result of a collaboration of a pair of pioneering Black artists: writer Ishmael Reed and filmmaker Bill Gunn, who wrote and directed the underground classic Ganja & Hess and wrote the screenplay for Hal Ashby's The Landlord.  Originally intended to air on public television in 1980, it went unseen for many years; the original tapes have been carefully restored and the film...

BOATMAN is Gianfranco Rosi's account of a boattrip along the Ganges river, together with his helmsman Gopal. They pass tourists and Indians who are bathing, working or meditating. In a series of small portraits Rosi depicts life on and at the banks of India's sacred river.