Check out these queer September releases from Kino Lorber
Kino Lorber has announced its September home video releases and they have a few additions to your entertainment collection.
Pad out your home movie collection just in time for Fall with some cinema gems from one of our favorite and most discerning international film distribution companies and its 4,000 titles.
The Latent Image (Dir. Alexander McGregor Birrell, 2022)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/12
Thriller writer Ben, struggling for inspiration, retreats to an isolated rural cabin to start on his latest novel and to escape the growing tension with his boyfriend Jamie. Working late into the night, he wakes to find a wounded man in the cabin, claiming to be a hunter whose car had broken down nearby. Intrigued and attracted to the mysterious and handsome intruder Ben decides to secretly use him as inspiration as the antagonist for his new book: a savage murder believed to have taken place in the very cabin he has rented.
As the man begins to help him enact increasingly dangerous and detailed scenarios for the story’s captive protagonist, Ben becomes aroused by the prospects, but finds himself rebuffed by a homophobic slur. Searching the man’s car, he uncovers stolen property belonging to several other young men hinting he may be a serial killer, a perfect twist for Ben’s novel. Discovering his own car sabotaged, and unable to escape, Ben enters a lethal game of cat and mouse. But it’s only when the fate of Ben’s boyfriend Jamie is revealed that Ben’s dark, erotic, fantasy becomes a stark, inescapable, reality.
Single, Out: Season 1 (Dir. Lee Galea, 2022)
Available on DVD 9/19
This infectiously fun and totally queer Aussie TV series from Lee Galea (Monster Pies) follows the tumultuous romantic love life of cute-as-a-button twink Adam (Will Hutchins) as he is surrounded by helpful friends and family. This is the complete Series 1. Bonus Features: Deleted Scenes and Bloopers
Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (Dir. Nancy Buirski, 2023)
Available on DVD and all major VOD platforms 9/5
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 gay film pioneer 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 depiction of a more realistic, unsanitized New York City and its inhabitants paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty movies with complex characters and adult themes.
But this is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy: it is about the deeply gifted and flawed people behind a dark and difficult masterpiece; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. Featuring extensive archival material and compelling new interviews, director Nancy Buirski illuminates how one film captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity.
Sisters with Transistors (Dir. Lisa Rovner, 2020)
Available on DVD and digitally on Kino Now and Amazon 9/26
The advent of electronic music in the 20th century was a radical break from all musical traditions that came before it. Narrated by legendary multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, Lisa Rovner’s superb Sisters with Transistors showcases the music of and rare interviews with female electronic pioneers Clara Rockmore, Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram, Éliane Radigue, Maryanne Amacher, Bebe Barron, Suzanne Ciani, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Spiegel, and Wendy Carlos. As Rovner’s documentary demonstrates, these women—many of whom were classically trained musicians, brilliant mathematicians, or a combination of both—relished the freedom of electronic music, even as they were discriminated against because of their gender and because of their chosen medium. Through their inventiveness and rebellion, these trailblazers’ music went on to influence musicians working in a variety of genres, and proved the worthiness of going electric.
Piccadilly (Dir. E. A. Dupont, 1929)
Available on Blu-ray, DVD and digitally on Kino Now 9/26
Tired of playing supporting roles in Hollywood, Anna May Wong traveled to Europe in search of better parts. And did she find one! Her electric, sexually charged performance in Piccadilly is a revelation. Wong is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese dishwasher who overnight becomes the toast of the town — and the object of every man’s desire. (Queer film historians know that Wong had intimate friendships with Marlene Dietrich and other women that led to rumors of lesbianism which damaged her career and Wong’s relationship with her family.) The camera adores Wong — her beauty glows in every frame. Piccadilly was the brilliant apex to director E. A. Dupont’s trilogy of theater films (Varieté and Moulin Rouge), showcasing his signature mix of great acting, dazzling imagery and balletic camera movements. Remastered by the BFI National Archive and presented in High Definition
Bonus Features: Audio commentary by film historian Farran Smith Nehme; Introduction to the 1929 sound version; Neil Brand on the score for Piccadilly; San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival panel: “Dangerous to Know: The Career and Legacy of Anna May Wong,” moderated by lesbian film academic B. Ruby Rich
