Cinema Guild announced today the acquisition of all distribution rights to Jem Cohen's extraordinary new documentary "Counting" ahead of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Cohen's previous film, the award-winning indie hit "Museum Hours," was released by Cinema Guild in 2013. "Counting" will open in theaters later this year.
"Counting" also marks the first film to be handled by Cinema Guild's new international sales unit. Known for releasing innovative and acclaimed independent films in the U.S., the sales unit will be dedicated to bringing these same films to the global market, working to secure theatrical, broadcast and digital releases in international territories.
"Counting" is composed of fifteen distinct but interconnected chapters, shot in locations from Russia to New York City to Istanbul. Together, they build to a reckoning at the intersection of city symphony, diary, and essay film. Perhaps the most personal of Cohen's documentary works, "Counting" measures street life, light, and time, noting not only surveillance and overdevelopment but resistance and its phantoms as manifested in music, animals and everyday magic.
Jem Cohen commented: "After their extraordinary work with
Museum Hours, I am thrilled to team with CG again. I consider them true comrades in film rather than mere business associates, and with 'Counting' I valued their input and ideas from the inception of the project. I look forward to carrying this collaboration forward to new and interesting places."
"We'd happily work on any film from Jem, sight unseen," added Ryan Krivoshey. "So we're thrilled to be releasing another film with him. 'Counting' is a beautiful, singular, deeply resonant work. Like Jem's others shorts and features, it is rooted in a firm documentary tradition yet is wonderfully transgressive and simply unlike any other film being made today. We're eager for audiences around the world to see and experience 'Counting.'"
"Counting" screens at the Berlinale on Monday at 8pm, Tuesday at 10pm, Wednesday at 4:15pm and Saturday (2/14) at 9:30pm.
New-York based, Cohen's feature-length films include "Museum Hours" (released by Cinema Guild), "Chain," "Benjamin Smoke," "Instrument" and "Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin." Shorts include "Lost Book Found," "Amber City," "Little Flags" and "Anne Truitt – Working." His films are in the collections of NYC's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum and have been broadcast by PBS, Arte, and the Sundance Channel. He's had retrospectives at London's NFT, BAFICI, Oberhausen, Gijon, and Spain's Punto de Vista. Recent projects include the "Gravity Hill Newsreels" (about Occupy Wall Street) and "We Have an Anchor," a portrait of Cape Breton. He has collaborated with musicians including Fugazi, Patti Smith, Terry Riley, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Gil Shaham/Orpheus Orchestra, R.E.M., Vic Chesnutt, and the Ex, as well as writer Luc Sante.
The deal was negotiated by Ryan Krivoshey of Cinema Guild with director Jem Cohen.
Cinema Guild is a distributor of independent, foreign and documentary films. Upcoming releases include Lisandro Alonso's "Jauja" starring Viggo Mortensen, Asghar Farhadi's "About Elly," Matias Pineiro's "The Princess of France" and Pedro Costa's "Horse Money."
Recent releases include Sergei Loznitsa's "Maidan," Robert Greene's "Actress," Tsai Ming-Liang's "Stray Dogs," Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez's "Manakamana" and Lav Diaz' "Norte, The End of History."