Metrograph Pictures, in association with Kino Lorber, will bring to Blu-ray Downtown 81 (2000). The release will be available for purchase on March 24.
Synopsis: In 1981, writer and Warhol associate Glenn O'Brien, Swiss photographer Edo Bertoglio, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a graffiti innovator and noise music artist who'd just begun to exhibit his paintings, hit the streets of lower Manhattan to make a movie about the bombed out bohemia that they knew, with a script by O'Brien, Bertoglio directing, and Basquiat, a naturally compelling presence, starring. Left incomplete due to money problems and assembled for release in 2000, Downtown 81, which follows Basquiat trying to move a painting while hustling for a place to sleep, became a window on a lost world of life on the margins and crazy creative ferment.
Starring Jean-Michel Basquiat. Featuring Fab 5 Freddy, Deborah Harry. With musical performances by DNA, James White and the Blacks, Kid Creole and the Coconuts.
Special Features:
Audio commentary with writer Luc Sante and artist Lee Quiñones
*Downtown 81: The Metrograph Oral History by Horacio Silva