Vinegar Syndrome Reveals New Partner Label Releases
Posted February 1, 2022 08:35 PM by Webmaster
Vinegar Syndrome has announced and detailed twelve new partner label releases that will be available for purchase later this month. Amongst them are: Cain and Abel (1982), Bilitis (1977), Delta Space Mission (1984), I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018), and The American Scream (1988). All titles will be available for purchase on February 22.
Named after Yasujiro Ozu's custom-made, tatami-level, crab-like tripod, Kani is a new home video label dedicated to leveling the gaze and furthering the understanding of Asian cinema in North America. Focused on genre-defying films, Kani aims to expand the canon, bolster up-and-coming filmmakers and reintroduce repertory classics in context. Vinegar Syndrome's sister company, OCN Distribution, is thrilled to be representing this diverse and unique home video line!
Firstborn Lorens (Phillip Salvador) toils the land by buffalo while Ellis (Christopher de Leon), the apple of his mother's eye, is given a university education in Manila. When the latter returns to the family's hacienda with a metropolitan fiancée in tow (Carmi Martin), the domineering Señora Pina (Mona Lisa) immediately disapproves. Looking to reassert her influence, she asks her youngest to name his inheritance. Ellis claims the land – which sparks a family feud that invites tragedy and boils over into all-out filial war.
Penned by the prolific screenwriter Ricardo "Ricky" and directed by Lino Brocka on the heels of masterpieces such as WEIGHED BUT FOUND WANTING (1974), MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT (1975) and INSIANG (1976) – the first Filipino film to play at the Cannes Festival – CAIN AND ABEL is a powerful examination of the landed class and its frontier justice. Part high-pitched melodrama; part allegory for the rampant bellicosity of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos; part timeless Biblical retelling, with nods to Sam Peckinpah's 1971 STRAW DOGS, Brocka's lush actioner is a powerful introduction to the pulpier side of the National Artist of the Philippines.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
CAIN & ABEL: AN APPRECIATION (2022, 12MINS): NEW FEATURETTE BY JOSÉ B. CAPINO
INTERVIEW WITH CARMI MARTIN (2022, 13 MINS)
INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHER DE LEON (2022, 16 MINS)
BOOKLET INCLUDING "UNRIGHTEOUS KIN" NEW WRITING ON CAIN AND ABEL BY JOSÉ B. CAPINO, SELECT ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, AND NOTES & ANNOTATIONS BY RICKY LEE
Taking its name from the ironic moniker for late 1960s and '70s New York, Fun City Editions is a new boutique label focused on reissues of maverick repertory cinema and music that can best be described as works that exist "outside of their time." Spanning an array of genres, artists and countries, but with a unifying focus on forgotten and overlooked treasures, each Fun City release, be it a Blu-ray or vinyl LP, will present new restorations and comprehensive extras which contextualize and illuminate the artistic and historic value of the piece. Vinegar Syndrome's sister company, OCN Distribution, is thrilled to be representing this diverse and unique home video line!
Cult favorite Patti D'Arbanville (Andy Warhol's Flesh, Big Wednesday and Rancho Deluxe) essays the title role in Bilitis, the directorial debut of photographer David Hamilton. Based on the erotic nineteenth century poetry of Pierre Louÿs, the film's script was co-written by filmmaker and novelist Catherine Breillat (A Real Young Girl and Fat Girl). Spending the summer in the French countryside with elegant and beautiful family friend Barbara (Mona Kristensen), young Bilitis comes of age and learns valuable—if sometimes painful—lessons about intimacy, romance and love. D'Arbanville, who had been part of Warhol's Factory and was the inspiration for some of Cat Stevens' most beloved songs, effectively plays the sheltered young woman who becomes steadily wiser as the story progresses. The film is considerably elevated by the sumptuous score by famed French composer Francis Lai (Love Story and A Man and a Woman), which became a worldwide best-selling record. Hamilton's trademark soft focus photographic style is faithfully rendered on film by the cinematography of Bernard Daillencourt (Walerian Borowczyk's Immoral Tales, La Marge and The Beast). Bilitis has been richly restored in 4K, from the original camera negative, for this first-ever North American Blu-ray edition.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Video interview with camera operator Noël Very
Newly recorded audio commentary by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
Imagine an early Eighties Eastern European space-prog album high on sugary breakfast cereal, "Heavy Metal" magazine, Hanna-Barbera cartoons and 8-bit arcade games like Galaxian and Asteroids, and you have some idea of the otherworldly weirdness of the Romanian animated sci-fi film DELTA SPACE MISSION. In the year 3084, a Modigliani-esque alien journalist with blue-green skin, Alma, boards a state-of-the-art spacecraft named Delta – whose highly advanced computer brain develops a mad teenage crush on her with disastrous results. An incredibly strange and strangely beautiful work of galactic eye candy, DELTA SPACE MISSION defies all rules of perspective and logic, like M.C. Escher and Moebius teaming up on a Romanian Saturday morning cartoon. Fueled by an addictive Perry-Kingsley like electronic synth score by Calin Ioachimescu, DELTA SPACE MISSION grooves along folding space and time, an early Eighties Euro disco perched on the edge of a Black Hole. With its egg-shaped spaceships, giant floating triangles and anthropomorphic computer, the film also brings to mind Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Rene Laloux's FANTASTIC PLANET and the work of the Strugatsky Brothers (STALKER).
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K SCAN FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE by the Romanian Film Archive and CNC – Romanian Film Centre, with digital restoration by Craig Rogers of Deaf Crocodile Films
New interview with DELTA SPACE MISSION co-director Călin Cazan (40 min., in English)
Two newly restored episodes from the DELTA SPACE MISSION short film series: "Planeta Oceanelor / The Planet of the Oceans" (1980, 7 min.) and "Recuperare ratata / Failed Towing" (1981, 7 min.), both directed by Victor Antonescu
New commentary track by Kat Ellinger, author, film critic and editor-in-chief for Diabolique magazine
New booklet essay by comics artist, editor and publisher Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing)
Culture Shock Releasing is the the union of Lo-Fi Video and Verboden Video, dedicated to preserving genre and cult movies shot on video and film and releasing them on blu-ray, with a heavy focus on films from the 80s and 90s. Vinegar Syndrome's sister company, OCN Distribution, is thrilled to be representing Culture Shock Releasing's brand new line of home video releases!
Meet the Benzigers! They're the average American family - two unruly teenagers, a stressed out father, and a cloying mother. They're taking the classic American Christmas vacation, at the perfect mountain resort. But the strange residents of Wilson Creek have something else planned... something gruesome. This family trip will be a trip to hell, and no one will ever be the same again!
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Introduction to the film from director Mitchell Linden
Feature length commentary with director Mitchell Linden and star Kevin Kaye
Restored promotional teaser used for foreign film markets
Reel Collections with Edward Beasley podcast episode "The Making of The American Scream"
A woman's panicked decision to cover up an accidental killing spirals out of control when her conscience demands she return the dead man's body to his family.
"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians" - these were the words spoken by Romania's military dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Council of Ministers in the summer of 1941 that started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front.
One of contemporary Europe's most distinctive creators, Jude has come out with an ingeniously conceived film. While it unfolds slowly and in detail, it hits the viewer with a singular emotional punch.
"I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS" chronicles a young theatre director's efforts to stage an accurate re-enactment of the Odessa Massacre - in which Romanian soldiers slaughtered tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews - despite the municipal government's attempt to censor the director's efforts. Her choice angers a city official who threatens to close the production because of its "anti-Romanian" take on history. However, the reaction to the staged play is one that neither anticipated. This internationally- acclaimed dark satire is a timely statement about the consequences of selective and willful amnesia on a society fueled by populist sentiments.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
Introduction by director Radu Jude
THE MARTIAL'S TWO EXECUTIONS - short film by director Radu Jude
Three small town ne'er-do-wells hit the jackpot when they discover they hold the winning ticket to a €6 million lottery prize, only to discover the winning ticket is... nowhere to be found. This begins a madcap hunt for the two petty criminals who stole the fanny-pack containing the lucky scrap of paper. Paranoid potheads, would-be singers, exotic prostitutes, enterprising clairvoyants, and even a colorblind policeman cross their paths, generating one hilarious set piece after another. A buddy comedy produced on a shoestring budget, starring three of the most recognizable faces in Romanian movies, Paul Negoescu's second feature merges a stoner's shaggy-dog story with the sophisticated, intensely realistic style that has made that country's cinema one of the most enduring national film movements in the world. Think PINEAPPLE EXPRESS by way of Abbas Kiarostami.
Standing defiantly apart from the political ambitions of the Romanian New Wave, Paul Negoescu's debut feature is an impeccably observed comedy of errors and warm portrayal of contemporary Bucharest nightlife. Perfectly capturing the feeling of post-holiday year end ennui, A MONTH IN THAILAND orbits around it's sad-sack hero's misadventures on New Year's Eve. A twilight odyssey through buffet-style restaurants with bad karaoke and clubs pumping out dance remixes of "The Power of Love". Perpetually falling in and out of love, caught between paying cursory attention to his current girlfriend, with whom he's about to take the titular trip in the new year, and longing for his former one, who seems to shadow him at every party. A bittersweet story of longing, regret, and indecisiveness.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC SET
English subtitles for both film
TWO LOTTERY TICKETS:
MONICA COMES BACK (2014) - Short Film
Video Introductions by Filmmaker Paul Negoescu
Theatrical Trailer
Booklet Essay by Mihai Chirilov, Artistic Director of the Transilvania International Film Festival
A MONTH IN THAILAND:
Audio Commentary featuring Filmmaker Paul Negoescu, Co-Writer Vlad Trandafir, and Editor Alexandru Radu
One of the most visionary artists to arise from the pre-digital, shot on video underground, director Charles Pinion's awe-inspiring features fearlessly blurred the lines between punk rock, Cinema of Transgression, avant-garde surrealism, pornography and backyard splatter films. Saturn's Core is proud to present two of Pinion's most daring works with newly reconstructed, director approved restorations from the original analog master tapes.
Red Spirit Lake (1993): After a vengeful sorceress is tortured and killed by a corrupt industrialist looking to harnass the spectral powers of Red Spirit Lake, her niece arrives in snow covered Angel Falls to settle her aunt's estate. A meditation on The Old Dark House replete with UFO abductions, castration, frank nudity, witchcraft, fatal fistings, and slughterous saunas; Red Spirit Lake is a cacophony of subversive hyper violence, psychotic surrealism, salacious sexual choas, and picturesque winter vistas featuring acting performances by a cavalcade of legendary Cinema of Transgression era artists and filmmakers including Richard Kern, Holly Adams, Kembra Pfahler, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, and Tommy Turner as well as an insurgent soundtrack featuring music by Cop Shoot Cop, Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin, and The Lunachicks.
We Await (1996): A con artist is held captive by an unhinged cannibal family that ingests copious quantities of hallucinogenic, green fungal goo covertly harnessed from an otherworldly, sentient crystal housed in their third third floor apartment of horrors. Featuring a man who willfully chooses to be a dog, sexual stimulation via blowtorch, and a corpulent, nude and blood soaked Godzilla-sized Jesus; We Await is a shot on video, urban riff on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that slowly descends into a psycho sexual, drug-fueled, analog aurora borealis nightmare like no other. Starring director Pinion, adult filmmaker David Aaron Clark, visual artist Alyssa Taylor Wendt, and boasting a blistering soundtrack featuring music by Crash Worship, Neurosis, and Unsane.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
BRAND NEW RESTORATIONS OF BOTH FILMS from the original master tapes supervised by director Charles Pinion
Two audio commentaries with director Charles Pinion moderated by Mike Hunchback of Seminal Psychosis
"Red Reason to Live" - an interview with director Charles Pinion on Red Spirit Lake
"Psychic Powerful" - an interview with director Charles Pinion on We Await
"Dissection of a Shot" & "Disembowelment of a Shot" - raw footage featurettes
"Spirit Drive" - original excerpt from We Await
"Sprit Drive Document" - making of featurette
"Madball" (1988) - a 16mm short by Charles Pinion
"Making of Madball" - behind the scenes featurette
"Try Again" (2015) - a short film by Charles Pinion
Video Pharmacy exclusive deleted scenes and outtakes
Music video and other rare footage from the Pinion vault
Charles Pinion trailer reel
"Blood Video: Charles Pinion Edition" - 28 page booklet designed by Matt Desiderio of Horror Boobs featuring a career spanning interview with Charles Pinion conducted by Mike Hunchback
Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Corinne Halbert
Ham on Rye, a coming-of-age comedy centered on the nervous excitement of youth and the strange horror of entering adulthood, uses an expansive ensemble of over one hundred performers, including non-actors, musicians, 90's Nickelodeon child stars, and more to explore a suburban community's relationship with a prom-like ritual and the decay of the human spirit. It begins with the crowd-pleasing spirit of a John Hughes movie and fades slowly into an off-kilter dystopia with the energy of Dazed and Confused.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
EXCLUSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT (AVAILABLE ONLY ON BLU-RAY
Filmmaker Commentary with Tyler Taormina, Carson Lund and Kevin Anton
Deleted Scenes
The Making of Ham on Rye
Original Trailer
Essays by director Tyler Taormina and cinematographer Carson Lund
Quiet City (2006): Shot in Brooklyn in 2006, the Independent Spirit Award-nominated Quiet City is a gentle masterpiece of naturalistic performances and poetic cinematography. Jamie (Erin Fisher) arrives in New York to visit a friend, but the friend is nowhere to be found. Charlie (Cris Lankenau) has just quit his job and isn't sure what's next in life. Their paths cross late at night on an empty subway platform. From this chance encounter, an unlikely connection is formed. They spend twenty-four hours together drifting to and from diners, parks, art galleries, and parties. Inflected with melancholy and hopefulness, Aaron Katz's second feature is a fully realized work of truly independent American cinema.
Dance Party, USA (2007): In Dance Party, USA, Katz's impressionistic and audacious debut, apathetic teens Jessica (Anna Kavan) and Gus (Cole Pensinger) connect for a fleeting moment at a 4th of July party. Their relationship grows more complex when Gus reveals a disturbing secret. Delving into dark territory, Dance Party, USA is a raw, honest portrayal of teens struggling to confront questions of looming adulthood and sexual violence.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
No Grasp on Reality: A new conversation between director Aaron Katz and David Lowery, recorded in 2021
So Much Sheer Will: A new conversation with Kris Rey, Aaron Katz and the cast of Dance Party, USA, recorded in 2021
In Love with the Process: A new conversation with Barry Jenkins, Aaron Katz and the cast of Quiet City, recorded in 2021
In a snow drenched Moscow, Misha wakes up each night and sleepwalks right out of his apartment. Running out of options to cure him his parents decide to try hypnosis with the renowned psychotherapist Doctor Volkov. Over a number of sessions the 'unhypnotizable' Misha meets other patients of Volkov including the beautiful Polina and starts to wonder if Volkov is manipulating them beyond his ethical limits. When Polina suddenly goes missing Misha begins an investigation, but what if the one being manipulated is Misha himself? Prolific filmmaker Valeriy Todorovskiy harnesses stunning cinematography of Russia in winter along with a truly haunting and hypnotic score to bring us deep within Misha's complex coming-of-age.
Best friends Sadie and McKayla are on a mission to boost their social media fandom as amateur crime reporters hot on the trail of a deranged local serial killer. After they manage to capture the killer and secretly hold him hostage, they realize the best way to up get scoops on future victims would be to, you know, murder people themselves. As the @TragedyGirls become an overnight sensation and panic grips their small town, can their friendship survive the strain of national stardom? Will they get caught? Will their accounts get verified?
Special Features and Technical Specs:
New interview with director and co-writer Tyler MacIntyre, recorded in 2021
New interview with co-writer Chris Lee Hill, recorded in 2021
Never before seen behind the scenes footage
Commentary with director Tyler MacIntyre and co-writer Chris Lee Hill
New commentary with authors and academics Kat Ellinger, Lindsay Halam and Miranda Corcoran
Q&A at Screamfest
Red Carpet interviews - Screamfest
Behind the scenes: Cheerleaders, hottie deaths, and cars
Behind the scenes of Tragedy Girls' most gruesome death