Emily Dickinson story, A QUIET PASSION, Releases on DVD/BD on July 1

Acclaimed actress Cynthia Nixon delivers a triumphant performance as the great 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson in the richly detailed biographical portrait A QUIET PASSION, written and directed by the renowned British filmmaker Terence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea).
In a highly lauded star turn, Cynthia Nixon (Sex and The City franchise) personifies the wit, intellectual independence and pathos of the poet whose genius only came to be recognized after her death. A QUIET PASSION exquisitely evokes Dickinson's deep attachment to her close-knit family along with the manners, mores and spiritual convictions of her time that she struggled with and transcended in her poetry, leading to her later years as a brilliant but reclusive and unrecognized artist.
Also featured in the film are such talents as Jennifer Ehle (Contagion, Zero Dark Sixty) and Keith Carradine (TV’s Madame Secretary), who take on the roles of Emily’s sister and father, respectively.

Frantz Arrives on DVD/BD on June 13

At once a mysterious, romantic period piece and a somber, soul-searching melodrama, FRANTZ presents a tale of love and reflection as it unfurls in a small German town in the days following World War I through the memories and relationships of loved ones left behind. It is the latest acclaimed film from the prolific French writer/director François Ozon, whose previous critical and commercial successes in the U.S. include Swimming Pool ($10 million domestic box office), 8 Women ($3 million) and Potiche ($1.6 million).

Set in Germany and France in the aftermath of the First World War, FRANTZ recalls the mourning period that follows great national tragedies as seen through the eyes of the war’s “lost generation.” They are Anna (21 year-old Paula Beer in a breakthrough performance), a bereft young German woman whose fiancé, Frantz, was killed during trench warfare, and Adrien (Pierre Niney, Yves Saint Laurent), a French war veteran who shows up mysteriously in Anna’s town, placing flowers on Frantz’s grave. Adrien's presence is met with resistance by the small community still reeling from Germany’s defeat, yet Anna gradually gets closer to the handsome and melancholy young man, as she learns of his deep friendship with Frantz. What follows is an exploration of how Anna and Adrien wrestle with their conflicting feelings - survivor’s guilt, anger at one’s losses, the overriding desire for renewed happiness, and the longing for sexual, romantic and familial attachments.

 Ozon drew his inspiration from a post-WWI play by Maurice Rostand that inspired the 1932 film adaption by Ernst Lubitsch under the title Broken Lullaby. Not surprisingly, Ozon was initially leery about the prospect of “remaking” a film by the late, great filmmaker.

A MAN CALLED OVE Arrives on DVD/BD on December 27

Sweden’s official entry for the best foreign language film at the 89th Academy Awards, A  MAN CALLED OVE arrives on DVD, Blu-ray on December 27, 2016 (preorder November 22, 2016) by Music Box Films Home     Entertainment. Based on the international best-selling novel by Fredrik Backman, A MAN CALLED OVE is the film adaptation written and directed by Hannes Holm, which tells the story of an ill-tempered, easily-provoked old man whose world is shaken in ways he never would have imagined.
A MAN CALLED OVE (official trailer below) is one of Sweden’s most successful domestic films of all time and will be one of top grossing foreign language art house releases in the US this year with over 200 engagements in all major markets and a projected box office of nearly $2 million. A MAN CALLED OVE is also one of the best reviewed films of the year with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%.

With his irresistible adaptation and sterling direction, filmmaker Holm finds the beating heart of his source material, while Swedish star Rolf Lassgård, whose performance won him the Best Actor Award at the 2016 Seattle International Film Festival, affectingly embodies the lovable curmudgeon Ove.

MIA MADRE Announced for November 15 DVD/BD Release

The latest film from the acclaimed Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti (Caro Diaro, The Son’s Room), MIA MADRE offers a characteristically wry blend of drama and humor as it tells the tale of a movie director attempting to balance the demands of her latest movie and her crisis-filled personal life.  

MIA MADRE stars Margherita Buy, who won a David di Donatello Award for her role, and John Turturro, who most recently starred in the highly lauded HBO miniseries The Night Of. 

Filled with laughter, tears and layers of emotion that can be found between the two, MIA MADRE sets its eye on Margherita Buy as she portrays an Italian filmmaker coincidentally named Margherita. Poor Margherita: She’s shooting her latest film while she tries to stave off a nervous breakdown as she simultaneously contends with a charming but difficult American actor (Turturro), a romantic break-up, a non-communicative teenage daughter (Beatrice Mancini) and her beloved mother’s (Giulia Lazzarini) progressive illness.

Moretti—who also portrays Margherita’s brother and partner-in-caregiving—carefully crafts MIA MADRE with a style that is as strong and unassumingly direct as it is subtle and understated. Examining how we process sadness and loss and how we gain strength through humor, the film toggles between work and life pressures in a manner that effectively combines all that the two have to offer, be they heavy moments or playful encounters or tender humor or, inevitably, tragedy and sorrow.

Currently enjoying a theatrical rollout to the U.S.’s top markets following its exhibition at leading film festivals in New York, Toronto, Shanghai, San Sebastián, Chicago, Jerusalem and Cannes (where it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival), MIA MADRE will be released on DVD, Blu-ray) for the first time on November 15, 2016 (orders on October 11, 2016) by Music Box Films Home Entertainment. Outfitted with a “making-of” documentary, deleted scenes and additional bonus features, the Blu-ray and DVD carry suggested retail prices of $34.95 and $29.95, respectively.

Filled with the happiness, sadness and comic frustration that bind us all together, MIA MADRE is truly a film that questions whether any of us know exactly how to react when life says “Action.”

MIA MADRE -- Synopsis:   
Leading Italian auteur Nanni Moretti finds comedy and pathos in the story of Margherita, a harried film director (Margherita Buy, A Five Star Life) trying to juggle the demands of her latest movie and a personal life in crisis. The star of her film, a charming but hammy American actor (John Turturro, HBO’s The Night Of) imported for the production, initially presents nothing but headaches and her crew is close to mutiny. Away from the shoot, Margherita tries to hold her life together as her beloved mother’s illness progresses, and her teenage daughter grows ever more distant.    
MIA MADRE premiered in the Main Competition of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where it won Ecumenical Jury prize while Margherita Buy received the Best Actress prize at Italy’s 2015 Donatello Awards. Characteristically self-reflexive and autobiographical, Moretti’s latest speaks to the poignancy of human transience, how we process loss and how we gain strength through humor.     

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT to DVD on October 25th

 PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT presents a feature-length chronicle about the life of Peggy Guggenheim, the collector, gallerist and Guggenheim family heiress who became a leading figure in the modern art movement as she assembled one of the world’s great troves of modern art and releases on DVD on October 25, 2016 from Music Box Home Entertainment.

The second feature directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel), PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT reveals Guggenheim to be a remarkably vibrant character who was not only ahead of her time but helped to define it. As she moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century, she collected not only art, but artists. Her colorful personal history included trysts, affairs and marriages with such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp as well as many others. While also fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, which is today enshrined in her famous Venetian palazzo. Ultimately, PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT gives stunning insight into modern art and its most illustrious figures, while celebrating the formidable woman who brought them to fame.

The Innocents; One of the best rated and top box office performing Foreign Language releases of the year is coming to Blu-ray, DVD on September 27 from Music Box Films.

THE INNOCENTS is director Anne Fontaine’s haunting and ultimately life affirming post-WWII drama about a young, forward-thinking French Red Cross doctor who comes to the aid of a group of traumatized young Polish nuns whose lives and faith have been dangerously tested. THE INNOCENTS is based on the true story of heroic French doctor and Resistance fighter Madeleine Pauliac.

The second World War is finally over and doctor Mathilde (rising star Lou de Laage) is treating the last of the French survivors of Nazi work camps in Poland. When a panicked Benedictine nun appears at the clinic begging Mathilde to follow her back to the convent, what she finds there is shocking: a holy sister about to give birth and several more in advanced stages of pregnancy. A non-believer, Mathilde enters the sisters’ fiercely private world, dictated by the rituals of their order and the strict Rev. Mother (Agata Kulesza, Ida). Fearing the shame of exposure, the hostility of the occupying Soviet troops and local Polish communists the nuns increasingly turn to Mathilde as they face an unprecedented crisis of faith.

Director Fontaine based her story on the diaries of Madeleine Pauliac that document the little known but, by most independent accounts, widespread sexual violence that occurred throughout Poland and elsewhere on the Eastern Front in the wake of the advancing Soviet Red. Army. “I was immediately taken with the story” says director Anne Fontaine. “I wanted to get as close as possible to what would have been happening within these women.”

Following its strong box office opening in NY and LA last month, THE INNOCENTS expanded to more than 150 engagements throughout the summer, and will make its nationwide debut via DVD, Blu-ray beginning September 27, 2016 (pre-book August 23rd). Filled with bonus materials including a “Making of” and an interview with filmmaker Anne Fontaine, the Blu-ray and DVD carry suggested retail prices of $34.95 and $29.95, respectively.

THE INNOCENTS had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is among the most critically lauded releases of the year with a 92% rating and “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was a “Critics’ Pick” of The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Village Voice syndicate.  

The Innocents

Music Box Films Home Entertainment 
DVD RELEASE DATE: September 27, 2016 
PRE-ORDER DATE: August 23, 2016 
Price: DVD $29.95 SLP; Blu-ray $34.95SLP 
Director: Anne Fontaine
Screenwriters: Sabrina B. Karine, Alice Vial 
Cast: Lou de Laâge, Agata Buzek, Agata Kulesza, Vincent Macaigne, Joanna Kulig, Eliza Rycembel, Anna Prochniak, Katarzyna Dabrowska 
Running Time: 113 minutes  
Format: 1.85:1 
Sound Format: 5.1 Dolby Digital 
Rating: PG-13 
Country: France 
Language: French and Polish w/ English subtitles





Bonus Features
The Making of The Innocents
Director Q&A with Anne Fontaine
Interview with Anne Fontaine

Campy and Delightfully Decadent Comedy-horror THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE Arrives on DVD in September

THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE,  an uproariously funny, deliciously campy and delightfully decadent comedy-horror film from Austrian writer/director David Ruehm arrives on DVD in September from Music Box.

THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE spins the creepily comic tale of Count von Kozsnom (Tobias Moretti), a vampire in 1930s Vienna who, trapped in an eternally long marriage to the Countess Elsa von Kozsnom (Jeanette Hain), has lost his thirst for life. After seeking out marriage counseling from the legendary Dr. Sigmund Freud (Karl Fischer), The Count, in an effort to appease his vain wife’s desire to see her own reflection, commissions a portrait of her by his assistant Viktor (Dominic Oley), an aspiring painter. But it’s Viktor’s headstrong girlfriend Lucy (Cornelia Ivancan) who most intrigues The Count, convinced that she’s the reincarnation of his one true love. It doesn’t take too long for a wave of mistaken identities and misplaced affections to envelop the hapless group.

A cleverly crafted undead outing as well as a romantic mix-up comedy, THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE truly pierces the jugular as it pays homage to the glorious history of vampire films, while taking relentless stabs at psycho-therapy, relationships and the very notion of the vow “Till Death Do Us Part.”

FOUR PRIESTS ARE EXILED TO A SEASIDE TOWN TO ATONE FOR THEIR PAST SINS in THE CLUB

From acclaimed Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín (Academy Award Nominee, No) comes the highly lauded film THE CLUB, a taut, blackly comic drama that revolves around a group of priests that are exiled to a small village to atone for the sins of their pasts. Directed and co-written by Larraín, THE CLUB functions as an insightful commentary on individual responsibility and organized religion, as well as an artfully relevant examination of what happens when those two combustible elements are combined.

In a secluded house in a small Chilean seaside town live four unrelated men—Vidal (Alfredo Castro), Ramirez (Alejandro Sieveking), Silva (Jamie Vadell), and Ortega (Alejandro Goic)—and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile by the Catholic Church to purge their past sins, the separation from their communities being the worst form of punishment meted out by the Church. The men keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings. Their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican (Marcelo Alonso) who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation, along with a former victim of the priests’ abuse (Roberto Farias). Both bring with them the outside world from which the men have long been removed, and the secrets they had thought were deeply buried.

Where Spotlight, winner of the 2016 Best Picture Academy Award, follows the commendable efforts of the journalists in Boston who revealed the depth of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, Larraín uses his unique perspective and cinematic style to delve directly into the psyches of the men committing unspeakable crimes under the Church’s umbrella. As said by Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine of THE CLUB, a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, “For a brief, agonizing moment, you share the spiritual quicksand with these disgraced men.”

"Censured Voices" Get March 15 DVD Release

The historical Six-Day War of 1967, wherein Israel launched a preemptive strike against the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian troops amassed on its borders, is revisited and reconsidered in Mor Loushy’s extraordinary historical chronicle CENSORED VOICES, available on DVD March 15, 2016.

With its decisive victory over just a few short days, Israel nearly tripled its size with its newly occupied lands and, brimming with relief, joy and pride, a new national narrative of manifest destiny emerged. But drowned out by the euphoria, other voices—many of those who fought in the war—had something different to say. It is those voices that are heard in CENSORED VOICES.

One week after the Israeli-Arab conflict, Amos Oz (soon to be a celebrated author) and editor Avraham Shapira arranged to record conversations with returning soldiers about their experiences on the brief battlefield. These intensely candid interviews capture the young men wrestling with the question of the responsibility of the conqueror to the conquered (even when the shoe could easily have been on the other foot), the paradox of a people who fled oppression who must now oppress to preserve their security, and the still fervent hope for a lasting peace with their Arab neighbors.

Music Box Films Sets a March 1 DVD Release Date for FLOWERS

FLOWERS is an intensely poetic meditation on love, pain and memory, all expressed through the

metaphor of cut flowers, a typically simple gesture here charged with emotion Directed and co-written by Spain’s Jose Mari Goenaga and Jon Garaño, its themes are reflected through the unexpected reverberations of a tragedy that impacts three women very differently, while examining the all-too-human feelings associated with romance, loss, remembrance and missed connections.

Ane (Nagore Aranburu) lives a quietly unfulfilled life, trapped in a seemingly loveless marriage, until she suddenly begins to receive bouquets of flowers anonymously, once a week. Meanwhile, Tere (Itziar Aizpuru) wants nothing more than a grandchild, but her only son Beñat (Josean Bengoetxea) and his wife Lourdes (Itziar Ituño) have other plans. A sudden, tragic event jolts all of their lives into a new reality, and flowers start to appear anonymously once again, but this time, instead of passion, they represent an emotional memory.

“We live surrounded by flowers. Flowers at weddings, and at funerals, flowers on the table, flowers on walls, in a garden, or by the road. It’s as if we’re constantly turning to their image to say what often can’t be expressed in words. Few images serve to convey such a large variety of things. Depending on the context in which they’re given, the meaning of these flowers can change dramatically. And depending upon who sees them, or who receives them, the meaning can also differ,” offer filmmakers Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga. “FLOWERS arose from this ambiguity and these possible meanings. We found it interesting to explore how something like a bunch of flowers, at first so stripped of meaning, can become the clearest of messages.”

She's Beautiful When She's Angry Makes DVD Debut

SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is an insightful, rousing and often humorous account of the birth and rise of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s through to its contemporary manifestations in the new millennium. Following a nationwide theatrical release, the documentary makes its DVD debut on March 1, in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Directed by Mary Dore, SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY combines rarely-seen archival footage, a classic soundtrack of the era and the first-person stories of the protests, poetry slams and community meetings that engineered the women’s liberation movement and the meaningful social change it sought. Embracing the grassroots movement that proclaimed “the personal is political” and the women who dared to get furious about it, SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is not only a tribute to past bravery and determination, but also a warning and urgent rallying cry to the next wave of those determined to ensure equal rights for all.

Capturing the exhilaration felt by a generation of women who challenged and shed age-old gender role limitations in a surge of rebellious energy, SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY features commentary from such women’s issues activists and writers as Chude Pamela Allen, Judith Arcana, NonaWillis Aronowitz and Fran Beal. Despite episodes of internal discord, including challenges to leadership and disparity of focus, the movement nevertheless became the voice for the many strands feminism, from the particular demands of women of color to the struggles over issues of class and lesbian rights.

"How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)" to Get Re-release on DVD

Melvin Van Peebles' extraordinary life story reveals an artist and a man whose groundbreaking impact on film, politics and pop culture remains as relevant as ever. On the 45thAnniversary of his landmark 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song—the most successful independent film of its time and a watershed in African-American cinema—Melvin Van Peebles’ life and career are celebrated in a DVD re-issue of filmmaker Joe Angio’s 2005 documentary How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (and Enjoy It).

Taking its title after a never-published essay Mr. Van Peebles once wrote, How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (and Enjoy It) presents a multi-talented and wildly prolific man whose personal and professional résumé defies categorization. Boasting a life and career as diverse and unexpected as the art he’s best known for creating, Melvin Van Peebles is a trailblazer of the tallest order who has at turns made his living as a filmmaker, a Tony-nominated playwright, an Air Force navigator, a novelist in two languages, a pioneer of the rap genre, a floor trader at the American Stock Exchange and more.

Van Peebles was never deterred by opportunity that failed to knock; he’d simply build his own door and get on with it. After Hollywood rejected his early filmmaking efforts, his self-produced Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (which he wrote, produced, financed, directed, scored and starred in) earned more than $10 million at the box office and indelibly changed independent cinema forever.

GEMMA BOVERY Arrives on DVD/Blu-ray September 1

GEMMA BOVERY is the clever, modern new film from acclaimed director Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel), an adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ (Tamara Drewe) popular graphic novel of the same name, itself a contemporary re-working of Gustave Flaubert’s literary masterpiece Madame Bovary.

GEMMA BOVERY begins when earthy British beauty Gemma Bovery (Gemma Arterton, Tamara Drewe) and her husband Charlie (Jason Flemyng, X-Men: First Class) move to a charming old farmhouse in the very same Norman village where Flaubert’s classic was written a century earlier. Local baker and Flaubert expert Martin Joubert (Fabrice Luchini, Potiche) becomes entranced with Gemma—and it doesn't take long before he is drawing parallels between the literary and real-life women. Gemma catches the eye of a handsome local playboy (Niels Schneider, Chaos), and when her magnetic ex suddenly reappears, she seems to be fulfilling Joubert's worst fears that her destiny is linked to that of Flaubert’s doomed heroine.

At once a cheeky literary mash-up, a sensuous romance, a witty feminist commentary and a heady celebration of French provincial life, GEMMA BOVERY is highlighted by an outstanding performance from the increasingly popular Gemma Arterton. Director/co-writer Fontaine was thrilled to work with Gemma as she took on the role of Gemma.

THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED on DVD/BD

Powered by the antics of a mischievous centenarian on the run, the charming comic adventure THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED is a triumph, internationally acclaimed and filled with irreverent charm and high-spirited adventure.  Directed by Felix Herngren, THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED is based on the international bestseller of the same name by Jonas Jonasson, which has sold more than six million copies worldwide. Theatrically released in more than 40 countries, the film, which stars beloved Swedish comedian Robert Gustafsson, quickly became the highest-grossing domestic release in Sweden and continues to charm audiences across the globe.

THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED presents the tale of centenarian Allan Karlsson (Gustafson), a man who has spent his long and colorful life working in the munitions industry while getting entangled in historic events from the Spanish Civil War to the Manhattan Project. Finding himself stuck in a nursing home and determined to escape on his 100th birthday, Allan leaps out of a window and onto the nearest bus, kicking off an unexpected escapade involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some wicked criminals, and an elephant named Sonya.

Like an unruly Nordic cousin of Forrest Gump, THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED offers Allan’s present-day exploits alongside flashbacks of his youthful adventures, with his passion for explosives attracting the attention of everyone from Joseph Stalin to Robert Oppenheimer to Ronald Reagan. Allan’s adventures of yesterday and today weave together into a delicious treat for anyone and everyone who’s ever felt young at heart.

Rock Out with "Revenge of the Mekons" on DVD/BD

Revenge of the Mekons, the film rock-umentary charts the unlikely career of the genre-defying collective notorious for being, as rock critic Greil Marcus notes, "the band that took punk ideology most seriously." 

The group, born out of the 1977 British punk scene, progressed from a group of socialist art students with no musical skills to the prolific, raucous progeny of Hank Williams. Joe Angio's exuberant documentary of the Mekons follows their improbable history, a surprising and influential embrace of folk and country music; forays into the art world (collaborations with Vito Acconci and Kathy Acker); and consistent bad luck with major record labels.

The film arrives on DVD on July 28 via Music Box Films.