By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

KINO LORBER ACQUIRES SUNDANCE WINNER COMPUTER CHESS

Posted Friday, February 8th, 2013 - Comments Off on KINO LORBER ACQUIRES SUNDANCE WINNER COMPUTER CHESS
Be Sociable, Share!

“Artificially Intelligent” Comedy from Andrew Bujalski, winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, now slated for upcoming festivals and national theatrical release.

New York, NY – February 8, 2013 – Kino Lorber is pleased to announce that it has acquired all U.S. rights to Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess, which premiered last month at the Sundance Film Festival.  This fourth film from acclaimed indie auteur Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation, Beeswax) is an exceptionally inventive comedy that won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Award honoring a film whose theme is science or technology. It was also previously awarded a Tribeca Film Institute Sloan grant in 2012. Computer Chess will have its International Premiere next week at the Berlin Film Festival and will also be presented in the U.S. at the upcoming South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin.  A national theatrical release is planned for mid summer or early fall.

The film, described as an “artificially intelligent comedy,” is set over the course of a weekend tournament for chess software programmers, circa 1980. It transports viewers to a nostalgic moment when the contest between technology and the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs–back when the machines seemed clumsy and we seemed clever. But it’s the chance collision of this brainy bunch of A.I.’ers with another subculture of aging New Agers in a touchy-feely encounter therapy workshop, that wildly spins this wry portrayal into the stuff of a cult classic.

“I doubt I’ll ever make a weirder movie than this one–when we were shooting we really had no clue who would end up seeing it, or how”, director Andrew Bujalski said. “For a company with the history and pedigree of Kino Lorber to take us on feels like a great, unexpected victory, and we eagerly anticipate working with them to lure the unsuspecting into dark rooms for a strange experience.”

Richard Lorber, CEO of Kino Lorber commented: “It’s a delight to find a film that so deliciously tickles the brain. The more you think about it the funnier it gets. Yes, it’s a funhouse mirroring of the boomer generation but also a sweet-natured insight into an era of awkward intellectual innocence and aspiration. We’re going to have a blast bringing this to cross-over audiences of geeky tech lovers, young and old, as well as the indie art house crowd, who will never have seen anything quite like Andrew’s unprecedented fusion of form and content here.”

Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber negotiated the deal for the film with Andrew Herwitz, head of The Film Sales Company on behalf of the producers.

In addition, Canadian rights have been sold to Filmswelike and AMC/Sundance Channel Global previously announced taking Eastern European and Asian TV and VOD rights for its international TV networks.

Starring Patrick Riester, Myles Paige, James Curry, Robin Schwartz, Gerald Peary, and Wiley Wiggins, Computer Chess was produced by Houston King and Alex Lipschultz, and directed by Andrew Bujalski.

Comedy / 2013 / USA / in English / 91 minutes

About Kino Lorber:

With a library of 700 titles, Kino Lorber Inc. has been a leader in independent art house distribution for over 30 years, releasing over 20 films per year theatrically under its Kino Lorber, Kino Classics, and Alive Mind Cinema banners, including 4 Academy Award nominated films in the last 6 years (currently, the Company’s “5 Broken Cameras” is nominated for Best Documentary Feature).

In addition, the Company brings over 60 titles each year to the home entertainment market with DVD and Blu-ray releases as well as digital distribution on all platforms.

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on KINO LORBER ACQUIRES SUNDANCE WINNER COMPUTER CHESS

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon