This December, Kani Releasing begins publishing new Blu-ray editions of Asian films, both contemporary and restored, from up-and-coming and revered filmmakers. It's inaugural release, Tadashi Nagayam's sophomore effort BEING NATURAL, start preorders today. All editions will be distributed by OCN Distribution in North America.
ABOUT KANI
Taking its name from the noun “crab” – in reference to Yasujiro Ozu's custom-made tatami-level tripod – KANI is a new home video label dedicated to leveling the gaze and furthering the availability and understanding of Asian cinema in North America. Focusing on genre-defying films from Asia, the label will aim to expand the canon by bolstering up-and-coming filmmakers as well as reintroducing underseen repertory classics in context.
In the New Year, KANI will present a varied and lineup worth discovering, including BEING NATURAL (Tadashi Nagayama, 2018), CAIN & ABEL (Lino Brocka, 1982 restored 2018), TREMBLE ALL YOU WANT (Akiko Ohku, 2017), and VIDEOPHOBIA (Daisuke Miyazaki, 2019).
The label is co-founded by Ariel Esteban Cayer and Pearl Chan, who are based in Hong Kong.
“Kani is a unique opportunity to bring underseen films and exciting new voices directly to their audience and, in doing so, expand the scope of the curation currently available on home video in North America. We're taking a careful approach to every film and believe that, beyond festivals and the ubiquity of streaming, home video has proven to be a great, even timeless, way to keep films alive and in people's minds” says Cayer, who also helms the Camera Lucida section and co-directs the Asian programming at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Canada.
“The idea that Asian American content has to do and be everything for the extremely diverse community that the term encompasses puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of our creators. Looking to a wide range of Asian cinema as a child of two worlds, I've never had a lack of representative media and we hope to bring a few more options to the table in North America” says Chan, who founded Good Move Media, a boutique sales agency focused on new talents in East and South East Asian Cinema, in 2016.
ABOUT BEING NATURAL
BEING NATURAL is the second film of Tadashi NAGAYAMA. Yohta Kawase (RUBBER'S LOVER) stars as Takashi Uno, who wants little more from life than to play the bongo under the starlight. When his uncle passes, his freshly divorced cousin inherits their traditional country home and tasks the shy slacker with caring for it. Together with the town's underdog grocer, the three revert to a joyful childhood dynamic…until a family from Tokyo led by an unhinged patriarch (screen veteran Kanji Tsuda, JU-ON: THE GRUDGE) and his enigmatic wife (Natsuki Mieda) manifest their desire to open a countryside café at all costs…
Tadashi Nagayama – a protégé of the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival since his 2017 Grand Prix-winning debut JOURNEY OF THE TORTOISE – baffles audience expectations at every turn with this mellow yet thoroughly eccentric pastoral comedy about the right to do nothing, Japan's growing urban-rural divide, and the country's ongoing nuclear anxieties.
All editions will be distributed by OCN Distribution in North America. OCN Distribution is the sister company of Conneticuit-based Vinegar Syndrome, a home-video label known for protecting and preserving genre films. OCN distributes the company's partner labels, including AGFA, Dekanalog, Fun City Editions, Utopia, and more. Of their newest partner label, OCN Distribution's Director of Operations Justin LaLiberty says:
“We at OCN Distribution are thrilled to be working with Kani on their home video distribution, which will bring Asian cinema across a wide array of genres, countries of origin and decades of production, to physical media collectors both domestic and abroad. They have shown a keen curatorial eye and an attention to detail and quality that are paramount to what we do both at OCN and with our sister company Vinegar Syndrome. Launching with the Japanese film BEING NATURAL, as wild a genre amalgam as we have seen in years, will announce the brand as a label to watch for our fans and anyone interested in what is happening on the fringes of international cinema.”
