Kino Lorber is expanding its streaming footprint. The boutique art-house distributor just launched its own SVOD platform, the Kino Film Collection.
The new app is available now as a standalone service on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and Roku, and has more than 4,000 titles from Kino Lorber’s film library available. Subscriptions will begin at $5.99 per month.
In November 2023, Kino Lorber launched an Amazon Prime Video channel; you can still access its titles there. But having its own service puts the company in the race alongside other niche streaming options in the space, like the Criterion Channel ($10.99/month) or Mubi ($14.99/month).
As part of the launch, Kino Film Collection curated a selection of titles that showcase auteurs who have played at Cannes; the 2024 film festival is currently ongoing. The collection includes early movies from Yorgos Lanthimos, Jia Zhangke, and Ken Loach, as well as recent festival films like “Four Daughters” and “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell.”
Some other titles you can find on Kino Film Collection include “Bacurau,” “Beanpole,” “Mephisto,” Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Sacrifice,” “The Scent of Green Papaya,” Palme d’Or winners “Underground” and “Winter Sleep,” “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” “Bill Cunningham New York,” Todd Haynes’ “Poison,” Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” and Chloé Zhao’s “Songs My Brothers Taught Me.” The service also has some classic silent films such as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” “Metropolis,” and “Nosferatu.”
“The Cannes Film Festival is the beating heart of cinema, and there’s no better place to share the news about this expansion of Kino Film Collection to our own direct-to-consumer streaming service for North American film lovers,” said Richard Lorber, chairman and CEO of Kino Lorber. “Cannes and the Kino Film Collection are so intertwined because we share a love and appreciation of great films, and we’re very proud to feature so many works that first screened at Cannes among our Collection of the classics of tomorrow and the best of cinema past.”
“It’s been gratifying to see how audiences have enthusiastically embraced our channel on Amazon Prime Video. We’ve been encouraged by the passion, loyalty and curiosity of our subscribers,” said Lisa Schwartz, chief revenue officer, Kino Lorber. “The expansion to direct to consumer is the next natural, and important, step for us as we continue to ensure the Kino Film Collection is a bastion of film curation for New Release and Catalog films as well as film preservation.”
