Kino Lorber has announced the launching of a virtual theatrical exhibition initiative called Kino Marquee to enable movie theaters shuttered by the coronavirus outbreak to continue to serve their audiences and generate revenue in this difficult time. The initiative also lets movie audiences support their local theaters with their dollars and view the films digitally. 

The first Kino Marquee screenings are with New York’s Film at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music and Jacob Burns Film Center.  All will open with Kino Lorber title Bacurau, which would otherwise now be on screen in each venue. Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles and starring Sônia Braga and Udo Kier, the film won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2019 and went on to play Toronto and New York Film Festivals to much acclaim. It was a “New York Times “Critics Pick” by Manohla Dargis who called it “an exhilarating fusion of high and low,” and The New Yorker lauded the film as “[A] boldly inventive political fantasy.” The film has also been compared to Oscar-winning Parasite for its provocative themes of class disparity, with director Bong Joon-ho championing it at a recent screening.

Under the Kino Marquee program, the Company plans to initiate virtual releases with participating theaters for other currently scheduled and upcoming Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist first run and repertory titles at least until theaters  are  able to reopen.

Kino Marquee has been designed to emulate the moviegoing experience as much as possible.  Films will be booked from Fridays to Thursdays and presented on dedicated web pages headed by each theater’s branded marquee. Virtual  “holdovers” will be determined by performance, and revenue will be split between distributor and exhibitor.