Milestone Films and Kino Lorber are proud to announce the theatrical release of the new 4K restoration of Charles Burnett’s long-lost feature, The Annihilation of Fish, starring James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, and Margot Kidder. The restoration was carried out by UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Milestone Films, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Shot in 1999, The Annihilation of Fish screened that September at the Toronto International Film Festival and was acquired for distribution. But following a single bad review in Variety, the distributor canceled the film’s release. For almost a quarter of a century, The Annihilation of Fish has been unavailable on all media — it has never been distributed on 35mm, DCP, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, television, or streaming — anywhere.

Winner of an Honorary Academy Award® for lifetime achievement, Charles Burnett remains one of our country’s most celebrated independent filmmakers. In his charming The Annihilation of Fish (1999), Lynn Redgrave plays Poinsettia, a former housewife with an imagined lover in the form of 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini. She moves into a Los Angeles boarding house with an energetic landlady (Margot Kidder) where she meets a Jamaican widower, Fish (James Earl Jones), who has recently been released from a mental institution despite his continued battles against unseen demons. In the face of personal challenges and differences, the couple grows together and begins to discover new things about themselves and the nuances of love and happiness. Adapted from a short story by Anthony C. Winkler, The Annihilation of Fish is a tender comedy that gracefully tackles such issues as race, mental illness, and aging with anarchic humor and energy.

THE ANNIHILATION OF FISH is now playing in theaters in NYC at BAM Rose Cinemas. Opens in LA on February 20th at the American Cinematheque (Los Feliz 3 Theatre).