Cinema Guild Launches Video Label; To Release New Yorker Titles

A scene from Margaret Brown's "The Order of Myths." Image courtesy of The Cinema Guild.

Philip Hobel, Chairmen of The Cinema Guild, announced today the launch of a new home video label. The first release will be Christian Petzold's "Yella" on March 31, followed by Alexander Sokurov's "Alexandra" on April 28. Both titles were originally scheduled for release through New Yorker Home Video.

"It has been many years in the making, so we are very excited about starting our own home video label," commented The Cinema Guild's Ryan Krivoshey in a statement. "We look forward to creating a label with a diverse, eclectic line-up that appeals to an audience seeking something different."

The Cinema Guild will take over the distribution of three titles, recently released through New Yorker Home Video, "The Order of Myths" and "The Unforeseen" - both Independent Spirit Award winners, and "Primo Levi's Journey."

This announcement comes in the wake of recent news that New Yorker Films has ceased operations. Since then, Zeitgeist Films also made a related deal, acquiring the company's "Three Monkeys."

“When we heard the news about New Yorker closing we were stunned, along with everyone else," Cinema Guild's Ryan Krivoshey told indieWIRE. "One of our first concerns though was to make sure these five films didn’t fall into distribution limbo. Luckily, because we’ve slowly been working towards launching our home video label this fall, we had a lot of the elements already in place, and were able to move quickly. As a result, with just a short delay in release dates, we’ve managed to keep all these films in print.”

The Cinema Guild announcement additionally notes that the home video division will release Cinema Guild's own theatrical releases, as well as documentaries from its library, classic titles, and works from independent filmmakers and producers, as well as from other theatrical distributors. Upcoming releases include Ellen Kuras's "The Betrayal," Jia Zhang'ke's "24 City," Christian Petzold's "Jerichow" and Agnes Varda's "The Beaches of Agnes."

Cinetic Rights Management recently closed a deal with Cinema Guild to help distribute their video titles online. This will begin in April with titles such as "The Unforeseen." The films will be released on portals such as iTunes, Amazon VOD, Hulu, SnagFilms, Joost, and more.