Kino International Releases Five Films by Celebrated French Documentarian Nicolas Philibert

Kino International proudly announces the DVD release of  five films by celebrated French documentarian Nicolas Philibert.

Last year’s critically-acclaimed Nénette (along with the short subject Night Falls on the Menagerie) and Animals & More Animals come to DVD in a splendid two-disc set priced at $39.95. This DVD is available for prebook on April 26, 2011, and the street date is May 24.

The other three titles, Louvre City (1990), In the Land of the Deaf (1992), and Every Little Thing (1997) are available as individual DVDs, each priced at $24.95. Each DVD is available for pre-book on April 26, 2011, and the street date is May 24.

NÉNETTE (2010) and ANIMALS & MORE ANIMALS (1996) 2-DISC SET

Nénette (2010) – DISC ONE

“Outstanding. Hypnotically captures the peculiar life of a 40-year-old orangutan living in a Paris zoo.” – J.S. Marcus, The Wall Street Journal

“Remarkable!” – Sight & Sound

Born in the jungles of Borneo, Nénette is a 40-year-old orangutan – and the oldest (and most popular inhabitant) at the Ménagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Sitting in her gallery, she stays relaxed and indifferent as she looks down at the parade of visitors who file past her daily, commenting on her appearance and behavior.

In the unadorned, cinéma vérité style of his previous films, documentarian Nicolas Philibert remains intent on simply observing and listening to Nénette, as well as the bustling soundtrack of inquisitive children and zookeepers on either side of her viewing window. Ultimately, you may start to wonder: who is really observing who?

2010 / France / Color / 70 min. / 16:9 (1.85:1) / French w/English subtitles

INCLUDES THE SHORT SUBJECT, Night Falls on the Menagerie 2010 / France / Color / 11 min.

Animals & More Animals (1996) – DISC TWO

“Surrealistically thrilling! Fascinates!” – Jay Carr, amNY

“A picture of man’s relationship to nature that is very bit as beguiling as a Rousseau”

– Nathan Lee, THE NEW YORK TIMES

After nearly thirty years of being shut away from the public, the stuffed animals of Paris’s Natural History Museum are about to see the light of day again.

In Animals and More Animals (1996), which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival, acclaimed documentarian Nicolas Philibert (To Be and To Have) and his unobtrusive crew are there to chronicle the 1994 preparations for the animals’ return. A fascinating glimpse into the world behind the displays at a major museum, the film chronicles the taxidermists’ work as they dust and re-stuff, paint noses, and replace glass eyes. Curators exactingly choreograph the frozen panoramas, and butterflies are cleaned and returned to their cases. Philibert shows all of this fevered action, contrasting it with the strangely melancholy, impassive faces of the posed and preserved animals, captured a hundred years ago and frozen in time, but still remaining eerily animate.

1996 / France / Color / 57 min. / Letterbox (1.78:1) / French w/English subtitles

Louvre City (1990)

“The works of art, revealed in a new context, come alive as fragile and exotic creatures captured in a web of human labor.”

– Leslie Camhi, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Winner of the Best Documentary at Prix Europa, Louvre City takes the form of one of the classic city symphonies of the 1920s, which begin at daybreak, end at nightfall, and chronicle the lives of urban dwellers at work and at play.

The mighty Louvre, housed in a medieval castle, with its miles of hallways and hundreds of employees, does seem like its own city-state in this elegantly filmed documentary. Rather than focus on its familiar role as a monument to high culture, director Nicolas Philibert (To Be and To Have) shows us the everyday life of the museum and how it operates. As workmen puzzle over how to move and unfold massive canvases and medieval tapestries, African women joke about the fashion quotient of their security guard uniforms. Maintenance staff play petanique (a French game similar to Bocce) in the Louvre’s inner courtyards during their break, while the kitchen staff prepares the food for the museum’s café. We see the painstaking process of art restoration and the research involved in creating an exhibit. The class hierarchy reveals itself as curators and their assistants argue over the placement of pictures, while workmen wait patiently for a decision.

When Philibert finally allows the audience a moment to contemplate the Louvre’s most famous and familiar objects, Winged Victory or the Mona Lisa, we see them not just as icons of aesthetic beauty, but objects whose preservation requires a great deal of effort and labor. Far from being didactic, Louvre City is a celebration of the ordinary processes of work in an extraordinary setting.

1990 / France / Color / 85 min. / 16:9 (1.85:1)

In the Land of the Deaf (1992)

“Beautiful, illuminating and energizing.”

– Jonathan Rosenbaum, THE CHICAGO READER

“**** Vibrantly Truthful and Deeply Affecting.”

– Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

One of the most acclaimed documentaries of the 90s, this beautiful film transports the viewer into “the land of the deaf,” a world of silence inhabited by an estimated 130 million people worldwide.

With unerring curiosity and sensitivity, French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert portrays the difficulties and joys of being deaf, offering vivid portraits of, among others, a charismatic sign language teacher, a woman who was treated as mentally ill because her deafness was not properly diagnosed, a young man who remembers the first, horrifying experience of hearing with an aid, a newlywed deaf couple trying to communicate with a real estate agent.

Philibert and his subjects kick the pylons out from stereotypes and misconceptions about deafness, and explore “deaf culture” and the growing controversy around a “cure” for deafness.  By turns funny, poignant, illuminating, and disturbing, In the Land of the Deaf will make you see (and perhaps hear) the world anew.

1992 / France / Color / 99 min. / 16:9 (1.85:1)

Every Little Thing (1997)

“Delightful viewing”

– Kate Stables, SIGHT & SOUND

“A kind and respectful tribute to these people, while a certain surreal quality plays true to the history and ethos of the institution Philibert has chosen to reflect upon.”

-Richard Armstrong, CINEASTE

An official selection at Locarno and winner of the Best Documentary award at the Potsdam Film Festival, Nicolas Philibert turns his attention to the La Borde Psychiatric Clinic, a mental institution whose patients and staff stage theatrical performances every summer. Focusing on the 1995 production of Polish modernist Witold Gombrowicz’s parodic play, Operetta, Philibert’s fascinating film reveals the porous boundary between sanity and madness.

At La Borde, the patients walk freely on the grounds, interacting with each other and working various jobs. The staff does not wear uniforms, and Philibert refuses to identify them, making it difficult to distinguish between the two groups. With a masterfully understated approach, he forces us to observe behavior without prejudgment. When rehearsals and preparations for Operetta begin, Philibert’s portrayal of human behavior becomes even more complicated. As the inmates don costumes and recite dialogue from the wildly surreal play, are they being themselves, or is it for theatrical effect? The camera observes patients getting into character, then watches as staff members shift between roles as participants in the play and as figures of authority. Slowly, the artificiality of social life and the ways in which performance is a part of all human interaction begin to come to the surface.

Philibert’s unobtrusive observations accumulate into a powerful argument for La Borde’s non-judgmental philosophy, and force us to re-examine conventional assumptions about what is normal and what is not.

1997 / France / Color / 99 min. / Letterboxed (1.78:1)