Kani Releasing (2025)

15/08/2025

Lawrence Lau’s Y2K coming-of-age SPACKED OUT (2000) returns to August 22, 24, 29, 30 as part of their CLASS RULES program! 🍎✏️

Set in the massive, crumbling urban developments in Hong Kong’s New Territories with a combination of trained actors and nonprofessionals, SPACKED OUT depicts a few tumultuous days in the lives of four schoolgirls, filled with desultory mall outings, classroom phone s*x, and the occasional box-cutter brawl. A study of the everyday hope and despair experienced by Hong Kong’s dead-end kids that stands alongside Tsui Hark’s DANGEROUS ENCOUTERS — 1ST KIND(1980) and Fruit Chan’s MADE IN HONG KONG (1997), here focusing attention on young working-class women.

“What Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said of the high school experience—that it’s “closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of”—is hardly limited to the United States. In countries across East Asia, particularly, filmmakers have depicted the classroom as a microcosm of society at large: a pressure cooker, an oft-demoralizing preparation course for the rigid hierarchies of adulthood, and a place where lifelong memories (and traumas) are forged. Bringing together films by Kenji Fukasaku (BATTLE ROYALE), Nobuhiko Obayashi (SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS), Kim Bora (HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD), and Lawrence Lau (SPACKED OUT), this program is an education in the more insidious aspects of education.“

14/08/2025

Shari, Hokkaido—one of the most beautiful places we’ve had the privilege to visit, and a great joy to host director Nao Yoshigai on our home turf. This Saturday, August 16, will present her film SHARI at with salmon jerky, bread, and a drink pairing from

Beyond the great white blanket of snow, what first caught our eyes was the unnaturally straight lines of the new growth trees. Where was the old growth? The land shows its scars: deforestation to reforestation, agriculture to preservation of primordial forest; the sea shows the future: the later arrival of less drift ice, and the precarity of salmon populations. SHARI the film is about how the people think about the land and sea; revisiting five years on from the making of the film, we were able to hear how the film impacted their lives. It’s so exciting to be able to share this with our own coastal community🏝️ See you there!

Save the date for a magical Saturday afternoon! Swipe right for details 👉

07/08/2025

BATANG WEST SIDE is headed to this Sunday, one show only!
1:30PM, Peter Jay Sharp Building, Rose Cinemas

02/08/2025

Our other August release — the long awaited English-friendly Blu-ray debut of Takashi Ishii’s FREEZE ME — sold out its slipcover run before when even got around to posting ! 🧊 A good time to remind that the regular edition is identical, booklet included!

Five years ago, Chihiro was r***d by three men. The crime, captured on video, hangs over her life like a sword. She leaves for the big city, managing to start anew, working an office job and about to marry her new boyfriend. But when one of her assaillants shows up at her doorstep, he threatens blackmail and warns her: they are back. Now waking to a recurring nightmare, Chihiro is shocked into actions that will keep her abusers close, forever.

One of the most memorable Japanese exploitation films of the 2000s, Takashi Ishii’s FREEZE ME places a heavier emphasis on stasis, trauma and the haunting effects of s*xual assault, than is customary for the rape-revenge genre. Icy, shocking and carried by Harumi Inoue’s bold performance, the film also serves as a culmination of sorts for director Ishii’s formalism (A NIGHT IN N**E, GONIN) and his time at Nikkatsu. Shot on 16mm for a small budget on the studios’ sound stages, here is a bitter and confrontational work that isn’t easy to recommend to all audiences, but that nonetheless lingers as one of its director’s most refined « women in peril » films — inviting allegorical readings that complicates the film’s own provocation and emphasize the horrors of Japanese patriarchy.

• 2K Restoration
• New interview with cinematographer Yasushi Sasakibara (17mins)
• Freezer Instruction Manual ft. new writing by
• English subtitles

01/08/2025

Our first 4UHD/Blu-ray combo is here — Lino Brocka’s masterful BONA — and ready to pre-order at dot com, with a limited bundle with J.B. Capino’s MARTIAL LAW MELODRAMA: LINO BROCKA’S CINEMA POLITICS! ♨️

Bona (Nora Aunor), a middle-class girl from the Philippines, is obsessed with Gardo (Philip Salvador), a bit actor in low-budget films. When she decides to drop out of school to follow the object of her infatuation, her furious father casts her out and Bona moves in with the actor in the Manila slums. At first delighted to play house, the young woman soon finds herself not the wife, but rather the maid — at the mercy of Gardo’s every whim and desire, yet intent on enduring his unending parade of conquests, in the hopes of finally being seen.

Produced by its iconic superstar Nora Aunor as a subversion of her own fame at the time, and brought to life through Lino Brocka’s (Cain and Abel) trademark blend of high stakes melodrama and keenly observed social realism, Bona is a masterpiece of Filipino cinema. It unfolds as a troubling character study at the intersection of fandom, s*xuality and martyrdom, in a country where fanaticism, both political, pop cultural and religious, remain driving societal forces. After premiering at the 1981 Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival and long thought lost thereafter, Bona makes its triumphant return in a new 4K restoration.

• 2-disc Set: 4K Ultra HD / Region A Blu-ray
• New interview with assistant director Jeric Soriano (2025)
• New interview with actor Nanding Josef (2024)
• Q&A with Allan Brocka at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (2024)
• Bonus short film: Superfan (Clodualdo “Doy” Del Mundo Jr., 2009)
• New trailer (2024)
• English, French subtitles

25/07/2025

Unveiling the poster for our re-release of Akihiro Suzuki’s 1999 LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL ! 🌙👼 Screens July 28, 2025 at . 🚀

Mostly seen on the gay pink circuit and recently restored by its director to its rightful place in the Japanese arthouse canon, Akihiro Suzuki’s debut takes the death of a young gay p**n performer named Takachi as its starting point. Looking for an Angel follows Shinpei and Reiko as they process their friend’s disappearance, their memories coalescing into a bold exploration of grief set against the backdrop of a nostalgic, blue-hued city shot in a variety of filmic formats. As the viewer begins to piece together Takachi’s story, laden with desire for another boy named Sorao, between the cities of Tokyo and Kochi (“where the boys look like angels”), a powerful free-associative beauty emerges from a unique work described by Suzuki himself as “neither straight, gay, q***r, bis*xual, as*xual or p**nographic, but [rather] anti-heteros*xist” — a film completely free of dogma and convention.

“At the time, I felt a sense of rebellion against the heteros*xual-dominated world, and wanted to portray s*xuality and identity through an ambiguity that cannot be categorized,” says director Akihiro Suzuki. “I wanted to make a 35mm film like an 8mm film, mix various visual media, and include people of diverse s*xualities around me in it.” — Akihiro Suzuki

Poster design:

03/07/2025

Our re-release of Akihiro Suzuki’s LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL (1999) is headed to in Montreal in both the Underground and Retro sections 👼 Screens once July 28th, J.A. De Sève.

Opening with tones of cool azure, the blue tint of LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL lends the film an atmosphere of melancholy. An underground cult classic from Japanese producer and director, Akihiro Suzuki, the film centers on Takachi, a young p**n star from small-town Japan, who finds himself alone in Tokyo. After his untimely death, the film follows his two best friends and their memories of him. An underground Q***r classic, the film captures the winsome spontaneity of a decade infused with the hope of an impending new millennium as well as the disappointment of false promises offered by industrialization, liberation, and capitalism. Aching and intimate, the movie’s soft, out-of-focus images and hand-held atmosphere draw us into a world of friendship, memory, and community, as we find ourselves drawn deeper into Takachi’s life and death.

A singular and visionary look at q***r culture in 1990s Japan, LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL is unflinching in its vulnerability. It’s a movie that treads a careful line between discomfort and pleasure. How do we navigate a world where you’re unwanted and don’t belong? Where do we find tenderness in the outskirts? Revisiting this nearly forgotten classic, the film still feels like an act of surprising radicalism in its unflinching honesty. For all its warmth and sensitivity, it doesn’t shy away from the brutality of q***r life either. Compassionate, desperate, and heavy, LOOKING FOR AN ANGEL is a wistful look at friendship and love against the odds. Feeling at times like an extremely well-produced home movie, the film has an aura of authenticity rarely seen on the big screen. How do we remember those lost, forgotten not only by time but pushed out of society? How do we honour their memories? – 🙏

03/07/2025

DESERT OF NAMIBIA is still screening 🦒

"Yamanaka’s film defies cliché by depicting an unpleasant side of girlhood that many would prefer to deny exists" — Ariana King

01/07/2025

We are dedicating this summer to the vanguard of Japanese independant documentary, and next up is Nao Yoshigai’s feature-length debut, SHARI! 🏔️

Welcome to Shari: a small town on the north-east coast of Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, on the Shiretoko Peninsula where the Sea of Okhotsk meets Russian shores. Here, we meet hunters and bakers who love venison a few ways; flying squirrel enthusiasts and a collector known for his “Hall of Hidden Treasures.” At the heart of it all is the conspicuous absence of drift ice and fish in this crucial winter season. Meanwhile, the Red Thing, a yeti-like creature, sanguine “like a throbbing blood clot” rampages through the scenery where folklore blossoms from the meeting between human and nature... the latter now skipping a beat.

Dancer-turned-filmmaker Nao Yoshigai (whose short films, such as the 2019 Directors’ Fortnight-selected GRAND BOUQUET, have charmed festival audiences across the world) makes her feature debut with SHARI, an experimental documentary bringing audiences to one of Japan’s most secluded and magnificent areas. Like Yoshigai’s short works, blurring the line between documentary, dance film and fantasy, SHARI is multifaceted: part introspective travelogue, part wistful exploration of myth and legend, part climate change diary or in situ intervention. Offering a unique viewpoint into a community rarely captured on film, SHARI advocates for the future of Japan’s far-flung rural areas, uncertain in the face of a warming world.

Includes:

• Short film: BREATHING HOUSE (2019, 14 minutes)
• Short film: WHEEL MUSIC (2017, 13 minutes)
• Interview with Nao Yoshigai (2025, 19 minutes)
• Featurette: Shari, Winter 2025 (2025, 10 minutes)

Available to pre-order dot com!

01/07/2025

You can now stream CAIN AND ABEL and BONA on the Criterion Channel as part of their collection LINO BROCKA: LEGEND OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA !!! 🥵

"Intense, searing visions of life, death, s*x, and struggle on the mean streets of Manila, the films of preeminent Filipino auteur Lino Brocka fuse feverish melodrama with hard-hitting social and political commentary. His films—including defining works of Filipino cinema like the gritty urban nightmare MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT, the shattering revenge drama INSIANG, and the blistering action thriller CAIN AND ABEL—scorch the screen with raw emotion and righteous anger at class inequality, s*xual violence, and the pervasive corruption of the Marcos era."

29/06/2025

🦀🧦Our online shop is now open and we’ve got Kani socks in stock! 🧦🦀

Color: Kani Red

2x1 ribbed cuff
Embroidered logo
Flat knit sole
Reinforced toe and heel
Seamless toe
Comfortable and sturdy socks available only in Kani’s signature red. Built for everyday.

Rest easy with your feet cozy knowing that this is the only sock Kani wears to bring you your new favourite movies. Tested over our first four years of operation, still going strong. Enjoy!

Shipping now to 🇨🇦🇭🇰🇲🇴🇨🇳🇯🇵🇵🇭🇲🇾🇸🇬 (Not shipping to the US just yet because of tariffs; will restock at as soon as possible).

🛍️https://kani-releasing.myshopify.com/products/kani-classic-socks 🛒 Or look for the merch tab on our website!

Kani Releasing

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07/08/2025

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01/08/2025

25/07/2025

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29/06/2025

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