Kino Lorber announced that it has acquired all rights to A Short Story, the new short film by Long Day’s Journey Into Night director Bi Gan. The film will make its North American premiere in the Currents section of the 60th New York Film Festival on October 12, followed by additional stops on the festival circuit, including the Philadelphia Film Festival and Film Fest Ghent, and will be released theatrically and digitally by Kino Lorber in 2023.
A fairy tale that follows the relationship between man and cat, A Short Story made its World Premiere in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Written and directed by Bi Gan, A Short Story reunites Kino Lorber with Bi following the 2019 release of the arthouse sensation Long Day’s Journey Into Night, among Kino Lorber’s most successful recent theatrical releases. Outside of the US, the film was China’s biggest arthouse hit of all time, where it took in more than $40 million at the box office.
With his signature long-takes and tightly controlled mise-en-scène, Bi Gan weaves a darkly surrealist fairy tale that follows the odyssey of an anthropomorphic feline across the empty cities and fog-bound exurban spaces of contemporary China. In his encounters with a strange cast of characters—a scarecrow, a robot, an amnesiac, a little girl—Black Cat is on a quest to answer a single question: What is the most precious thing in the world? The short also features Yongzhong Chen, who previously appeared in Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Bi’s first feature Kaili Blues.
The deal for A Short Story was negotiated by Kino Lorber Senior Vice President Wendy Lidell and Alice Lesort for Films du Losange.
“Kino Lorber rarely acquires short films, but Bi Gan has packed more cinematic delight into the fifteen minutes of A Short Story than many feature length films deliver in two hours, and we think audiences nationwide deserve to see it,” said Kino Lorber SVP Wendy Lidell.
Writer/director Bi Gan added, “Special thanks to Kino Lorber for taking the bud to American audiences.”
A Short Story screens on October 12, 13, and 15 as part of the Currents section of the 60th New York Film Festival, playing ahead of Remote. Kino Lorber’s recent acquisition Scarlet, directed by Martin Eden filmmaker Pietro Marcello, also made its North American premiere at the festival.
Kino Lorber plans to qualify A Short Story for the 96th Academy Awards, showing it theatrically nationwide in tandem with a theatrical re-release of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.