Anti-Worlds celebrating unique, provocative and challenging cinema with first five releases

New UK distributor ANTI-WORLDS sees a collaboration between Andy Starke, Producer and co-owner of Rook Films, Powerhouse Films’ Sam Dunn and John Morrissey (founders of the INDICATOR Blu-ray label), Creative Director of Manchester’s HOME cinema Jason Wood and Publicist Zoe Flower. The company has announced its first films for 2019 seeing the UK premiere releases of Richard Kovitch’s PENNY SLINGER - OUT OF THE SHADOWS, Aaron Schimberg’s CHAINED FOR LIFE, Isabella Ekloff’s HOLIDAY and Corneliu Porumboiu’s Infinite Football.

ANTI-WORLDS will also produce and collaborate on original feature films. First up will be the recently completed film by Ben Rivers & Anocha Suwichakornpong - IN THE HOLOCENE, more will be announced in the coming months.

Andy Starke says of the venture – “It’s great to be able to start to release films that excite us all. We are all huge film fans and have for a long time wanted to find a way to bring together production and distribution. Having spent many years working on our own and other people’s films – we wanted to create a distribution network where the filmmakers collaborated very closely with the distributors allowing both parties to take advantage of the new cinema landscape and viewing methods. Our hope is to bring a slate of wild, entertaining, exciting and provocative films to the UK.”

PENNY SLINGER – OUT OF THE SHADOWS, Directed by Richard Kovitch
The incredible, untold story of the British artist Penny Slinger and the traumatic events that led to the creation of her masterpiece, the 1977 photo-romance, ‘An Exorcism’. Coming-of-age against a back drop of post-war austerity and the subsequent explosion of colour that characterized the 1960s counter-culture, Penny Slinger embraced her generation’s quest for personal freedom and sexual liberation, and channelled these desires into her ground-breaking collages, films (including collaborations with Jane Arden and Peter Whitehead) and sculptures. So powerful was her vision that 50 years later her work is still influencing contemporary artists.



SELECTED THEATRICAL SCREENINGS/ VOD – FROM 28TH JUNE 2019
SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY– SEPTEMBER 2019

CHAINED FOR LIFE - Written and directed by Aaron Schimberg
Aaron Schimberg’s impressive second feature is his response, as a filmmaker with facial deformity, to cinematic portrayals of disfigured people, from Freaks to The Elephant Man. Simultaneously empathetic and sardonic, Chained for Life’s multi-layered meta narrative casts Jess Weixler (TEETH) as Mabel, a well-intentioned Hollywood star. She takes the role of a blind woman in a hospital-based horror movie about abnormalities, directed by an egomaniacal German auteur. As shooting progresses, Mabel gradually falls for friendly British co-star Rosenthal, played by UNDER THE SKIN actor Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis. Writer-Director Schimberg challenges you to think about representation and exploitation whilst refusing to offer up any simplistic answers, while also paying homage to previous film-within-a-film-practitioners from Fassbinder to the Muppets.

SELECTED THEATRICAL SCREENINGS/ VOD – SEPTEMBER 2019
SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY– OCTOBER 2019

IN THE HOLOCENE – Co-directed by Ben Rivers and Anocha Suwichakornpong
In the town of Krabi, a popular tourist destination in southern Thailand, the pre-historic, the recent past and the contemporary capitalist world awkwardly collide. The town’s local folklore and histories are promoted as attractions to foreigners, while the town’s traditional labour force is muted and hidden from the tourists’ eyes. A nameless character, whose identity continually changes, takes us around town to explore various sites that capture Krabi in its current state. These sites uniquely illustrate how Krabi’s folklore is propagated and commodified to fill the need of tourism industry.

Ben Rivers is an artist and filmmaker represented by Kate MacGarry Gallery in London. Rivers won the second EYE Art Film Prize 2016, as well as the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival for his first feature film TWO YEARS AT SEA; His most recent feature film, THE SKY TREMBLES AND THE EARTH IS AFRAID AND THE TWO EYES ARE NOT BROTHERS, premiered in the main competition at Locarno International Film Festival.

Born in Thailand, Anocha Suwichakornpong graduated from an MFA film program at Columbia University. Her thesis film, Graceland, became the first Thai short film to be officially selected by Cannes Film Festival. Mundane History, her first feature, won numerous awards including the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. Anocha’s second feature, BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK, premiered in Locarno and has screened in festivals such as Toronto, BFI London, Venice and Rotterdam. The film won three Thailand National Film Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK was chosen as Thailand’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

SELECTED THEATRICAL SCREENINGS / VOD - NOVEMBER 2019
SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY – NOVEMBER 2019

HOLIDAY – Directed & Co-written by Isabella Eklof, co-written by Johanne Algren
The trophy girlfriend (Victoria Carmen Sonne) of a Danish drug lord sets a dangerous game in motion when she seeks the attention of another man, while on vacation with her boyfriend on the Turkish Riviera. A dark gangster tale with a twist HOLIDAY world premiered in the World Dramatic Cinema competition at the Sundance Film Festival. It was included in The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the Best 20 Films from Sundance, as well as Indiewire’s list of this year’s Sundance standouts that deserve to find homes. Isabella was also selected in the 10 directors to watch list by IndieWire.

RELEASING THIS WINTER

INFINITE FOOTBALL – Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu
Romanian director Porumboiu’s films have screened and won prizes at the worlds major film festivals including the FIPRESCI Prize and Cannes Jury Prize for 2009’s POLICE ADJECTIVE.
Infinite Football is a touching and hilarious Meta documentary that takes a simple concept and turns it into a deeply moving treatise on humanity and the meaning of life. In the director’s own words: "Last fall, a good childhood friend of mine Florin, told me that his brother Laurentiu, invented a new sport by changing the rules of the football game.

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