EXCLUSIVE: U.S. arthouse distributor Kino Lorber is launching film and TV VOD streaming platform Kino Now, we can reveal.

The service, which includes options to rent and buy, currently hosts 600 titles from the company’s catalog and includes early access to new releases. The number of titles is set to double by the end of the year.

Kino Lorber, which will unveil the platform at a stateside event this evening, tells us the service will be annually refreshed with more than 50 new theatrical releases from Kino Lorber’s first run and repertory divisions and more than 500 yearly additional titles as ‘festival direct’ exclusives and indie art house digital premieres.

Movies will be generally available around 30-90 days after their theatrical release but some will also get day-and-date releases. Most titles will be $9.99 or less. New Releases and certain films that are considered premium will be $14.99 or $19.99 if they are day and date releases. Rental prices are largely $4.99 or less for seven day rentals.

The service is currently available in North America but there are discussions afoot about potential international expansion.

The arthouse champion is having a strong year on the acquisitions front with recent buys including Venice title Martin Eden, Berlin winner Synonyms, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Cannes Jury Prize winner Bacurau and Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, as well as Ken Loach’s Cannes competition tile Sorry We Missed You (in association with Zeitgeist Films). All these should be on the platform next year.

New titles coming to the service soon include Rick Alverson’s Venice 2018 title The Mountain, starring Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum, Chinese auteur Bi Gan’s box office hit Long Day’s Journey into Night, Lila Avilés’ 2020 Mexico Oscar submission The Chambermaid and climate change doc Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.

The current selection includes arthouse movies such as Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini with Willem Dafoe, and Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt’s Diamantino; new restorations of repertory re-releases, such as Frank Simon’s queer drag pic The Queen; documentaries such as Alexandra Dean’s Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Matt Tyrnauer’s Studio 54, and Pamela Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché; and world cinema from auteurs such as Jean-Luc Godard (Alphaville, The Image Book), Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambeur), Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad), and a collection of seven films by Lina Wertmüller, the first woman nominated for the best director Oscar. Franco Rosso’s 1980s British reggae hit Babylon is also in the lineup.

The platform will also include bundle offerings of selected hard-to-find titles and collections from renowned filmmakers. Collections include themes like ‘Episodic Cinema’ featuring hit international TV series such as Deutschland 83 and Emmy-nominated Bad Banks, ‘Documentary Series & Extended Play’, including Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, ‘Auteur Collections’ built around world-renowned filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, Lina Wertmüller and Fritz Lang, and the ‘Pioneers of Cinema’ restorations of the early works of African American filmmakers and the first women filmmakers.

‘The Playlist’ section will soon recommend personalized, specially curated selections that will be regularly updated, tied in with major international film festivals, holidays and cultural events. They will also be curated around themes such as Italian, French and German cinema, Hispanic Heritage, Festival Winners & Oscar Runs, Euro Horror, Director’s Spotlights, First Films, and Staff Picks.

The service will also be available on Roku and is set to be available soon on AppleTV, Amazon Fire, and additional platforms.

“We’ve been leaders in building a direct to consumer business with physical media and now is the time to assert our leadership in the direct to digital space,” said Richard Lorber, President & CEO of Kino Lorber. “Our superb library will be continually enhanced by the coming of newly acclaimed and award winning theatrical releases. We believe a younger generation of cinema lovers will embrace our collection as a kind of art house iTunes with Kino Now putting at their fingertips cinema masterworks of the past and the classics of tomorrow.”

Kino Lorber, the New York-based independent film distributor, is launching a free streaming channel dedicated to all things horror.

The platform, titled Kino Cult, will be ad-supported and will featured hundreds of hours of curated films, with new titles added monthly. It bows in the U.S. and Canada on Oct. 1, right in time for spooky season.

The channel will be available on web, mobile devices and connected TVs that have access to Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV and other video-on-demand apps. Kino Cult is being developed in partnership with Giant Pictures, which is responsible for the device apps, channel distribution and ad-tech in the new venture.

From arthouse fare to haunted horror films, Kino Cult is offering a mix of recent releases and classic gems, including Ana Lily Amirpour’s black-and-white vampire film “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” the Yorgos Lanthimos absurdist comedy “Dogtooth” (pictured above), South Korean neo-noir crime thriller “Beasts Clawing at Straws” and Guy Maddin’s “The Forbidden Room.” Kino Cult will also host curated categories, such as Golden Age of Exploitation, ’60s espionage films in Crime & Suspense, ’70s and ’80s Flashback, witchcraft and devil worship in Occult. For many titles, it will be the first time they have been made available on a streaming platform.

“Kino Cult will stream the darkest thrills of visionary midnight cinema to fans at home,” says Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber. “With our vast library built over 40 years and key partner labels in many genre specialties, we have enormous potential to hyper serve genre audiences, the most passionate of all film lovers, with a selection of both new and rare films that they can’t find anywhere else, in incandescent HD. You no longer need to live in a big city with a great repertory theater to have access to the kind of curated cult gems we’re able to offer now for free!”

Before the end of the year, Kino Cult will also launch as a linear channel experience, with its free ad-supported programming running 24/7 across multiple streaming devices.

“Kino Lorber has been steadily assembling a massive library of deliciously strange cinema, and we are delighted to unveil it in one destination,” said Kino Cult curator and senior VP Bret Wood. “And this is only the beginning. Playfully curated and continually expanding, Kino Cult is a cinematic funhouse where both devoted genre fans and curious viewers will find the films they love, while getting the chance to expand their palettes toward something more exotic.”

Kino Lorber has been synonymous with great cinema for over 45 years. Kino Film Collection is a new monthly subscription streaming service featuring award-winning independent films, international premieres, thought-provoking documentaries, cult favorites, and newly restored classics from the Kino Lorber library you know and love.

Kino Film Collection is available on Amazon Prime Video Channels* and features over 350 acclaimed films from around the world. New titles are added every month, including brand new films fresh from theatrical releases and the festival circuit. The best part? Kino Film Collection is only $5.99/month after a 7- day free trial!