HIGH ART (CRITERION)

A story of ambition, sacrifice, seduction and other career moves.

In a revelatory performance, Ally Sheedy stars in writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's debut feature, a wry and incisive look at the politics of the New York art scene wrapped in the guise of an emotionally spiky queer romance. When Lucy Berliner (Sheedy), a once prominent photographer who has retreated into a life of heroin abuse with her faded-actress lover (Patricia Clarkson), is rediscovered by Syd (Radha Mitchell), an up-and-coming editor at a photography magazine, professional ambition and personal attraction become dangerously entwined. Stripping away art-world glamour to tell a seductive yet troubling story of complicated human connection, High Art stands as an essential work of both queer and 1990s independent cinema.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

• NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM, supervised and approved by director Lisa Cholodenko, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Cholodenko>
• New conversation between Cholodenko and filmmaker Karyn Kusama
• New interviews with actors Ally Sheedy and Radha Mitchell and photographer JoJo Whilden
• Dinner Party (1997), a short film by Cholodenko
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic B. Ruby Rich