Donald Krim, the president of Kino International and co-president of Kino Lorber, died on May in New York at the age of 65. He had been battling cancer for a year.

The funeral is planned for Monday (May 23) at Riverside Memorial Chapel on 76th Street in New York. A memorial service will be held in late June.

He started his career at United Artists, eventually working on the creation of United Artists Classics, and in 1977 he purchased the newly created Kino International and started releasing new films in 1979. In 1987, the company started Kino on Video, its home entertainment division. In December 2009, Kino Interntional merged with Richard Lorber’s Lorber Films to establish Kino Lorber

As the President of Kino International, Krim worked to bring world cinema to American audiences, working with film-makers including Wong Kar-Wai, Michael Haneke, Aki Kaurismäki and Andrei Zvyagintsev. This year, the company handled films including Oscar nominee Dogtooth.

His past awards include the Mel Novikoff Award from the San Francisco Film Festival, the William K. Everson Award for Film History, given by the National Board of Review, the Film Preservation Honors Award from Anthology Film Archives, and the Visionary Award from the Israel Film Festival.

Krim was also known for spearheading two nationwide re-releases of restorations of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations be made to the Fresh Air Fund, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society or Red Hook Rise.

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