Il Cinema Ritrovato will return at the beginning of the summer in Bologna in its full glory. The festival returns to its usual dates: from June 25th to July 3rd, 2022. The restrictions will be lifted by then and that means full access to the regular venues of the festival. The return to its original form will change the online version of Il Cinema Ritrovato, which has served festivals well during the last two years: for this edition, only masterclasses and panel discussions will be streamed live. The festival will retain the booking system, to ensure a smooth experience for all audiences. This year’s festival attendees will have the opportunity to visit Folgorazioni figurative, an exhibition devoted to Pier Paolo Pasolini, born 100 years ago in Bologna.
Further information will be revealed in future newsletters, but in the meantime, we bring you the first news from this edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato.
This year, the Bologna Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Timothy Brock, will be back to Piazza Maggiore to accompany two masterpieces turning 100: the magnificent Foolish Wives by Erich von Stroheim will be the first cine concert on June 27th, while on July 2nd one of the cornerstones of horror and expressionist cinema, Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau, will likely hypnotize Piazza Maggiore audience.
As usual, Il Cinema Ritrovato will welcome guests, friends, directors, film historians, actors: the festival is thrilled to confirm the presence of John Landis who, in addition to holding a masterclass, will be in Piazza Maggiore on July 3rd.
- FOREVER SOPHIA: the retrospective curated by Emiliano Morreale and Gian Luca Farinelli will be the opportunity to see and enjoy some of Sophia Loren’s most notorious performances on the big screen.
- THE DRIFTER’S ESCAPE: HUGO FREGONESE: a master of brisk and unsentimental westerns and crime thrillers, with a career spanning over four decades and numerous bases of production – from his home country Argentina, to America, Spain, Italy, the UK, and West Germany – Fregonese’s cinema is unjustly underappreciated to the point of obscurity. This program curated by Dave Kehr and Ehsan Khoshbakht will surely be one of the major revelations of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022.
- THE LAST LAUGH: GERMAN MUSICAL COMEDIES, 1930-32: The selection, curated by Lukas Foerster, covers a wide variety of comedic and musical styles and especially focuses on the rich contributions of Jewish directors, screenwriters, producers, composers, and actors in the genre, almost all of whom were forbidden to work in Germany after 1933.
- PETER LORRE: STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND: Lorre’s life, his films, his unrealized dreams, and his physical presence constitute one of the most honest representations of 20th-century man. Instead of wholeness and triumph, there is the half-full, half-empty result of traversing through Central European modernism and fascism, addiction and exile, the culture of money and fame, the mirror cabinet of faces and masks. The series curated by Alexander Horwath will showcase its career in its entirety.
- “TELL THE TRUTH!”: A VIEW INTO YUGOSLAV CINEMA: This program curated by Mina Radović, featuring some fantastic new restorations along with archive prints, takes us from the classical post-war cinema to the New Wave and celebrates the works of master filmmakers of the era. What emerges are films that carry the power to speak the truth – awakening the mind and quickening the soul – in ways that can be said only for major chapters in the history of world cinema.
- KENJI MISUMI: AN INSTINCTIVE AUTEUR: Kenji Misumi (1921-75), whose centenary was celebrated last year, is one of the unsung masters of the Japanese period film. He was a specialist above all in chambara (the action-packed variety of period film), which he imbued with remarkable Freudian undercurrents and imaginative widescreen imagery; but he also created convincing films focused on modern martial arts and the romantic experiences of women. The centerpiece of the retrospective, curated by Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström, will be the so-called ‘sword trilogy’, recently restored in 4K by Kadokawa, which comprises some of Misumi’s outstanding visual and thematic achievements.
- PETER WEISS – POETRY IN MOTION: German-born painter, poet, novelist, playwright, and filmmaker, Peter Weiss (1916-82) was a pioneering figure in the Swedish art and experimental film scene in the 1950s. The centerpiece of the program curated by Wengström, is Weiss’ feature-length Hägringen (1959), an extraordinary and very personal take on ‘city symphony’ about a young man’s 24-hour encounter with Stockholm and with society at large. The films, from the collection of the Swedish Film Institute, will be presented in vintage prints and DCPs of recent digital restorations.
- THE CENTURY OF CINEMA: 1902: A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès, as well as his fantastic trick films and gorgeous fairy tale films, and the imitations by Gaston Velle (chez Lumière Bros) and Ferdinand Zecca (chez Pathé) are some of the highlights of the program curated by Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratschko. The great variety of genres already on offer by Pathé frères is another remarkable aspect of that year’s production, pre-announcing the dramatic expansion and worldwide success of cinematography in the years to come.
- ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO: 1922: If looking for masterpieces, this year there’ll be films by luminous figures such as Dreyer, Flaherty, Nazimova, Vertov, Delluc, Murnau, Dwan, and Stroheim. But if you want to go beyond the canon, there’ll be works of Zhang Shichuan, Teuvo Puro, and Warren A. Newcombe and a choice selection of short films, among them two newly restored silhouette films by animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger. A special celebration is due to Albert Samama Chikli and his daughter Haydée Tamzali who a hundred years ago made together Zohra, the first Tunisian fiction film. This program is curated by Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratschko
- THE POISONED FLOWERS OF VICTORIN-HIPPOLYTE JASSET: After a career as a costume designer and director of theatrical mass spectacles, Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset (1862-1913) created the first-ever crime and spy series featuring the detective Nick Carter, the cruel Genius of Evil Zigomar, and intrepid Protéa the spy-catcher. The program is curated byÉmilie Cauquy, Hiroshi Komatsu and Mariann Lewinsky
- SUPER8, 9.5MM & 16 MM – GREAT SMALL GAUGES: this Il Cinema Ritrovato edition focuses on one hand on the collection of the University of Paderborn dedicated to small gauge films by female experimental filmmakers from the German-speaking countries made between 1964 and the 2000s, including directors like Ute Aurand, Elfi Mikesch, Christine Noll Brinckmann and many more. On the other hand, it will celebrate the anniversary of the 9.5mm format which came on the market in the year 1922, with presentations from the collections of Home Movies, Les Inedits, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé and Lichtspiel/Kinemathek Bern, to be projected with a vintage 9.5mm projector. The program is curated byAnnette Brauerhoch and Karl Wratschko.
NOT ONLY FILMS
Il Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards
Two international juries, one of the critics and one of the filmmakers, will pick the best home-video releases of the year.
Book Fair
The most tempting collection of film books, DVDs, Blu-rays, and posters is offered inside the Renzo Renzi Library. Leave some empty room in your luggage!
FIAF Film Restoration Summer School
The ninth edition of the summer school dedicated to film restoration, promoted by FIAF, ACE, Cineteca di Bologna and L’Immagine Ritrovata, will finally take place in Bologna, after the forced postponement of the 2020 edition.
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Folgorazioni Figurative
Bologna, Sottopasso di Piazza Re Enzo, until 16th October 2022
The exhibition explores the dialogue between the great works of art history and Pasolini’s cinematographic work.
Bologna Welcome will provide festivalgoers with complete information about accommodation in Bologna, as well as travel tips. Early birds will have better opportunities and benefit from special rates. Click here to discover more.
