Il Cinema Ritrovato hosts during the mornings a series of meeting about restoration. The first one took place in the morning of July 21st at the Auditorium DAMS Lab in Piazzetta Pasolini, where Bruno Mestdagh, responsible for the CINEMATEK‘s Digital Film Collections, presented their restoration of De Man die zijn haar kort liet knippen (L’Homme au crâne rasé), André Delvaux‘s 1965 adaptation of the same-named novel by Johan Daisne.
The brand-new restoration had its world premiere during two free special screenings promoted by A Season of Classic Films in CINEMATEK’s renovated cinema. This is a new digital restoration in 2K from the original negative material preserved and restored by CINEMATEK. The restoration and free screenings are made possible thanks to A Season of Classic Films, an initiative of the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) with the financial support of the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.
After the première at Cannes Film Festival, the restoration of Roberto Rossellini‘s Francesco Giullare di Dio (The Flowers of St. Francis) carried out by Cineteca di Bologna and The Film Foundation in collaboration with RTI-Mediaset and Infinity+ has been shown in Bologna during the opening day of Il Cinema Ritrovato. The film, featured in the strand named Ritrovati e Restaurati I, was introduced by actress Isabella Rossellini, who also took part in two other events: a conversation with Alice Rohrwacher with the title Cinema in Campagna and the screening of Il Mulino del Po (dir. Alberto Lattuada) in Piazza Maggiore, accompanied by two shorts (Omelia Contadina by Alice Rohrwacher and JR and Green Porno by Isabella Rossellini).
Today’s screening took place in Arena del Sole, one of Bologna’s most beautiful and prestigious theaters. Isabella Rossellini was interviewed by Gianluca Farinelli, the Cineteca di Bologna’s director. The actress explained how her father chose to focus on St. Francis because he is perceived as the people’s saint. Even those who didn’t go to church were interested in him. “This film was born in 1954, after the war, where reconciliation was a very important subject”, continued Isabella Rossellini.
One of the most peculiar aspects of this film is its sense of humor, mostly thanks to Fellini’s collaboration. According to Gianluca Farinelli, Francesco Giullare di Dio represents the denial of the typical rules of entertainment and this is why it can be considered a Manifesto of auteur cinema, inspiring titles such as Pasolini‘s Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew). Isabella Rossellini voiced her hope that this film can be of inspiration for any aspiring director because it teaches the importance of semplicity. She concluded her intervention by sharing a brief anecdote regarding her father: “one time he was invited to a school for a conference and he brought his camera. All the students were staring at it mesmerized but he told them that if he were a writer they wouldn’t have stared at his pen. The ideas matter, not the medium”.
This year’s ACE worshop will take place on July 22nd in Bologna, during il Cinema Ritrovato. The event, in collaboration with Europa Cinemas, will be divided in two different session, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, regarding the re-openings and film education. You can find the programme of the day below.
426 films in 8 days: this is what awaits cinephiles in the 35th edition of the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, promoted by Cineteca di Bologna. The festival will take place in presence in Bologna, from the 20th to the 27th of July. 8 days of non-stop screenings in 7 different cinemas e every night a screening in Piazza Maggiore and LunettArena. In Biblioteca Renzo Renzi you will be able to find, as usual, the Book Fair, the editorial fair dedicated to publications regarding cinema. A selection from the programme will be available online (worldwide) on MYmovies. Il Cinema Ritrovato will also host ACE’s yearly workshop on July 22nd: don’t miss it!
The Cannes Film Festival returns, after a one-year stop because of the pandemic, for a new edition. As always, the festival has a section named Cannes Classics, that features the best restored prints of the previous months. These are the movies the ACE members have worked on that are going to be screened in Cannes: Read more
The Brilliant Biograph, Mills of the Zaan Region (GB & NL, 1898) (c) Eye Filmmuseum
The Brilliant Biograph has won the FOCAL Award 2021 in the category ‘Best Archive Restoration & Preservation Project’. These recordings from the early years of cinema rank among the most richly detailed images in film history. The compilation transports viewers back to around 1900, when cities such as Berlin, Amsterdam and London were undergoing rapid growth. Of incomparable beauty are the shots of an enchanting Venice, a tourist destination reserved for the happy few at the time. The film can be watched free of charge on the Eye Film Player.
The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897-1902) is a magnificent compilation of recordings from the collection of the Mutoscope and Biograph Company, one of the first film companies. The images take you back 120 years in time to Venice, Berlin and Amsterdam, letting you experience the excitement of the first film footage.Read more
The Inspiration Forum LAB is an interdisciplinary research program by Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival designed to provide a space where artists and scientists can meet and work together on creating research-based multimedia art projects. The aim is to combine the scientific and artistic language to find ways of expression that could communicate to audiences beyond the boundaries of each of these two worlds.
The project welcomes applicants from various fields (artists, film makers, architects, designers, social scientists, environmentalists, technology innovators, etc.) who want to ask fundamental questions about the predominant narratives we exchange about the world and our role in it. Similarly, it is encouraged the partecipation of those who are interested in a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach combining science, technology, and the arts. The deadline for applications is September 13, 2021.
The Deutsche Kinemathek is looking for a new head of the film archive department.
A good working knowledge of the German language is necessary to do the job. The film archives hopes to fill this position by January 1st, 2022, so that there is a proper transition period to break in the new person.
During the past weeks, many film archives from all over Europe are reopening their doors and starting to offer their audiences screenings of new titles or curated retrospectives. This is a brief panorama of the ACE members’ offer (this article will be updated as soon as more film archives reopen):
British Film Institute: on May 19th, following government guidelines, the BFI will finally be able to reopen and offer their audiences 4 curated collections as well as new releases. The four collections are Dream Palace (a selection of famous cinema gems presented or accompained by filmmakers or film critics), a retrospective dedicated to Robert Altman, a selection of big screen classics and Her Voice (an homage to the artistry of black women). You can discover more here
Cinemateca Portuguesa: the film archive is currently offering many different cycles: Cinemateca Júnior is dedicated to the younger audience, while The Seas of Europe explores the importance of the sea in cinema. Other offerings include Korean Cinema Classics, an homage to Deborah Kerr, a retrospective dedicated to the way writers approached film and many others. Find out more here.
The digital turn, which has created new modes of access and circulation for films, underscores and amplifies what has been the fate of non-fiction film since the beginning of its existence – it has always been, and continues to be, a migrating archive of reality. Driven by the mass digitization of cultural heritage and possibilities of content sharing platforms and new streaming services, which enable non-fiction film content to constantly migrate across venues, platforms, but also cultures, geopolitical barriers, artworks etc., these movements intensified in the digital media ecology.
The conference “Migrating Archives of Reality: Programming, Curating, and Appropriation of Non-fiction Film” (6/7 May 2021) represents an important part of a large international research project “Visual Culture of Trauma, Obliteration, and Reconstruction in Post WWII Europe” funded by HERA into which researchers from all over Europe with background in film history, critical theory and visual studies are involved.
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Il Cinema Ritrovato hosts during the mornings a series of meeting about restoration. The first one took place in the morning of July 21st at the Auditorium DAMS Lab in Piazzetta Pasolini, where Bruno Mestdagh, responsible for the CINEMATEK‘s Digital Film Collections, presented their restoration of De Man die zijn haar kort liet knippen (L’Homme au crâne rasé), André Delvaux‘s 1965 adaptation of the same-named novel by Johan Daisne.
