Author: Giada Sartori

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 | Museo del Cinema di Torino’s new film laboratory

After the presentation from Cinémathèque Suisse, Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino took the stage of Auditorium DAMS Lab, on Monday 24th, to present its new film laboratory. The meeting featured two representatives from the film archive, Director Domenico De Gaetano and Head of the digital restoration area Gabriele Angelo Perrone, and was moderated by Davide Pozzi from L’Immagine Ritrovata.

The film laboratory opened in the first months of 2021. It is dedicated to the restoration and digitization of films, but the first focus of Museo del Cinema is interested is the digitization and safeguard of the mute cinema from Torino. The laboratory is divided in three spaces to optimize the workflow and it features a latest-generation server. The Museo del Cinema also owns a scan station, that permits to digitalize the film materials by following the FIAF protocols. For what concerns the programs used, they are currently still in a testing phase.

The main purpose of the laboratory is to make possible for the Museo del Cinema di Torino to be independent in the restoration of its archive and others in the city of Turin, such as the Aiace archive. Among the restorations curated by Museo del Cinema di Torino, this year’s Cinema Ritrovato hosted “I raggi “Z” (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1917), in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna and Národní filmový archiv.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 | The restoration of Sarah Maldodor’s Sambizanga

On July 24th, the Auditorium DAMS Lab hosted the talk on the restoration of Sarah Maldodor‘s Sambizanga with the partecipation of Annouchka De Andrade (Daughter of the director and Amiens Film Festival Artistic Director) and Cecilia Cenciarelli (Cineteca di Bologna). This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, created by The Film Foundation, FEPACI and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – in support of the restoration and the distribution of African cinema. Cecilia Cenciarelli explained that this restoration was in the works for a very long time and it was made possible by The Film Foundation and the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers – La Federation Panafricaine des Cineastes (FEPACI). Without associations that highlight the African film heritage, many films would be lost forever.

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Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 | Národní filmový archiv presents the restoration of I Raggi “Z”

On July 24th, Jeanne Pommeau from Národní filmový archiv took the stage at the Auditorium DAMS Lab to present the restoration work on “I Raggi Z” by Eleuterio Rodolfi (1917). The analog restoration was curated by Cineteca di Bologna, Museo Nazionale del Cinema and Národní filmový archiv (NFA). As Mariann Lewinsky explains in the Film Notes available on Il Cinema Ritrovato website, the film has had a very charming gradual rediscovery. At first a 15-minute framgment surfaced in the early 1990 at the CNC in Paris, but then it was identified as another film by the same director. After other discoveries, il Cinema Ritrovato screened a 30 minute long version of the film at the 2009 edition. This gave the idea of the storyline and helped in identifying I raggi Z, a 1917 Ambrosio production. The present version is still complete, but contains an additional 200m and an opening scene that the previous one didn’t have.

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Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 | Cinémathèque Française presents the restorations of “F for Fake” and “Le Chien Andalou”

As part of the restoration meetings presented during the mornings of Il Cinema Ritrovato, today the Auditorium DAMS Lab hosted the talk on the two new Cinémathèque française’s restorations: F for Fake and Un chien andalou. While the choice may appear strange, these two films are connected by the importance of the pioneers behind them: respectively Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel.

The restoration of F for Fake, carried out by Les Film de l’Astrophore and the Cinémathèques française in collaboration with Documentaire sur grand écran, the Cinémathèque suisse and the Institut audiovisuel de Monaco and with the help of Hiventy and the L.E. Diapason Studio, was first presented during Cannes Classics and will be screened in Piazza Maggiore tonight at 21:30. To give a detailed explaination of the restoration work, the conference saw the participation of members from Hiventy and L.E. Diapason. F for Fake has parts in 16mm and others in 35mm and Hiventy’s work consisted in creating a more cohesive visual flow, while preserving the photochemical quality of the original copy. For the sound, L.E. Diapason studio had to work on the post-synchronization of the dialogues.

Un chien andalou will be screened in Piazza Maggiore on Saturday at 21.30. The 4k restoration was carried out by the Cinémathèque française and Filmoteca Española in collaboration with Les Grands Films Classiques. The Filmoteca Española has restored Buñuel’s works over the years, but Un chien andalou was a difficult operation for the availability of the original prints. Hiventy’s work started from an original negative and a safety countertype stored in Cinémathèque française and a 2003 analogical countertype from the Filmoteca Española. In order to preserve the film in its best and most accurate form, the speed of the projector must be changed during the screening. The restoration was possible thanks to the contribution from the Creative Europe project in the context of “A Season of Classic Films”.

Report of the 2021 ACE Workshop

After a one-year stop due to the pandemic, ACE has returned in Bologna for its annual workshop during Il Cinema Ritrovato festival. The event, hosted by MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, was in collaboration with Europa Cinemas. The ACE workshop, moderated by professor Francesco Clerici, was divided in two sessions. The morning one was an opportunity to discuss the re-opening of cinemas and the presence of new platforms, while the afternoon was dedicated to film education.

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Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021: “Where is Kiarostami?” Exhibition at Centre Pompidou

After the first two meetings about restoration, curators Sylvie Pras and Massoumeh Lahidji presented the exhibition dedicated to filmmaker, writer, artist and photographer Abbas Kiarostami. The exhibition named Où est l’ami Kiarostami?, echoing the title of one of its most famous films (Où est la maison de mon ami?), is hosted by a very special venue: Centre Pompidou. The closeness to the entrance and the free access are key features of the homage to the Iranian director for the two curators, that want this to be a full immersion in Kiarostami’s body of work.

The exhibition wants to cater to those who are familiar with his work and those who aren’t by facilitating the encounter between the artist and the audience. It offers insights in all the different aspects of Abbas Kiarostami‘s career with graphic works, photographs, film sequences and much more, bringing his poetic way of seeing the world to life.

Où est l’ami Kiarostami? was designed by Centre Pompidou in partnership with mk2 (which has restored Kiarostami‘s films) and the Kiarostami Foundation and it offers a visit route between different modules, where his works clash and collaborate to create something new, over an area of more than a thousand square meters.

Click here to find out more.

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Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021: Bruno Mestdagh (CINEMATEK) presents the restoration of “De Man die zijn haar kort liet knippen”

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. 

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Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021: Isabella Rossellini introduces “Francesco Giullare di Dio”

Photo Credits: Lorenzo Burlando

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”.