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Having touched on the rich cultural heritage of West Africa with “Feel Like Going Home,” an episode in his 2003 documentary series The Blues, which explored the African roots of the Delta blues, Martin Scorsese had another fortuitous opportunity to engage with the continent’s artistic offerings in 2007.

That year, he was invited to Mali by Souleymane Cissé, a celebrated Malian director who shared with him the joys of African cinema, as well as its struggles.

“Cissé was very urgent in expressing the need for African cinema to be preserved,” said Margaret Bodde, executive director of Scorsese’s preservation-focused nonprofit organization, The Film Foundation. “The great flowering of African cinema of the 1960s and ’70s has not really been available where the films were made. So we’ve always had it on our minds to try to tackle this issue.”

The right circumstances were ultimately initiated by FEPACI, or The Pan African Federation of Filmmakers, an organization formed in 1969 in North Africa to be a continent-wide (and diaspora) voice for promoting African cinema interests. Concerned with the urgent need to preserve African film heritage, FEPACI developed an idea for a program to identify and select 50 films across the continent for preservation. They also began having discussions with The Film Foundation about joining the effort.

“From that point on it became clear that this was a world heritage cultural patrimony issue, so we sent a proposal in to UNESCO,” said Bodde. UNESCO—the Paris-based agency of the United Nations dedicated to cultural, educational and scientific endeavors—responded two months later.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova explained: “Protecting African audiovisual heritage is inseparable from the safeguarding of African cultural and natural wonders. It is a source of pride and dignity. It is a driver of social cohesion and belonging. It is also an accelerator for economic growth, job creation and revenue generation. Films shape our opinions and the way we see the world. They give confidence and courage to transform societies for the better.” Bokova sees the project as “a source of enrichment for humankind.”

A letter of agreement between the entities was formalized on June 7, 2017, with the creation of the African Film Heritage Project initiative.

Going forward, the partners will rely on the expertise of a FEPACI advisory board of archivists, filmmakers and scholars tasked with seeking out the initial 50 films. The alliance already has a success under its belt that predates the letter of agreement, with the restoration of celebrated Mauritanian director Med Hondo’s 1969 drama Soleil O (Oh, Sun). A critique of neocolonialism, the film was shot over a period of four years and tells the story of an African immigrant’s journey to Paris to find his ancestors.

The film’s restoration took place at the L’Immagine Ritrovata lab in Bologna, Italy and was financed by The Film Foundation and the George Lucas Family Foundation, with the work being completed in time for a screening at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Having seen the film, Bodde describes it as “a film of righteous anger…poignant and heartbreaking.”

“The partnership with the Film Foundation will help further increase the visibility of Soleil O, not only in Africa but across the world,” said Aboubakar Sanogo, North American Regional Secretary for FEPACI. “This film more than ever contributes to bringing us together in a world where misunderstanding among peoples is increasing.”

Sanogo also stressed that an overarching goal of the partnership will be bringing the film heritage of Africa to Africans themselves. “One of the objectives [of FEPACI] is always to have a conversation with African audiences through the cinema,” Sanogo said. “That conversation before was made difficult by the fact that African screens were occupied by Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong films and European films. Part of this partnership is about putting these films back into the circuit in Africa itself.”

The films selected for preservation will include narrative features, documentaries, avant-garde works, shorts and newsreels and will be broad enough in their temporality to paint a multifaceted portrait of a 20^th-century Africa both independent and under colonization. By confining its selection timeframe to the hundred year period from 1889 to 1989, the partnership hopes to reconstitute, in the words of Sanogo, “a really credible history of African cinema.”

“We have to go far back to be able to reconstitute the complexity of the narrative of African cinema, and resituate it properly in the general history of cinema itself,” Sanogo said. “Those who write the history of cinema tend to begin African cinema history with independence in the late 1950s and early ’60s, but even in colonial times and around the time of the Lumières, Africans were making films.” MM

Photograph: (L-R) African Film Festival director Mahen Bonetti, FEPACI’s Aboubakar Sanogo, Martin Scorsese, UNESCO’s Irina Bokova and New York University associate professor Yemane Demissie launch the African Film Heritage Project. Photograph by Dave Alloca/ Starpix / Courtesy of The Film Foundation

This article appears in MovieMaker‘s Summer 2017 issue.

American filmmaker Martin Scorsese is supporting an international project to preserve African movies.

It is called the African Film Heritage Project. Its goal is to protect the work of Africa's most important directors, and restore some of the films.

The Film Foundation, a nonprofit launched by Scorsese, created the project. According to Scorsese, its goals are similar to the Film Foundation’s World CinemaProject.

"The idea of the world cinema foundation was to restore and make available as best as possible films made in areas that really don't have the infrastructure, the archivalinfrastructure to take care of these films and take care of that cultural heritage."

The project will locate, restore, and preserve these films. Many important films from the continent are difficult to find, especially for the average movie viewer.

The Film Foundation is partnering with the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) and UNESCO in this project.

FEPACI’s advisory board is identifying 50 films for restoration. The board is made up of archivists, scholars, and filmmakers who are active in Africa. Scorsese says the films are a hidden part of the continent's history.

"Those films were made by Africans, about Africans for Africans, for the world and it is time to take that as another facet of the culture. The creative thinking, the creative action of the entire continent."

Director Yemani Demissie teaches filmmaking at New York University. He says:

"Many African films that were made in the previous century don't have the opportunity to be screened by filmmakers all over the world.”

Demissie adds that this project will allow a wider audience to see these films.

Irina Bokova is UNESCO director-general. She says the project will “give justice to the African history” and encourage creativity among young filmmakers.

Scorsese agrees:

“I think it is something that could be very fruitful, for young people who are beginning to make their own films or are making their own films."

In the past ten years, Scorsese's World Cinema Project has helped restore films from Egypt and Senegal as well as from India, Armenia, Brazil, and the Philippines.

I’m Phil Dierking.

 

Arzouma Kompaore reported this story for VOA News. Phil Dierking adapted the report for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

Are there important films from your country that you think everyone should see? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

 

archive - n. a place in which public records or historical materials are kept​

cinema - n. the film industry​

fruitful - adj. producing a good result​

infrastructure - n. the basic equipment and structures (such as roads and bridges) that are needed for a country, region, or organization to function properly​

preserve - v. to keep (something) in its original state or in good condition​

restore - v. to return (something) to an earlier or original condition by repairing it, cleaning it, etc.​

Rosita, famed as the single collaboration between two of the giants of the silent screen, the director Ernst Lubitsch and the star Mary Pickford, is the film that has been chosen for the Pre-inaugural evening of the 74th Venice International Film Festival. 

Rosita, will be screened in a new 4K digital restoration effected by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, with the support of The Film Foundation; this will be the restored version’s world premiere. The screening of Rosita will feature live music played by the Mitteleuropa Orchestra of Friuli – Venezia Giulia, directed by the musicologist Gillian Anderson, who has reconstructed the film’s original score by working on scores recovered at the Congressional Library in Washington, D.C. 

Rosita is set in a mythical Spain where an engagingly lecherous King (Holbrook Blinn) has cast his eye on a popular but provocative street singer (Mary Pickford). She, in turn, yearns for the handsome young nobleman (George Walsh, brother of the celebrated director Raoul Walsh), who has rescued her from the angry king’s guards and has been condemned to a dungeon for his troubles. Following the American success of his German historical epics (Madame DuBarry, Anna Boleyn), Ernst Lubitsch was invited to Hollywood by Mary Pickford to direct her in what would become her first adult role, as a street singer of Seville who attracts the flattering but inconvenient interest of the King of Spain (Holbrook Blinn).  

The film was, by all accounts, a major critical and commercial success on its first release, but in later years Pickford turned against it, for reasons that still remain mysterious, and decides to allow the film to decay (she did, however, preserve reel four, for reasons no less mysterious). Rosita vanished from circulation until a nitrate print was discovered in the Russian archives and repatriated by the Museum of Modern Art in the 1960s. A safety preservation negative was made from the nitrate print, but no further work was done on the film because of the expense and difficulty of recreating the English intertitles.  Happily, a copy of a complete continuity script, which includes all of the intertitles, surfaced in the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Using the titles in Pickford’s preserved fourth reel as a template, new intertitles have been created to match the original.  

Working with this new material, MoMA has recreated this celebrated but severely damaged film in a form as close as possible to its original release. Musicologist Gillian Anderson has recreated the original theatrical score, working from the music cue sheets surviving at the Library of Congress. The Mitteleuropa Orchestra belongs to a long musical tradition focusing on central and southern Europe. In the early 2000s, it was institutionalized by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and supported by several municipalities and provinces in the region. It currently counts 47 stable orchestra professors and a solid independent management. Its headquarter is in the Loggia della Gran Guardia in Palamanova, a historical building dating back to the XVI century, facing the marvellous square of the famous star-shaped city. 

Since January 2017, the Orchestra Music Director is Master Marco Guidarini. His versatile repertoire goes from baroque to contemporary, from classical to cross-over music. The Mitteleuropa Orchestra played successfully both in Italy and abroad – France, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania. It participated in many international events, from Venice Music Biennale to Mittelfest, from the Pordenone Silent Film Festival to the concert for the beatification of John Paul II.

Director Giuseppe Piccioni to head the Jury of Cinema History Students

Italian director Giuseppe Piccioni (Not of This World, Light of My Eyes, These Days) will chair the Jury of Cinema History Students which – for the fifth time – will award the VENEZIA CLASSICI AWARD for the BEST RESTORED FILM and the BEST DOCUMENTARY ON CINEMA.

The numerous restored masterpieces in the Venezia Classici section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival include:1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci (1976); Red Desert by Michelangelo Antonioni (1964), awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival; A Story from Chikamatsu (1954) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954), awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, by Kenji Mizoguchi; Wanderers of the Desert by Nacer Khemir (1984); The Revolt of Mamie Stover by Raoul Walsh (1956); The Third Lover by Claude Chabrol (1962); Black Peter by Miloš Forman (1963); Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg (1977); Batch ’81 by Mike De Leon (1982), and Into the Night by John Landis (1985).

The 74th Venice International Film Festival will be held at the Lido from August 30 to September 9, 2017; it is directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.

Since 2012, and with growing success, the Festival section Venezia Classici has been presenting the world premieres of a selection of the best restorations of classic films conducted over the previous year by film libraries, cultural institutions and productions all over the world. Curated by Alberto Barbera in collaboration with Stefano Francia di Celle, Venezia Classici also presents a selection of documentaries about cinema and its filmmakers. The Jury, chaired by Giuseppe Piccioni, is composed of 26 cinema history students – nominated by their professors – in their final year at Italian universities, DAMS performing arts courses, and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

The list of the films selectedfor the Venezia Classici section of the 74th Festival:

Les baliseurs du désert / El-haimoune (Wanderers of the Desert)

by Nacer Khemir (Tunisie, France, 1984, 95’, COL.)

Restoration: Cinémathèque royale de Belgique

 

Batch ‘81

by Mike De Leon (Philippines, 1982, 108’, COL.)

Restoration: Asian Film Archive

 

Cerný Petr (Black Peter)

by Miloš Forman (Czechoslovakia, 1963, 89’, B/W)

Restoration: Národní filmový archiv

 

Chikamatsu monogatari (A Story from Chikamatsu)

by Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1954, 102’, B/W)

Restoration: Kadokawa Corporation, The Film Foundation with the cooperation of The Japan Foundation

 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind 

by Steven Spielberg (USA, 1977, 137’, COL.)

Restoration: Sony Pictures Entertainment

 

Daïnah la métisse

by Jean Grémillon (France, 1932, 48’, B/W)

followed by Zéro de conduite – rushes by Jean Vigo (France, 1933, 20’, B/W)

Restoration: Gaumont with the support of Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

 

Il deserto rosso (Red Desert)

by Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy, 1964, 120’, COL.)

Restoration: CSC-Cineteca Nazionale with the cooperation of RTI-Mediaset

 

Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her)

by Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1967, 87’, COL.)

Restoration: Argos Films with the support of Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

 

La donna scimmia (The Ape Woman)

by Marco Ferreri (Italy, France, 1964, 93’, B/W)

Restoration: Cineteca di Bologna and TF1 Studio with the cooperation of Surf Film

 

Idi i smotri (Come and See)

by Elem Klimov (USSR, 1985, 143’, COL.)

Restoration: Mosfilm (producer of the restoration, Karen Shakhnazarov)

 

Into the Night

by John Landis (USA, 1985, 115’, COL.)

Restoration: Universal Pictures

 

Non c’è pace tra gli ulivi (Under the Olive Tree)

by Giuseppe De Santis (Italy, 1950, 107’, B/W)

Restoration: CSC-Cineteca Nazionale with the cooperation of CristaldiFilm by Zeudi Araya and Massimo Cristaldi

 

Novecento (1900)

by Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy, 1976, 317’, COL.)

Restoration: 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Istituto Luce - Cinecittà and Cineteca di Bologna, with the cooperation of Alberto Grimaldi and the support of Massimo Sordella

 

Ochazuke no Aji (Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice)

by Yasujiro Ozu (Japan, 1952, 115’, B/W)

Restoration: Shochiku Co., Ltd.

 

L’oeil du malin(The Third Lover)

by Claude Chabrol (France, 1962, 91’, B/W)

Restoration: Studiocanal with the support of Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée

 

The Old Dark House

by James Whale (USA, 1933, 72’, B/W)

Restoration: Cohen Film Collection / Cohen Media Group

 

The Revolt of Mamie Stover

by Raoul Walsh (USA, 1956, 93’, COL.)

Restoration: 20th Century Fox

 

Sansho dayu (Sansho the Bailiff)

by Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1954, 126’, B/W)

Restoration: Kadokawa Corporation, The Film Foundation with the cooperation of The Japan Foundation

 

The Venezia Classici section will also feature the presentation of a selection of documentaries about cinema and its filmmakers. The complete list of the section will be announced during the press conference presenting the program of the Venice Film Festival, on Thursday, July 27th  at 11 am in Rome (Cinema Moderno).

 

Giuseppe Piccioni – Biography

Giuseppe Piccioni has directed ten movies since 1987. He has participated at many film festivals (Venice, Berlin, Moscow, Montreal, London, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco), receiving awards in Italy and abroad, and has worked with Italy’s top actors. 

His film Not of this World (Fuori dal mondo, 1999), starring Margherita Buy and Silvio Orlando, received five David di Donatello Awards, four Golden Ciak Awards, the Golden Goblet for Best Producer, the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, Best Feature Film and the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and the Special Grand Prize of the Jury at the Montréal World Film Festival. The film was nominated to represent Italy at the Oscars.  

In 2001, he presented Light of My Eyes (Luce dei miei occhi) In Competition at the 58th Venice International Film Festival; the protagonists, Sandra Ceccarelli and Luigi Lo Cascio, each received a Volpi Cup for their performance.

In 2004, he released The Life That I Want (La vita che vorrei), once again starring the couple Lo Cascio-Ceccarelli. The movie was presented at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section. That same year, it participated In Competition at the Moscow International Film Festival, and at the film festivals in Edinburgh and San Francisco.

After Giulia Doesn’t Date at Night (Giulia non esce la sera,2009),starring Valeria Golino,and The Red and the Blue (Il rosso e il blu, 2012),starring Margherita Buy, Roberto Herlitzka and Riccardo Scamarcio, he directed These Days (Questi giorni, 2016), presented In Competition at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival in 2016. The film stars Maria Roveran, Marta Gastini, Laura Adriani, Caterina Le Caselle, and Margherita Buy.