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Masterpieces by Michelangelo Antonioni, John Berry, Souleymane Cissé, Zoltán Fábri, Pietro Germi, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Shôhei Imamura, Hiroshi Inagaki, Fritz Lang, Sidney Lumet, Jean-Pierre Melville, Nikita Mikhalkov, Martin Scorsese

The final selection has been made for the films in the Venice Classics section of the 77th Venice International Film Festival, which this year will be hosted as part of the programme of the festival Il Cinema Ritrovato, promoted by the Cineteca di Bologna, which will take place from August 25th to 31st in Bologna. The collaboration between the two festivals is a concrete sign of the solidarity around us, showing that it is possible to overcome the difficulties of the moment by finding new and original ways of working together to emerge from the isolation provoked by the pandemic. This selection of Venice Classics 2020, to which new titles will be added, will then be screened in Venice in the following months.

The 77th Venice International Film Festival will be held on the Lido di Venezia from September 2nd to 12th, directed by Alberto Barbera.

Venice Classics is the section that since 2012 has presented, to growing acclaim, the world premiere screenings of a selection of the best classic film restorations completed over the past year by film libraries, cultural institutions and production companies from around the world. Venice Classics is curated by Alberto Barbera with the collaboration of Federico Gironi.

The following is the complete line-up of the restored films in the Venice Classics section selected for the 77th Venice Film Festival. They will be screened from August 25th to 31st at the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna.

VENICE CLASSICS

CRONACA DI UN AMORE (CHRONICLE OF A LOVE)
by Michelangelo ANTONIONI (Italy, 1950, B/W)
restored by: Cineteca di Bologna

CLAUDINE
by John BERRY (USA, 1974, colour)
restored by: Fox/Criterion/Disney

DEN MUSO (THE YOUNG GIRL)
by Souleymane CISSÉ (Mali, 1975, colour)
restored by: Cinémathèque Française

UTÓSZEZON (LATE SEASON)
by Zoltán FÁBRI (Hungary, 1966, B/W)
restored by: Hungarian National Film Archive

SEDOTTA E ABBANDONATA (SEDUCED AND ABANDONED)
by Pietro GERMI (Italy, 1964, B/W)
restored by: Cineteca di Bologna

LA ÚLTIMA CENA (THE LAST SUPPER)
by Tomás GUTIÉRREZ ALEA (Cuba, 1976, colour)
restored by: Cineteca di Cuba

FUKUSHÛ SURU WA WARE NI ARI (VENGEANCE IS MINE)
by Shôhei IMAMURA (Japan, 1979, colour)
restored by: Shochiku

MUHOMATSU NO ISSHO (THE RICKSHAW MAN)
by Hiroshi INAGAKI (Japan, 1943, B/W)
restored by: Film Foundation/Kadokawa

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE
by Fritz LANG (USA, 1937, B/W)
restored by: StudioCanal

SERPICO
by Sidney LUMET (USA, 1973, colour)
restored by: StudioCanal

LE CERCLE ROUGE
by Jean-Pierre MELVILLE (France, 1970, colour)
restored by: StudioCanal

NEOKONCHENNAYA PYESA DLYA MEKHANICHESKOGO PIANINO (UNFINISHED PIECE FOR THE PLAYER PIANO)
by Nikita MIKHALKOV (Soviet Union, 1977, colour)
restored by: Mosfilm

GOODFELLAS
by Martin SCORSESE (USA, 1990, colour)
restored by: Warner Bros.

When I was young and going deeper and deeper into movies, Bogart was my first hero and Nick Ray was my second. Where I grew up it wasn’t so easy to find Ray’s films, even on TV, so I read about a lot of them before I had the chance to actually see them. Jean Luc Godard’s writings in particular were so immediate and impassioned that they were themselves like movies, and the spirit of his words soon took cinematic form in his own films. Godard in turn inspired Wim Wenders, as did Ray. When Wenders made The American Friend, he took two Patricia Highsmith novels and crafted a transcontinental narrative in which Europe and America endlessly reflected back at each other, a dark mirror image of what happened during the great awakening of cinema culture in the 50s and 60s. Wenders cast Ray in a pivotal role, and he followed up with the hybrid film called Lightning Over Water, co-signed by Ray, a semi-fictionalized version of Ray’s last days before his death from cancer. There’s a scene in that film where Wenders and Ray, at that point skin and bone, sit outside an auditorium during a public screening of The Lusty Men and reflect on a scene at the beginning of that film (to which Wenders paid homage in his Kings of the Road) where Robert Mitchum’s banged up rodeo rider returns to his family’s dilapidated old house for the first time in years and reaches under the crawlspace and through the cobwebs to find the relics of his childhood right where he’d left them. “It’s the most beautiful scene I know about going home,” remarks Wenders. There are many more such moments of piercing, homely intimacy in this spectacularly mistitled movie about the nomadic life on the rodeo circuit. The Film Foundation has participated in the restorations of five Ray movies, including his first (They Live By Night), his last (the wildly experimental and improbably touching We Can’t Go Home Again) and his most famous (Rebel without a Cause). For me, The Lusty Men looms larger with every passing year, and to see Warner Brothers’ restoration for the first time was a thrilling experience: the light falling on every autumnal landscape, the texture of every embroidered western shirt and every dusty arena, were alive in a way I’d never experienced. (Here it’s worth recalling that Ray admired the great DP Lee Garmes’ “loiny” cinematography on the film.) Like They Live By Night, In a Lonely Place and On Dangerous Ground, The Lusty Men is identifiably a studio movie in its outward trappings but, in the end, a world apart in its emotional orientation and its ground level engagement with multiple variations of loneliness, hurt and yearning for connection.

- Kent Jones

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For the 17^th consecutive year, here is the program of the classic cinema section of the Cannes Festival. Restored prints, celebrations and documentaries will be programmed.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, when we were still unaware that the relation of contemporary cinema to its own memory would be shaken up by the emerging appearance of digital technology, the Festival  de Cannes created Cannes Classics, a selection allowing to display the work of valorization of heritage cinema carried out by production companies, right-owners, cinematheques or national archives from around the world. Now an an essential component of the Official Selection, in a dimension to the history of cinema from which many international festivals have got inspired from, Cannes Classics presents the masterpieces and rarities of the history of cinema in restored copies.

Because the Festival de Cannes also provides itself with the means of achieving the mission of enchanting the relationship of today's audience with the memory of cinema, Cannes Classics sets the prestige of the biggest festival in the world at the service of rediscovered cinema, accompanying all the new exploitations of great works from the past: theatrical releases, DVDs / Blu-rays, distribution on platforms or on VOD.

The program of Cannes Classics 2020 edition consists of twenty-five feature films and seven documentaries. Since the Festival de Cannes did not take place, Cannes Classics 2020 will be hosted, in whole or in part, by the festival Lumière in Lyon (October 10-18, 2020) and by the Rencontres Cinématographiques de Cannes (November, 23-26, 2020).

The 2020 program

In the Mood for love by Wong Kar-wai twenty years after, À Bout de souffle and L’Avventura turn 60, great filmmakers (Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, Bertrand Blier, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Glauber Rocha, Lino Brocka), Tilda Swinton's first major role in a science fiction film, Muhammad Ali meets William Klein, rediscoveries from the Festival de Cannes ‘60, ‘68, ‘73 and ’81, the first color fiction of Chinese cinema, an unknown masterpiece from Sri Lanka, a Serbian comedy, the new wave of Russian cinema, from yesterday's cinema to today's world with the first film by Melvin Van Peebles and a stricking documentary on women from Brittany, a landmark film about Charlie Chaplin, an exceptional portrait of actor John Belushi, Bruce Lee revisited and a celebration to great Italian actress Alida Valli, here is Cannes Classics 2020.

In the Mood for Love (2000, 1h38, Hong Kong) by Wong Kar-wai

The 4k restoration of the film made from the original negative was lead by Criterion and L'Immagine Ritrovata under the supervision of Wong Kar-wai. In the Mood for Love, by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, made its lead actor Tony Leung win the Male Interpretation Prize.

French theatrical distribution: La Rabbia, date of release: December 2, 2020.

Actress Tilda Switon in her first big screen role to pay tribute to film director and film theorist Peter Wollen. It will be the rediscovery of a rare work.

Friendship's Death (1987, 1h12, United Kingdom) by Peter Wollen

Presented by the British Film Institute (BFI). The 4K remastering by the BFI National Archive was from the original Standard 16mm colour negative. The soundtrack was digitised directly from the original 35mm final mix magnetic master track. The remastering was undertaken in collaboration with the film's producer, Rebecca O'Brien and cinematographer, Witold Stok.

The Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) (1967, 1h27, France) by Melvin Van Peebles

Presented by IndieCollect and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The restoration of The Story of a Three-Day Pass (La Permission) was funded by a grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The original film elements were found by the IndieCollect team during its inventory of Melvin Van Peebles’ New York apartment and storage facility. To create the restoration, the IndieCollect team used a 5K Kinetta Archival Scanner to digitally capture the 35mm Interpositive of the American version and combined it with elements scanned from the French version. Color grading and restoration were completed in-house by Oskar Miarka, and the titles were recreated by Cameron Haffner. Sandra Schulberg translated the French dialogue and new English subtitles were created.

Iyulskiy dozhd (July Rain / Pluie de juillet) (1966, 1h48, Russia) by Marlen Khutsiev

Presented by Mosfilm Cinema Concern. Source material: negative. 4K digital restoration. Restored by: Mosfilm Cinema Concern. Producer of restoration: Karen Shakhnazarov. Year of restoration: 2020.

Quand les femmes ont pris la colère (1977, 1h15, France) by Soizick Chappedelaine and René Vautier

Presented by Ciaofilm. The film was scanned in 4K and restored in 2K from the original 16mm negative. Image works carried out by ECLAIR Classics and by L.E.DIAPASON for the sound under the supervision of Moïra Chappedelaine-Vautier with the support of the CNC, the Cinémathèque de Bretagne and the Région Bretagne.

French theatrical distribution in 2021. DVD / Blu-ray release by Les Mutins de Pangée and in VOD on Cinémutins in 2021.

Préparez vos mouchoirs (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs) (1977, 1h50, France) by Bertrand Blier

Presented by TF1 Studio and Orange Studio / CAPAC. 4K Restoration from the picture negative and the French magnetic soud track, supervised by Bertrand Blier. Digital works carried out by Eclair laboratory in 2019.

Hester Street (1973, 1h30, USA) by Joan Micklin Silver

Presented by Cohen Film Collection. The primary source element for the restoration of Hester Street was the original 35mm camera negative. Brief sections of duplicate negative, in particular the opening title sequence with burned in titles, were cut into the original negative in order to produce the original release prints. 4K scanning and restoration work was carried out by DuArt Media Services in New York.

Ko to tamo peva ? (Who’s Singing Over There? / Qui chante là-bas ?) (1980, 1h26, Serbia) by Slobodan Šijan

Presented by Malavida Films. Restoration from the picture and sound negative. Scanning: Arriscan. Supervision: Slobodan Šijan with Milorad Glusica. Sound restored by Aleksandar Stojsin.

French theatrical distribution: Malavida Films, date of release :  October 21, 2020. Restoration made by Jugoslovenska Kinoteka (Yugoslav Film Archive) and produced by CENTAR FILM, Belgrade. 

Prae dum (Black Silk) (1961, 1h58, Thailand) by R.D. Pestonji

Presented by Film Archive Thailand (Public Organization). 4K Scan and 4K Restoration from the original 35mm negative (preserved by Film Archive Thailand). Restoration made and financed by Film Archive Thailand and Thai Ministry of Culture. Mastered in 4K for Digital Projection.

Zhu Fu (New Year Sacrifice) (1956, 1h40, China) by Hu Sang

Presented by Shanghai International Film Festival and China Film Archive. 4K Scan and 4K Digital Restoration from the original 35mm image negative and sound negative (preserved by China Film Archive). Restoration made by China Film Archive. Co-financed by Shanghai International Film Festival and Jaeger-LeCoultre. Mastered in 4K for Digital Projection.

Feldobott kő (Upthrown Stone / La Pierre lancée) (1968, 1h25, Hungary) by Sándor Sára

Presented by National Film Institute – Film Archive - Hongrie.

The 4K digital restoration was carried out as part of ‘The long-term restoration program of Hungarian film heritage” of the National Film Institute – Film Archive. The restoration was made using the original image and sound negatives by the National Film Institute - Filmlab. The Digital grading was supervised by Sándor Sára. Collaborating partner: Hungarian Society of Cinematographers.

Neige (1981, 1h30, France) by Juliet Berto and Jean-Henri Roger

Presented by JHR Films. First 4k digital restoration submitted by JHR Films with the support of the CNC et de l’image animée. The restoration was carried out at L’Image Retrouvée laboratory in Bologna and in Paris.

French theatrical distribution: JHR Films, date of release: spring 2021.

Bambaru Avith (The Wasps Are Here) (1978, 2h, Sri Lanka) by Dharmasena Pathiraja

Presented by Asian Film Archive. 4K film and sound restoration was carried out by L'Immagine Ritrovata using the sole-surviving 35mm film positive. The raw and restored 4K scans, a new 35mm picture and sound negatives, and a new positive print of the restored version of the film have been produced and are preserved by the Asian Film Archive.

Bayanko: Kapit sa patalim (Bayan Ko) (1984, 1h48, Philippines / France) by Lino Brocka

Presented by Le Chat qui fume. First 4k digital restoration submitted by Le Chat qui fume. Scanning made at VDM laboratory and restoration carried out by Le Chat qui fume in Paris.

French theatrical distribution and Blu-ray / UHD release: Le Chat qui fume, date of release: February 2021. 

La Poupée (1962, 1h34, France) by Jacques Baratier

Presented by the CNC. Sound and image digital work of restoration executed by the CNC and carried out by Hiventy. Follow-up by the CNC and supervised by Diane Baratier. Digital restoration made from 4K scans of the original negative. A 35mm print from the digital restoration was released. French distribution: Tamasa Distribution.

Sanatorium pod klepsydra (The Hourglass Sanatory / La Clepsydre) (1973, 2h04, Poland) by Wojciech J. Has 

Presented by Polish Film Classics. 4k Scan and 2K restoration carried out by DI Factory and the reKino team by keeping the guidelines of DOP Witold Sobociński (this restoration is dedicated to him) who could eventually achieve the image he wished to obtain in 1973. Artistic supervision: cinematographer Piotr Sobociński Jr. Right-owners: WFDiF.

French Blu-ray release: Malavida Films, date of release: May 2021. 

&

L’Amérique insolite (America as Seen by a Frenchman) (1959, 1h30, France) by François Reichenbach

Presented by Les Films du jeudi. Restoration carried out at Hiventy: 4K scan – 2K restoration from the original negatives.

Deveti krug (The Ninth Circle / Neuvième cercle) (1960, 1h37, Croatia) by France Štiglic

Digital restoration in 2K presented by Croatian Cinematheque – Croatian State Archives with the support of Croatian Audiovisual Centre. Restoration performed by Ater and Klik Film studios in Zagreb, Croatia.

Muhammad Ali the Greatest (1974, 2h03, France) by William Klein

Presented by Films Paris New York and ARTE. First digital 2K restoration from the original 16mm negative scanned in 4K carried out with the support of the CNC. Image works were carried out by ECLAIR Classics and by L.E.DIAPASON for the sound.

Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation celebrate its 30^th birthday

Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation has strived to preserve the world's cinematographic heritage and has offered us masterpieces, rare films and has supported the preservation and restoration of cinema, ensuring its survival for future generations with passion and fervor since 1990. This year, Pier Paolo Pasolini will be honored and a legendary believed to be lost Iranian film will be presented by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project.

Accattone (Accatone) (1961, 1h57, Italy) by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Presented by The Film Foundation. Restored by the Cineteca di

Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and The Film Foundation.

Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Shatranje bad (The Game Chess of the Wind) (1976, 1h33, Iran) by Mohammad Reza Aslani

Presented by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project. Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata and The Film

Foundation's World Cinema Project. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Federico 100!

From the filmmaker who stepped away from the Competition at the Festival de Cannes after his Palme d'Or in 1960, here is the all newly restored for the occasion film which enabled him to win the Oscar for best foreign film in 1954, along with his first film in a stunning restoration and a furiously original documentary. Federico Fellini will be celebrated in his favorite and a festival close to his heart.

La strada (1956, 1h48, Italy) by Federico Fellini

Presented by The Criterion Collection and The Film Foundation.

Restored in 4K resolution by the Criterion Collection and The Film Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory

from a 35mm dupe negative preserved by Beta Film GmbH. Restoration funding provided by Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Luci del varietà (Les feux du music-hall) (1950, 1h37, Italie) by Alberto Lattuada and Federico Fellini

Presented by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna. Restored in 4K by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, with funding provided by Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo. Restoration carried out within the "Fellini 100 Project", promoted by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, CSC-Cineteca Nazionale and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà.

Fellini degli Spiriti (Fellini of the Spirits) by Anselma dell’Olio (1h40, Italy / Belgium)

Presented by Mad Entertainment, Rai Cinema and Walking the Dog with Rai Com and Arte. Powerful, close to the reverie dear to director Federico Fellini’s heart, this surprising and original documentary takes us into the whirlwind of the work of this genius through the prism of dreams and minds.

À Bout de souffle and L’Avventura turn 60 

À Bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960, 1h29, France) by Jean-Luc Godard

Presented by Studiocanal. 4K scan and restoration by Studiocanal with the help of the CNC from the original cut picture negative and the interpositive from that period. An approved-print by DOP Raoul Coutard produced in 2009 when the previous analog restoration was carried out was used for color grading reference. Sound restoration from the original sound negative. Laboratory: L'Image Retrouvée.

French theatrical distribution: Carlotta Films, date of release: October-November 2020. Video release: collector edition UHD+Blu-ray on November 4, 2020.  

L'Avventura (1960, 2h20, Italy / France) by Michelangelo Antonioni

Presented by Cinématographique Lyre and Théâtre du temple. 4K Restoration in its uncut version Cinématographique Lyre company, original coproducer of the film, with the support of the CNC and the Cinémathèque française. Works carried out by the teams of the L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna) and Hiventy (Boulogne-Billancourt) laboratories.

French theatrical distribution: Théâtre du temple, date of release: November 2020.

Documentaries 2020

Wim Wenders, Desperado by Eric Friedler and Andreas Frege (2h, Germany)

About Wim Wenders: a rich and captivating journey in a large-scale documentary where many artists (Ry Cooder, Patti Smith, Dennis Hopper) express themselves.

Presented by Studio Hamburg Enterprises.

Alida Valli: In Her Own Words (Alida) by Mimmo Verdesca (1h45, Italy)

Director Mimmo Verdesca paints with great subtlety and great affection the portrait of an Italian actress with an extraordinary destiny and talent: Alida Valli.

Presented by Venicefilm, Kublai Film, Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, Rai Cinema.

Charlie Chaplin, le génie de la liberté (Charlie Chaplin, The Genius of Liberty) by François Aymé and Yves Jeuland, directed by Yves Jeuland (2h25, two parts: 1h05 and 1h20, France)

A definitive documentary with Mathieu’s Amalric narration voice over.

Presented by Kuiv productions in association with Lobster films and France télévisions.

Be Water by Bao Nguyen (1h44, USA)

Bruce Lee: the legend, the martial artist, the actor, the Asian man who conquered the world. Always present in our hearts of moviegoers, the fighter as you have never seen him with archives from his family's personal collection.

Presented by ESPN and Dogwoof. The film was presented as a world premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January 2020.

BELUSHI by R.J. Cutler (1h48, USA)

The Blues Brothers star whose name evokes the American comedy of the late 70s. Without any onscreen speaker, a real inventory of everything that can exist and that we had never seen on John Belushi, an unequaled exploration of the career of this great actor with such crazy energy.

Presented by Passion Pictures Films and Showtime Documentary Films.  

Antena da raça by Paloma Rocha and Luís Abramo (1h20, Brazil)

Presented by Paloma Rocha Produções Artísticas e Cinematográficas (Paloma Cinematográfica) and Luba Filmes. In 1979 Glauber Rocha hosts a television program where he begins a real political street fight, going out to be close to the people. The Brazil of yesterday dialogues with the Brazil of today in this remarkable documentary about film history and contemporary Brazil.

The animator and animation historian John Canemaker has referred to Oskar Fischinger as the Kandinsky of cinema. You could just as well call him its Klee or its Mondrian or its Hilma af Klint. Each of these artists was familiar with “alternative” spiritual disciplines like theosophy, anthroposophy and (in Fischinger’s case) Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu tantric rituals. And I think that they each felt their way to the spiritual through the practice of their art rather than visa versa. In a 1943 letter to his patroness (for a time) Hilla Rebay, one of the co-founders of the Guggenheim Museum, Fischinger wrote that in the late 20s he developed a “rotating cylinder, driven by a motor, day and night, all the time, to hold my denials and affirmations in steady motion-rotation,” only to learn many years later of the “existing parallel thoughts in my continuous rotating cylinders and the thousands-of-years-old [Buddhist] prayer wheel.”

The Film Foundation has helped to facilitate the restorations of four of Fischinger’s greatest paintings-in-motion: the three-screen Raumlichtkunst, finished in 1929 and restored by the Center for Visual Music with the participation of the National Film Preservation Fund, and three films made after he and his family fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to Los Angeles in 1936, restored by the Academy. Allegretto, synchronized to Ralph Rainger’s piece “Radio Dynamics,” is a matter of staccato rhythms, suggesting the movement of criss-crossing impulses. Radio Dynamics, made in 1942, is silent, also a matter of rhythm but in this case the rhythm of emotions overlapping like waves, fields of color and texture ever expanding and converging, growing and overwhelming and nurturing and displacing one another endlessly. And Fischinger created Motion Painting No. 1 by filming every brushstroke of oil on plexiglass over 9 months: set to Bach’s 3^rd Brandenburg Concerto, it’s a remarkable piece of work that keeps expanding in the mind, a constant crossing and re-crossing from outer to inner experience and back again. I could go on in multiple directions on Oskar Fischinger’s films, but I feel compelled to close with this: they could only have been made by hand, painstakingly, with actual paints and boards and animation stands and film, one mind-bending frame at a time.

- Kent Jones

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