back to the future
“Comedies, Vanished Films, Documentaries, Resurrected Films, Lost Reels, Rediscovered Films, Trailers, Films on the brink of extinction, Cartoons, INCOM Newsreels, LUCE Newsreels, Films to be rescued, Cinematic Junk. Disposable Films:
IL CINEMA RITROVATO
The impossible, the invisible, the forgotten, the rediscovered, the astonishing and the rare – all drawn from the archives of the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, revisited in collaboration with the Institute for the Artistic, Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Emilia-Romagna Region, and offered once again to cinephiles, the curious, the devotes and anyone otherwise inclined, in a marathon of continuous screenings from 3 in the afternoon until 3 in the morning”.
This morning’s opening of the 40th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato took us on a journey into our past, accompanied by the festival’s four directors: Cecilia Cenciarelli, Gian Luca Farinelli, Ehsan Khoshbakht and Mariann Lewinsky.
A reflection on our first forty years, with one eye on the present and the XL programme – featuring more than 500 films – another on the future, and yet another looking back at the path that has brought us here.
And as we return to the modest catalogue of the festival’s second edition – tiny compared to today’s substantial volume – we can already recognise, in embryo, our vocation: the festival’s “formula”, its very DNA, was already there in 1987.
“The past is not something safely behind us; it remains unfinished. The films in this programme were not asking to become classics, to be viewed merely as heritage: they are returning to the screen to question and challenge the present,” said Cecilia Cenciarelli.
“For one week, we can see ourselves reflected in cinema and discover the films that belong to us, that we are, are not, or would like to be. We can look at them – and at ourselves – up close, only to discover that, deep down, none of us is truly normal” added Gian Luca Farinelli.
The opening of the festival’s 40th edition was also the occasion for a major announcement. Mariann Lewinsky, independent researcher and film historian, who for many years has served as a director of Il Cinema Ritrovato and curator of some of the festival’s most important silent film sections, is stepping down from her role. Taking over her invaluable perspective will be Émilie Cauquy, Head of Film Collections Development at the Cinémathèque française.
