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“Hollywood\u2019s studio era remains a continual goldmine for film historians and cinephiles looking for hidden gems, and Il Cinema Ritrovato<\/strong> has made a habit of yearly rediscoveries of long-forgotten directors whose turn it is be elevated to auteur status. Blunt and direct as the tactic may be \u2014 bound to raise even Andrew Sarris\u2019 eyebrows when it comes to framing films exclusively through auteurism \u2014 there\u2019s no denying that it\u2019s been successful in the past. This year, the title of the great rediscovered auteur goes to Hugo Fregonese<\/strong>, an Argentina-born director who only made films in Hollywood for a few years amidst a 30-year career.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Il Cinema Ritrovato strand \u2014 evocatively titled \u201cThe Drifter\u2019s Escape\u201d<\/a> and co-curated by Dave Kehr<\/strong> and festival director Ehsan Khoshbakht<\/strong> \u2014 surveys a number of Hugo Fregonese\u2019s Hollywood films and others from that run. What emerges is a director drawn to stories of nostalgia, of roaming, of drift and of an inability to find a place to call one\u2019s own. Fregonese\u2019s protagonists are often men on the run, constantly looking over their shoulder, but also fools who don\u2019t realize when they\u2019ve struck gold; the sort of men convinced they ought to look a gift horse in the mouth”.<\/p>\n By Fedor Tot<\/strong><\/p>\n