Loyola Marymount University
10/10/2023 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/10/2023 10:59
Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour Screens Restored Films
The School of Film and Television invites the LMU community to see rare films and rediscovered masterpieces in pristine, new restorations. SFTV's selection of nine films will be playing from Oct. 18- 21 in the Broccoli and Mayer theaters. The festival will open with an outdoor screening of silent films with live musical accompaniment on the Drollinger Family Stage on Oct. 18. The events are free and open to the public.
Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour returns to LMU after a three-year hiatus. The selection of films represents only a fraction of the offerings that the Cineteca di Bologna puts together every summer for their flagship festival, which screens upwards of 400 films over nine days every summer. Il Cinema Ritrovato has been taking over Bologna's cinemas and its Piazza Maggiore for the past 36 years. It is a renowned film festival dedicated to the restoration and preservation of cinematic treasures.
This past summer, a cohort of LMU students attended the third iteration of SFTV's summer study abroad program linked to participation at the festival. For this digital-native generation, there is no class lecture or screening that communicates the scale and importance of the encounter with film history as successfully as this firsthand experience of becoming immersed among a lively gathering of cinephiles from around the globe.
This year, the LMU students have become curators themselves. They have selected two films for our "From Bologna to L.A." evening on Oct 20: "Man's Castle" (Frank Borzage, U.S., 1933) and "Macario" (Roberto Gavaldón, Mexico, 1961). A Depression-era film, "Man's Castle" addresses the economic struggles of the time. Yet, through the love story at its core, it aims to convey that hope and refuge can be found amidst adversity. In contrast, "Macario"'s protagonist (Ignacio López Tarso), a peasant struggling to feed his family, finds the solution to his plight by striking a deal with Death. "Macario" was a film made in celebration of Mexico's Day of the Dead, decades before Disney's "Coco" (2017). We are also celebrating our screening of the film with a best costume contest!
The outdoor screening that opens the festival will showcase rarely seen silent films with live piano accompaniment by silent-cinema pianist Donald Sosin. The program, "Contagious Revenge," celebrates feminist comedy, unruly activism, and queer gender play.
The festival offerings also celebrate the work of feminist film icon Agnes Varda with a screening of a new documentary containing previously unseen footage, "Viva Varda!" (Pierre-Henri Gibert, France, 2023), which screens Oct. 20.
Realism in film is one of the guiding themes of our selections. We will be screening "Miracle in Milan" (Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1951), a comedy that combines realism with fantastical elements; "Tri" (Aleksandar Petroviç, Yugoslavia, 1965), a landmark film that presents a triptych of loosely related stories set during World War II; and "Nothing but a Man" (Michael Roemer, 1964) where its protagonist must courageously navigate the pervasive oppression and racial discrimination of the 1960s American South while striving for dignity and equality.
"Nothing but a Man," along with a film that we will screen as a surprise screening, anchor the one-day symposium on October 21st that closes our festival. Both films feature African American actors and non-actors in the portrayal of the experience of Black Americans during the Civil Rights era. For the final one-day symposium, we will be joined by leading scholars in the field of African American Cinema to facilitate a lively discussion.
"Too Bad She's Bad" (Alessandro Blassetti, Italy, 1955), screening on October 19th, provides a balm and a respite from the films that depict harsher realities - it's a film that should not be missed! It is an uproarious comedy starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroiani in her first starring role and in their first collaboration.
SFTV thanks Guy Borlée and the Cineteca di Bologna for making the festival possible, as well as our LMU co-sponsors: the LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts, the LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, Global-Local Affairs, and Faculty Affairs.