When Gianluca Farinelli, director of film festival Il Cinema Ritrovato, said «We are a festival without glamour» today at the press preview, he couldn’t be smugger. And I couldn’t be prouder, too: this gem of a festival attracts every year in Bologna the best of the best, and it needs no red carpet: only true cinema matters here.
Over 500 movies from more tha 60 film archives all over the work, all in the name of cinephilia. Which is the reason why the typical public of this festival is made of movie maniacs, directors of Cinemateques, cinema lovers, romantics, nostalgics, fetishists and nerds. A lovely crowd.
This year’s edition comes 100 years after Robert Mitchum was born, hence the main poster. But when we talk characters what I most like about Cinema Ritrovato is that taste for digging deep. So here we have Colette, happy sultry writer of a decadent sexy Paris, better known for short novels such as Chérie, that thanks to the work of Cineteca di Bologna I found out also being a passionate film critic and scriptwriter. And this year there’s a special section all for her.
Other cool “side dishes” are the sections devoted to the Iranian “noirs” of the Fifties and the sombre Japanese films of the late thirties.
Another cool thing is the little section dedicated to “sundays”. Yes. Director Alexander Payne, a longtime aficionado of Il cinema ritrovato, asked this year to be the creator of a part of it and came up with this weird idea: only movies set on sundays, to be screened – surprise surprise – on a sunday.
Then there are the small lovely screenings with the old school movie projector functioning with coal…
… and the massive screenings in Piazza Maggiore, constantly echoing of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso.
And the Paramount movies from the early thirties
And the re-discovered masterpieces from very far from Hollywood. Like West Indies, african musical-parody from 1979
And Dario Argento
With L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo
And Nanni Moretti, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Bellocchio. And the silent movies. And the documentaries. And the pop icons.And getting up at 7 to go straight to the cinema. And the glasses of wine at Cameo, in between screening. Basically, I can’t wait. Can you?
Flaneur in Bologna 