WTI Magazine #63    2015 June, 27
Author : Edoardo Peretti      Translation by:

In these days takes place one of the most important and internationally known Italian film festivals, at least among the movie enthusiasts: the Bologna "Cinema Ritrovato" (from 29 June to 4 July). It is not the dear old Venice Film Festival, or the Festival of Cinema in Rome: it is a festival that does not focus on new or large previews. This festival is totally dedicated to the cinema of the past, thanks to numerous sections covering the totality of the history of cinema, allowing to find and enjoy unknown tidbits scattered in the depths of the history of cinema.

It is a festival aimed on the one hand to the everyday public, motivated to explore the rich program with a few tasty and unexpected positive surprises, and on the other hand to scholars.

The event has an international vision, but has an ample space dedicated to Italian cinema: if last year was used as an opportunity to rediscover the many episodic film made in the fifties and sixties, this year there is the opportunity to rediscover Renato Castellani, thanks to the retrospective dedicated to him.

Castellani is a not particularly celebrated director, certainly not as good as others more known, but he has been instrumental in the development of our cinema, declining the dominant neo-realism in a more popular way. Active since the end of the 40s, he has produced works as "Due soldi di speranza" (Two Cents Worth of Hope) in which the attention to the reality of the country just out of the war were read in terms of popular comedy. Castellani was, in fact, considered one of the inventors of the so-called "pink neorealism" (definition initially used mostly in a derogatory sense, which gained a more nuanced value over the years).

Very interesting is the section about the rarities from postwar Italian cinema, which recovers movies, both from known and unknown authors, long gone out of the usual circuits: film long remained invisible, mostly short and medium-length films, including works from authors such as Valerio Zurlini. As previously, also this year there is the recurring section devoted to classic American movies: after retrospectives about the great Howard Hawks and the less famous William Wellman, this year is the turn of Leo McCarey, author of fundamental comedies such as "The Awful Truth" or "The War Duck Soup". An opportunity to rediscover, even with its lesser-known films, an important protagonist of the classical American cinema.

The program is rich and varied and offers dishes for every taste: from the more conceptual and niche work to the little-known and remote genre film. It is important to emphasize, however, that the program has its own method: it is not a melting pot where everything is done without a basic coherence. Indeed, each section is created on a clear approach based on study and research.

Fundamental for the essence of the event are the restoration activities carried out by the Cineteca di Bologna, a global player in the recovery and restoration of old films: for example, they meticulously worked on the comedy of Charlie Chaplin and on the film of Buster Keaton, the prophet of comedy. These works will be presented, as main course, in this year's festival.

Both for viewers and for scholars and film historians, the most fascinating moments will be those in the evenings, characterized by a fascination that goes beyond the cinema experts: the projection, outdoors, of a classic movie in the beautiful setting of the medieval Piazza Maggiore, in the center of the city. As an Italian classic, this year it is the turn of a masterpiece by Luchino Visconti: "Rocco e i suoi fratelli" (Rocco and his brothers).