You can keep hunger at bay by eating small morsels. This is also true of a hunger for love. And of a love for a distant cinema. Therefore, as we offer once again a preview of some of the recent restorations of silent cinema carried out by Cineteca di Bologna, we include titles that survive only as incomplete fragments. Written testimonies inform us that Silenzio eroico belongs to the still largely unexplored genre of the Italian silent western and that it deals with a shady mine foreman who is ready to perform any dastardly deed to make the sheriff’s daughter his own. But what remains is Maria Jacobini in a cowboy costume hanging from a precipice, sleeping in bandits’ caves and, when necessary, shooting. On the other hand, we still have a sizeable and mostly intact chunk from the final part of Olocausto; more than enough to get into a drama in which femme fatale Pina Menichelli is subjected to life’s brutalities. She acts like a great lady, but the criminal underworld knows her by the nickname ‘Golden Tresses’. She drives a nobleman – who is anything but noble underneath – to lose his head. And so ultimately she takes her place in the parade of tragic heroines who died at their lover’s hands. The censor was not amused. The protagonist of Sangue corso also meets a bad end (at the stake!) thanks to love. But he really deserves it, having denounced the head of the rebels in exchange for a reward that would have allowed him to get married. The moral of the story? Don’t mess with love, money or revolution. And above all, don’t mess with Corsicans. Do you want an even more ill-fated destiny? Then look no further than Raffaello e la Fornarina. Like all good artists, Raphael is a real heartbreaker. A cardinal’s niece falls victim to his charms. In those days, unrequited love was a serious malady: a woman spurned would soon wither and die. Not that you can blame the celebrated painter, who meanwhile basked in the joys of painting Madonna of Foligno and Transfiguration. Death is nobody’s fault, but simply the result of the misfortune of not being chosen. The world can really be cruel. Or it can be delightful – like a slice of salami when one’s stomach is insistently grumbling. With Kri Kri e il salame hunger finally ceases to be merely metaphorical. Driven by necessity, our run down hero does not shy from becoming a sausage thief, or a bicycle thief. But for once fortune smiles on the hungry.

Andrea Meneghelli