Sometimes fate acts in unfathomable ways. Random findings in different places may end up shedding light on a specific subject, as though from on high. Between 2022 and 2023, Cineteca di Bologna, La Cinémathèque française and Gosfil’mofond of Russia, each of them individually, made several astonishing rediscoveries and carried out restorations of films featuring Diana Karenne, Ileana Leonidoff, Helena Makowska, who were among the main Russian actresses active in Italian silent cinema.
Up until now, time cruelly denied any opportunity to appreciate the talents and beauty of many of these great performers – almost nothing seemed to survive. The programme will include three newly found films with Diana Karenne (including The Two Sisters’ Tragedy, a short 1914 melodrama that she also wrote), the brand-new restoration of Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Thaïs, two films with Berta Nelson (courtesy of the EYE Filmmuseum) and La tartaruga with Helena Makowska, rediscovered and preserved by the Cineteca di Bologna.

Read the selection of films curated by Mariann Lewinsky and Tamara Shvediuk.