IL CINEMA RITROVATO 2023
FESTIVAL CATALOGUE | Book, pp. 448

Our catalogue is more than a guide to our films! It’s an essential part of the festival, an encyclopedia of knowledge which arouse curiosity, put the films in their proper historical context and preserve the memory of the films seen. Please note that the information in the catalogue is also available online.

ALBERT SAMAMA CHIKLI
Photographer, Director, Navigator
edited by Mariann Lewinsky Libro, pp. 348

Albert Samama Chikli (1872-1934) was a pioneer of African cinema, a brilliant photographer, a technophile and inventor, a sailor, a prince, a nomad, a polymath and an independent artist. His life, works and passions take us back to the shores of the Mediterranean, a crossroad of knowledge and civilisation. A deep love of his homeland, Tunisia, emerges from Samama’s photography; he shows us, for the first time, the profile of this land from the heights of a hot-air balloon, the labour of farmers and fishermen, the Bedouin world of the great south, the riches of the colonised but flourishing city of Tunis. The films he made reveal his indisputable talent and modern mindset. He documents the Great War for the French army and shoots, along with daughter Haydée as screenwriter and actress, two feature-length films. This dual language volume – Italian and English – is accompanied by a wealth of images. It retraces the course of Samama’s multifaceted artistic career and reconstructs his complete filmography for the first time, thanks in large part to the archive materials held by the Samama Chikli Collection of Cineteca di Bologna.

RAPITO
Un film di Marco Bellocchio
curated by Paolo Mereghetti | Book, pp. 224

This volume, curated by Paolo Mereghetti, aims to investigate the complexities of the Marco Bellocchio film Rapito through interviews with the director himself and two of the film’s producers, critical and historical essays and, most importantly, an accurate reconstruction of the screenplay. It is a unique opportunity to gain unprecedented insight into the creative processes of one of the recognised masters – Honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2021 – of Italian cinema. “Raised within a strict Catholic family and educated by Barnabites but a declared atheist (simply scroll through his films, from Fists in the Pocket and In the Name of the Father, to understand his relationship with the Catholic religion and its practices), in this story, the director from Piacenza spotted a chance to tackle the issues – Family, Church, Power – that have always been at the centre of his cinema. In so doing, the story of the young Mortara demonstrates a strength and clarity never before seen in his filmography” (Paolo Mereghetti).

L’IPOTESI CINEMA
Piccolo trattato di educazione al cinema nelle scuole e non solo
by Alain Bergala | Book, pp. 160

The second Italian edition of an authoritative and fundamental text on film education in schools, in which Alain Bergala – critic, filmmaker and educator – formulates his successful “cinema hypothesis”; we must always remember that, in the educational process, cinema is first and foremost an autonomous art form. Also that it is a language and, as such, necessitates an apprenticeship. Through the author’s fluent writing and illuminating examples, the book sets out to answer the questions facing those who see themselves as “gatekeepers” of the dessemination of cinematographic knowledge and tastes to younger generations. The resulting work is a surprising reflection on a complex and much debated theme, as well as being a “militant” text, rich in concrete proposals. This edition features a new introduction by the author, a conversation between Alejandro Bachmann and Bergala on the current state of film education at international level and the new challenges introduced by the digital revolution, and a report on the experiences of Schermi e Lavagne, the Cineteca di Bologna’s education project.

KEATON! L’integrale.
Volume 1 | 2 Dvd e 2 Blu-ray – Book and booklet pp. 340 e pp. 64

The first of two box sets of the restored versions of all Buster Keaton’s films from 1920 to 1928, available for the first time in Italy, with specially composed scores. It is the result of a long-running project run by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Cohen Film Collection, which involved searching the globe to restore the works of Keaton as closely as possible to their original form. This volume contains masterpieces such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), where our hero dreams of entering the silver screen; The General (1927), Keaton’s “craziest, most ambitious, most poetic film” (Mario Soldati); Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), in which a lovestruck Buster comes face to face with a cyclone. However, there are also small treasures from the early 1920s: One Week (1920), Neighbors (1921), The High Sign (1921) and Cops (1922). The fantastic bonus features include Peter Bogdanovich’s final film The Great Buster: A Celebration, the updated reissue of Kevin Brownlow’s book Alla ricerca di Buster Keaton and a booklet curated by Cecilia Cenciarelli.

Le mie stelle / Mes étoiles
by Stefano Missio | Book, pp.112 

“Here is my precious pantheon of documentary filmmaking, with some of my favourite directors who are the stars of my actual constellation. It’s a selection from all the photos I took over the years, meeting more than 250 filmmakers. Wonderful encounters. I cherish each of them”. (Stefano Missio)
45 portraits of documentary filmmakers, both masters and young promises, captured at home or in their favourite places. Stefano Missio has tried to reveal their souls by fixing them on silver salts, moved by the urgency of preserving the intangible.

BOLOGNA FOTOGRAFATA
Persone, luoghi, fotografi
curated by Giuseppe Savini | Book, pp. 364

Edizioni Cineteca di Bologna published a book specifically for the exhibition featuring a rich selection of pictures and contributions by Giuseppe Savini, Michele Smargiassi and Angelo Varni. The city remains the same, Bologna, as do the years we traverse: from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. The title is once more Bologna Fotografata – as it was for the 2017 exhibition, and the venue is once more the underpass in Piazza Re Enzo. However, the story being told by this new exhibition, although similar in many ways to the previous one, is different. In addition to the experience garnered on that occasion, we now have the opportunity to avail of some photographic collections recently acquired by the Cineteca di Bologna, as well as – thanks to the images shared through the Bologna Fotografata online portal – numerous public and private archives, allowing us to discover never-before-seen views of the city.