This year’s Recovered and Restored selection includes great masters like Renoir, Visconti, Buñuel, Bertolucci, Pasolini, Stevens, Sirk, von Stroheim and Murnau alongside less famous but no less astonishing filmmakers: Kira Muratova, whose early Brief Encounters (a sort of musical on the troubles of a young supervisor in the Soviet Communist Party) will screen together with The Long Farewell; Tuija-Maija Niskanen, with her portrait of a woman, Avskedet; Vojteˇch Jasný, whose Až prˇijde kocour was made in complete freedom with a cat as a protagonist! Although less celebrated as a director than as an actor, in Buck and the Preacher, Sidney Poitier provides us with an astounding western in which Afro-Americans join forces with the Indians against the (white) bad guys. And there will also be Argento, Lynch, Waters, Russell: just a few of the names included in a special ‘pop programme’ we have in store for our audience.
Curated by Gian Luca Farinelli

Le Voyage dans la lune (1902) di Georges Méliès • Les Misérables (1912) di Albert Capellani • Blind Husbands (Mariti ciechi, 1919) di Erich von Stroheim • Crazy to Marry (1921) di James Cruze • Béhula (1921) di Camille Legrand • La Terre (The Earth, 1921) di André Antoine • Tu m’appartiens! (Tu m’appartieni!, 1929) di Maurice Gleize • La Règle du jeu (La regola del gioco / The Rules of the Game, 1939) di Jean Renoir • All That Money Can Buy (L’oro del demonio, 1941) di William Dieterle • Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946) di Vittorio De Sica • Caught (Presi nella morsa, 1949) di Max Ophüls • Singin’ in the Rain (Cantando sotto la pioggia, 1952) di Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly • Invaders from Mars (Gli invasori spaziali, 1953) di William Cameron Menzies • Él (Lui, 1953) di Luis Buñuel • Giant (Il gigante, 1956) di George Stevens • Written on the Wind (Come le foglie al vento, 1956) di Douglas Sirk • La ricotta – Ep. di Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) di Pier Paolo Pasolini • Až prˇijde kocour (The Cassandra Cat, 1963) di Vojteˇch Jasný • Topkapi (1964) di Jules Dassin • Le Samouraï (Frank Costello faccia d’angelo, 1967) di Jean-Pierre Melville • Korotkie vstrechi (Brevi incontri / Brief Encounters, 1967) di Kira Muratova • Il conformista (The Conformist, 1970) di Bernardo Bertolucci • Dolgie provody (Lunghi addii / The Long Farewell, 1971) di Kira Muratova • Doroshkechi (The Carriage Driver, 1971) di Nosratollah Karimi • The Last Picture Show (L’ultimo spettacolo, 1971) di Peter Bogdanovich • Cheshmeh (The Spring, 1972) di Arby Ovanessian • Buck and the Preacher (Non predicare, spara, 1972) di Sidney Poitier • La Maman et la putain (The Mother and the Whore, 1973) di Jean Eustache • Ludwig (1973) di Luchino Visconti • Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) di Peter Weir • Tommy (1975) di Ken Russell • The Driver (Driver, l’imprendibile, 1978) di Walter Hill • The Blues Brothers (1980) di John Landis • Avskedet (The Farewell, 1982) di Tuija-Maija Niskanen • Tenebre (1982) di Dario Argento • Nostalghia (1983) di Andrej Tarkovskij • Videodrome (1983) di David Cronenberg • Trading Places (Una poltrona per due, 1983) di John Landis • Carmen (1984) di Francesco Rosi • Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Fuoco cammina con me, 1992) di David Lynch

His voice summons angels and demons, his body and face are those of a child heavy with guilt. Referred to as “the greatest living actor” by Charles Chaplin in the 1930s and an inspiration for literary giants from Brecht to Graham Greene to Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Lorre is also The Lost One – a title he chose for his only directorial work. All in all, Lorre’s life, his films, his unrealized dreams and his physical presence constitute one of the most honest representations of 20th century man. Instead of wholeness and triumph, there is the half-full, half-empty result of traversing through Central European modernism and fascism, addiction and exile, the culture of money and fame, the mirror cabinet of faces and masks. From improvisational theatre in Vienna to the dissolution of the classical studio system. “Haunted by his early success in Fritz Lang’s M (1931) he died a Hollywood caricature at age 59” – that standard one-liner about Peter Lorre is not entirely false, but it misses 90 percent of what this series hopes to evoke.
Curated by Alexander Horwath

As swiftly as some directors changed studios, Hugo Fregonese (1908-87) changed countries. The perfect ‘saddle tramp’ figure, he drifted and made films about drifting and escape. A master of brisk and unsentimental westerns and crime thrillers, with a career spanning over four decades and numerous bases of production – from his home country Argentina, to America, Spain, Italy, the UK and West Germany – Fregonese’s cinema is unjustly underappreciated to the point of obscurity. This is a step in the direction of claiming him as an important figure; one whose cinema of impassioned subjectivity blends the aesthetic of low-budget films with fatalism, myth and raw violence. Fregonese’s name is often associated with the ten films he made during his five-year residency in Hollywood in the 1950s. This programme picks some of the finest from that period to screen alongside films made elsewhere. Forming one of the most coherent cinematic oeuvres that one could expect from a wandering director, this will be one of the major revelations of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022.
Curated by Dave Kehr and Ehsan Khoshbakht

A symbol of a country’s rebirth from the postwar period to the 1960s, going from national beauty queen to international glamour idol, Sophia Loren is one of the most recognisable Italian icons in the world. Yet, beyond glamour, her filmography reveals hidden treasures, forgotten gems and nuanced roles. Her multifaceted acting career took different trajectories: from melodrama, to pink neorealism – her bursting personality flanked by Marcello Mastroianni – to her revelation as a dramatic actress in Two Women and her crowning achievement in A Special Day. Plus in Hollywood she worked with luminaries such as George Cukor, Stanley Donen and, of course, Charles Chaplin. There are more roles in Italian films to be rediscovered by audiences all over the world as now, more than ever, Sophia Loren’s characters need to be seen and enjoyed on big screen.
Curated by Emiliano Morreale

German-born painter, poet, novelist, playwright and filmmaker, Peter Weiss (1916-82) was a pioneering figure in the Swedish art and experimental film scene in the 1950s. His experimental shorts bulge with visual poetry in their rendering of the body and the human condition, while his remarkable documentary shorts give stunning testimony to Weiss’ eye for detail and ability to find human dignity even in the most difficult circumstances. Films from both categories are featured in this programme, however, the centerpiece is Weiss’ feature-length Hägringen (1959), an extraordinary and very personal take on ‘city symphony’ about a young man’s 24-hour encounter with Stockholm and with society at large. The films, from the collection of Swedish Film Institute, will be presented in vintage prints and DCPs of recent digital restorations.
Curated by Jon Wengström

In this year’s edition we focus on one hand on the collection of the University of Paderborn dedicated to small gauge films by female experimental filmmakers from the German-speaking countries made between 1964 and the 2000s, including directors like Ute Aurand, Elfi Mikesch, Christine Noll Brinckmann and many more. On the other hand, we will celebrate the anniversary of the 9.5mm format which came on the market in the year 1922, with some restorations from the collections of Home Movies, INEDITS, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé and vintage prints from Lichtspiel / Kinemathek Bern, to be projected with a vintage 9.5mm projector. Again, the machines will be as wondrous as the films.
Curated by Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratschko