“Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival – which has long seen thousands of heritage film lovers and distributors flock to the city of Bologna in summer – officially kicked off Tuesday with a freshly restored version of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Cronaca di un amore. It’s an emblematic opener in various ways. The now freshly restored pic stars late great Italian actor Lucia Bosé who died last March, having contracted coronavirus. Antonioni’s 1950 drama is also among titles in the Venice Film Festival’s Venice Classics section, which has migrated to Bologna this year due to the impact of Covid-19 constraints on Lido screening space.

Variety spoke to Il Cinema Ritrovato chief Gian Luca Farinelli, who also heads the Bologna Film Archives and its globally renown film restoration lab, about this year’s collaboration with Venice and Cannes. Excerpts from the conversation”.

Go to the interview with Gian Luca Farinelli by Nick Vivarelli.