The Cinema Ritrovato Festival

Why Go: Superb programming of vintage titles in an historic, user-friendly Italian city.

Festival Description

This is hands-down my favorite festival, not just because it offers a unique opportunity to see rare and unusual films under optimal circumstances but because the city of Bologna and its environs are such a pleasure to visit.

Festival Website: http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/en/ritrovato.htm

Timing: Eight days at the beginning of July

Dates for 2011: June 25-July 2

Programming

Put together by Peter Von Bagh, Gian Luca Farinelli and Guy Borlée, the Bologna festival screens newly restored films, themed programs, and other treats and surprises from cinema’s past. The cut-off point on the cinema timeline is about 1975. An Italian auteur is always featured, along with a series of curated programs of movies made one hundred years earlier and a tribute program honoring an important actor from the movies’ earliest days . Another regular feature is cinema from the widescreen era grouped by auteurs, genres, or topic. Films involving Charlie Chaplin are a particular specialty, a function of the close ties between Bologna’s film archives and the Chaplin family. Internationally known movie accompanists play for all silent screenings, and live simultaneous translation in English and Italian is always available for silent films when needed. Sound films are subtitled in both English and Italian. Virtually everything is shown in 35mm. As a whole, the program tends toward the Eurocentric, with few Asian films on offer.

Audience

Film scholars (increasingly from the United States as well as Europe), archivists, movie fans and locals. There were almost 12,00 accredited guests from out of town in 2010–a 20% increase over 2009. The free late-night outdoor screenings attract crowds of Bolognese numbering in the thousands (an estimated total of over 56,000 in 2010). Because the festival focuses on older films rather than the latest releases, there is virtually no press or industry presence.

Special Guests

The festival offers on-stage interviews with an intelligently chosen array of film luminaries and knowledgeable relatives of deceased auteurs. Presentations and round-table discussions with scholars and archivists that tie into the year’s cinematic offerings are also featured.

Screening Venues

The festival’s three main venues include the Lumière Theater, Bologna’s cinemateque complex, with two screens; the Arlecchino, a theater built for cinemascope; and the city’s magnificent Piazza Maggiore, which plays host to free late-night programs. One screen at the Lumière shows mainly silent fare. At the Arlecchino one can see widescreen films from the 1950s and 1960s as they were originally intended to be shown. The free outdoor screenings in the Piazza Maggiore are beautifully executed with good sound and an enormous screen. Silent fare shown in the Piazza is accompanied by an imaginative array of live accompaniments. For these screenings, fest pass holders have access to a special section of reserved seating in the front.

Screening Schedule

Screenings begin at 9am and continue until 7:30pm with a break for lunch. Additional screenings take place at 10pm every night in the Piazza.

Ticketing

Tickets can be purchased for individual screenings, but most people buy a pass that will admit them to everything. Passes cost about 60 euros. An additional contribution of 70 euros makes you a donor and buys you some books and dvds; it also gets you preferred seating at the outdoor screenings. The festival program is usually assembled late, so it’s hard to find out what’s in store each year before you arrive. Nonetheless, it’s best to e-mail ahead to be put on the fest’s list of accredited guests; this will make the process of getting your pass, etc. much smoother. It will also get you special fest rates at selected hotels.

Program Notes

The festival issues a good-sized program book in both English and Italian with information about all scheduled movies along with introductory material describing each of the year’s program strands. These companion pieces vary widely in quality and usefulness; some are expressly commissioned and authored by noted scholars, others are cribbed from contemporary reviews or from other published material. Nonetheless, whatever its shortcomings, the program book provides an indispensable guide to a staggering array of films, many of which are obscure.

Accommodations

All hotels are located some distance from the festival venues. My preference is the Star Excelsior, an ultra-modern four-star hostelry, quiet and well-run, with a work-out room and good breakfasts. It’s twenty-to-thirty-minute walk from the theaters. The hotel is located across the street from the train station for those who want to play hooky for a day in Florence (one hour away) or Ravenna (forty-five minutes). Via Pietramellara 51, Bologna 40121. +39 051 246178

http://www.starhotels.com/hotel/excelsior_bologna/starhotels_excelsior.php?idalb=21

Surroundings

Bologna is a medieval city with little traffic in its historic core, so walking is easy. The central square, the Piazza Maggiore, is a treasure, but the areas around the festival’s other main venues are not the most attractive the town has to offer, so it’s a good idea to take a bus tour or find some other way to explore some of the more scenic parts of the city.

Temperatures are generally in the 90-degree Fahrenheit range during the festival so bring your coolest clothes. Italians don’t like their air conditioning on high, so there’s no need to bother bringing sweaters to wear in the theaters. When outdoors, arcades on most buildings provide some relief from the sun.

Getting There

There are no non-stop flights into Bologna from the US, so you’ll have to plan on making a connection somewhere in Europe. A shuttle bus goes from the main Bologna airport to the center of the city. Beware of connecting to budget European airlines; Ryanair flies into an airport which is far distance from the city. If you have a few extra days to spare, one good plan is to take a flight to Rome (many non-stops from the US), then take the train from the airport into the city. From there, another train takes you to Bologna, and you can stop over anywhere along the way to enjoy the beauty of the Umbria-Tuscany region as you recover from jetlag.

Getting Around

You can easily walk between the festival venues. Arcades on most buildings provide welcome shade.

Restaurants

As everyone knows, this is a premiere city for foodies. As a bonus, restaurants tend to be relatively inexpensive especially if all you want is pasta and/or salad. Each year, the festival puts out a list of restaurants offering special rates for its attendees.

I am especially fond of the following places (all within walking distance of the festival venues):

• La Posta. A bit expensive, but worth it.  Via Della Grada, 21/A, Bologna (BO) – +39 051 6491022 www.ristoranteposta.it

• Casa Monica. Nouvelle Bolognese cuisine of a high order. Via S. Rocco, 16 – 40122 Bologna (BO), Italy  Tel +39 051 522522

• La Paranza, Via Roma. A traditional trattoria with a large patio right around the corner from the Lumiere complex. 27 – Porto Empedocle (Agrigento) – Tel 0922.636406 http://www.ristorantelaparanza.it/

• Il Forno. Located at  Via Don Giovanni Minzoni 14, this casual offshoot of Bologna’s Modern Art Museum is right around the corner from the festival’s Lumiere complex and is well air-conditioned (no small virtue in this sweltering city). Salads are featured.  tel/fax +39 051 6493896.    http://www.mambo-bologna.org/file-sito/eng/ristorante/info/home.html

• Da Bertino. A cozy, family-run trattoria a few doors from the Arlecchino theater. Prices are reasonable. Via Lame, 55 Tel: 051.522230

• Da Pietro. An intimate family-run place serving simple local dishes, superbly prepared. Service is efficient and gracious, and prices are reasonable. Located just west of Via Independenza a few blocks north of Pizza Maggiore. Via dei Falegnami 18/A, Bologna 40121. Tel: 051-6486240. http://www.trattoriadapietro.it/

• Donatello. Elegant, spacious and affordable. Family owned, it offers superior food in a location just on the far side of Via Indipendenza. Via Augusto Righi 8, Bologna, Italy 40126. phone: +39 051 23 5438

Best Extra-Curricular Activities

The on-off bus tour of Bologna costs only ten euros and provides a fascinating snapshot of the major city sights.

MAMBO, Bologna’s new modern art museum, is located a ten-minute walk from the Lumière complex. Exhibits include some excellent video installations and an entire section devoted to the work of composer John Cage.

http://www.mambo-bologna.org/

Ravenna. A short, easy train ride away. The city boasts spectacular Byzantine mosaics, the best preserved in Italy. We had a terrific guide to the sights in Manuela, an art history instructor at the local university (328-825-8887)

The Festival Year by Year

2006

Best Films:

• Lady Windermere’s Fan. Ernst Lubitsch, in 1925 still new to Hollywood, created what is perhaps a perfect film from Oscar Wilde’s subtle stage comedy.

• Il Cappotto. The oeuvre of Italian auteur Alberto Lattuada, who was honored with a retrospective, showed up as uneven overall. However, this adaptation of a story by Gogol (“The Overcoat”) set a high standard, with a dark, brooding mise-en-scène and a virtuoso, Chaplinesque performance by Italian comic Renato Rascel.

Best Live Interview or on-Stage Discussion:

Panel on women in silent film with Jane Gaines, Monica Dall’Asta, Massimo Piovesana, Karola Gramann, Heidi Schüpmann, Ester de Miro, Tami Williams, and Victoria Duckett. Moderated by Marianne Lewinsky.

Best Retrospective: Germaine Dulac

Best Live Musical Accompaniment

A Swedish ensemble performing Matti Bye’s new score for Victor Sjostrom’s 1917 film Terje Vigen, in the Piazza Maggiore.

Unexpected Pleasures

• Carmen Miranda’s knowing wisecracks in The Gang’s All Here (1943).

• Jon Gartenberg’s program of a group of 1906 Vitagraph films that began shaping a model for what was to become the Classical Hollywood Style.

Review of the 2006 Festival:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/festivals/06/41/cinema-ritrovato-2006.html

2007

Best Films I Saw

• Army of Shadows. This 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville political thriller makes an ideal vehicle for his existential sensibility.

• L’Étrange Madame X. A delicately drawn portrait of passion and imagination from the unjustly neglected French filmmaker Jean Grémillon. Originally released in 1951.

Best Retrospective: Asta Nielsen

Best Live Interview or on-Stage Discussion

Ben Gazzara, who spoke to the audience in fluent Italian (rendered in English by a translator).

Unexpected Pleasure:

Edward G. Robinson hamming it up in the 1930 comedy A Lady to Love, directed by Victor Sjostrom.

Best Live Musical Accompaniment

Timothy Brock leading the Orchestra del Teatro Communale di Bologna in a score adapted from Chaplin material for the opening night screening of The Idle Class and The Kid ((both 1921)

2008

Best Film

The Great Consoler. Lev Kuleshov’s rarely seen 1933 masterpiece features striking visuals, a wrenching story, and a bravura use of sound.

Best Retrospective: Josef Von Sternberg

Unexpected Pleasures

• Fernandel as a feisty anti-Communist priest in The Little World of Don Camillo, a 1952 French/Italian comedy directed by Julien Duvivier.

• James Cagney and Joan Blondell in Blonde Crazy (1931).

Best Live Musical Accompaniments

• Neil Brand’s thrilling, witty score for the silent version of Hitchcock’s Blackmail, played by the Orchestra del Teatro Communale under the direction of Timothy Brock in the Piazza Maggiore.

• A program of early European avant-garde films accompanied by their original scores as composed by Camille Saint-Saëns (The Assassination of the Duc de Guise) , Max Butting (Walther Ruttmann’s Opus 1), George Antheil (Fernand Leger’s Ballet Mecanique), and Eric Sati (Rene Clair’s Entr’Acte). Another early avant-garde treasure, Otto Fischinger’s Motion Painting N.1, was paired with music by J. S. Bach. Again played by the the Orchestra del Teatro Communale under the direction of Timothy Brock in the Piazza Maggiore.

2009

Best Films I Saw

• Al Momia. This stately, elegant tale, first released in 1969, is based on a true story about the plunder of Egypt’s cultural treasures in the 19th Century. Al Momia was the only film directed by Sahdi Abdul Salam, who worked as an art director for most of his career. A spectacular backdrop of ancient temples frames the story, the images rendered with pristine crispness in a new restoration sponsored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation.

• Long Pants. The most accomplished and fully realized of the early Capra works we saw, anchored by the virtuoso pantomime of its star Harry Langdon. Originally released in 1927, this is the only Langdon film in which one of  the terrifying amoral women who abound in the star’s oeuvre is securely anchored within a cogent narrative. The movie’s theme of immature male sexuality was later taken up by Jerry Lewis and Seth Rogen, but it has never been so adroitly exploited as here.

Best Retrospective: Early Capra

Unexpected Pleasures: Knockout performances by Rod Steiger (Duck, You Sucker) and Beulah Bondi (Make Way for Tomorrow, Track of the Cat).

2010

Best Film I Saw: Three Bad Men. Ford’s silent masterpiece was shown in the Piazza Maggiore accompanied by the Orchestra del Teatro Communale di Bologna premiering Timothy Brock’s magnificent new score.

Best Retrospective: Early John Ford.

Best Live Musical Accomaniments:

• Brock’s score for Three Bad Men.

• Donald Sosin’s wistful piano variations on “Santa Lucia,” played during the screening of a poetic documentary of the same title.

Unexpected Pleasures

• John Ford biographer Joseph McBride’s informed introductions to the Ford screenings.

• The increased visibility of Marianne Lewinsky, who curated numerous provocative programs featuring silent era films.

For next year? Fix the heat in the Lumiere Complex. Something MUST be done about the air conditioning.

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