Direct from Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato, Cannes Classics and the New York Film Festival. Superb new restorations of films from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, The Philippines and Lebanon. Links to notes by Laleen Jamayanne, Tony Rayns and Lucia Sorbera.
SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (Sergei Parajanov, Ukraine,1965)
“In the temple of cinema, there are images, light, and reality. Sergei Parajanov is the master of that temple.” – Jean-Luc Godard.
“Sergei Parajanov’s extraordinary merging of myth, history, poetry, ethnography, dance and ritual remains one of the supreme works of the Soviet sound cinema, and even subsequent Parajanov features have failed to dim its intoxicating splendours.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
A masterpiece of Ukrainian cinema that bursts with life and colour, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) is a subtly subversive ode to folk culture characteristic of its visionary director, Sergei Parajanov.
Introduced by Nicky Hannan at Ritz Cinemas and by Amiel Courtin-Wilson at Lido Cinemas
Full program notes by film scholar Laleen Jayamanne are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Shadows-of-Forgotten-Ancestors
THE FALL OF OTRAR (Ardak Amirkulov, Kazakhstan, 1991
““The film restoration of the year. The new 4K restoration of Ardak Amirkulov’s intricate historical epic, … will hopefully help this monumental film to reach as many people as possible.” – Film Comment, New York
“Ardak Amirkulov’s staggering historical epic (co-written by Aleksei German) concerns the intrigues and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar. The movie that spurred the extraordinary wave of great Kazakh films in the 1990s, The Fall of Otrar is hallucinatory, visually resplendent, and ferociously energetic, packed with eye-catching (and gouging) detail and traversing an endless variety of parched, epic landscapes and ornate palaces. But this is also one of the most astute historical films ever made, its high quotient of gore grounded in the bedrock realities of realpolitik: when the Kharkhan of Otrar is finally brought before the Ruler of the World, he could be facing Stalin or, for that matter, any number of latter-day CEOs. A movie that has everything, from state-of-the-art 13th-century warfare to perfumed sex, The Fall of Otrar is truly a one-of-a-kind experience”. – New York Film Festival notes to accompany the world premiere of the 4K restoration, Lincoln Centre, NY, October 2024
Introduced by Robert Hughes at Ritz Cinemas and Lido Cinemas
Links to session times and bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/The-Fall-of-Otrar
BONA (Lino Brocka, The Philippines, 1980)
Bona is a stark tale of a selfless middle-class Manila schoolgirl (Nora Aunor, who also produced the film) who develops a fierce, morbid attachment to a narcissistic movie extra and abandons everything to devote her life to serving the actor. No humiliation he heaps upon her deters in any way. Aunor’s performance transforms the story into a profound portrait of a woman who finally doesn’t take it anymore…
Out of sight for over forty years since it premiered at Cannes in 1981, the restoration premiered at Cannes Classics in 2024 and since then it has screened at the New York and Toronto Film Festivals.
Introduced by Russell Edwards at Ritz Cinemas and Chris Luscri at Lido Cinemas.
Full program notes by film critic, curator and film-maker Tony Rayns are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Bona
LEILA AND THE WOLVES (Heiny Srour, Lebanon, 1984)
“Visually, Heiny Srour’s film is a treat, combining tinted newsreel footage with memorable images and clearly loving shots of a strife-torn nation; the acts of courage she reveals, and the example she sets to other film-makers to engage their own history, are exalting.” Frances Dickinson, Time Out Film Guide
“Ignored and forgotten, the role of Arab women in the Middle East’s political history is illuminated here for the first time…Using narrative structures of the ‘mosaic’, a common device in oriental stories, Leila travels through time from the British Mandate of Palestine to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. …Acclaimed by critics for its originality and the talent of its director Leila and the Wolves was distributed worldwide but censored in most Arab countries. Thanks to this new restoration we rediscover a work of great complexity, which even in its most imperfect moments, speaks beyond its, albeit fundamental, feminist message.” Cecilia Cenciarelli, Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023.
Introduced by Elly Carantinos at Ritz Cinemas and Samia Mikhail at Lido Cinemas.
Full program notes by Associate Professor Lucia Sorbera, Chair of Arabic Language and Cultures, University of Sydney are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Leila-and-the-Wolves
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