CINEMA REBORN 2025 - CLASSICS FROM DISTANT SHORES - Links to website program notes.

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

CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn has established a page to enable our supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support our work. Our organisation is run by a group of film industry professionals, working critics, curators and film conservation specialists. All work in an entirely voluntary capacity. Nevertheless there are significant costs, most notably our screening fees, which have to be met each year and we are always grateful for the financial support we receive that defrays these costs and charges. If you would like to make a donation you may do so via via the attached link established by the Australian Cultural Fund which enables small unincorporated organisations like ours to use a service which would otherwise not be easily accessible. To make a donation any time between now and the end of Cinema Reborn 2025 click on this link https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2EMn00000FDsl8MAD/cinema-reborn-2025

Il Cinema Ritrovato - Five highlights and surprises and sometimes both

Nora Aunor, Philip Salvador, Bona

BONA (Lino Brocka, Phillipines, 1981) Little known film by the best known Philippine director. Brocka collaborated with the actress Nora Aunor who also produced the film. A young women breaks every taboo and convention in a Catholic society, hurling herself at a preening film extra who treats her like dirt. Apparently the negative had been deposited by Pierre Rissient with a French lab back in 1981 when the film played in the Quinzaine at Cannes. Nobody was alerted to its existence until 2017 and it's taken that long to get the film back.

Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert, Tovarich

TOVARICH (Anatole Litvak, USA, 1937) I know plenty of people will tell you its hardly a discovery but if you are seeing a film starring Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert as impoverished Russian aristocrats reduced to servant status for the first time....then it is a treat of some dimension....

Cronos

CRONOS (Guillermo Del Toro, Mexico, 1992). Only saw this once before and cant remember where but a lush new 4K is now out and about and it stands up to scrutiny very well. Del Toro was already setting himself down a career path of sophisticated fantasy...

Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Gladys George
The Roaring Twenties

THE ROARING TWENTIES (Raoul Walsh, USA, 1939). Yet another movie from 1939. My goodness the creative juices were flowing. Not seen by me for decades but I think it may have leapfrogged a lot of other movies into pole position as the best movie Walsh ever made....

Emlyn Williams, Vivien Leigh, Kenneth More
The Deep Blue Sea

THE DEEP BLUE SEA (Anatole Litvak, UK, 1955) Virtually forgotten Litvak screened her in a less than perfect 35mm print. Vivien Leigh has run off with alcoholic test pilot Kenneth More, leaving behind a sober life as a judge's wife. Super-literate dialogue by Terence Rattigan with never an um or an ah to be heard. Leigh's first film in four years proved to be one of the great comebacks...I suspect those who saw it are now hunting down the 2011 Terence Davies version for a fresh/refresh look.

....and just to prove that Il Cinema Ritrovato does not ignore Australian cinema, or maybe it's the other way round, there were two films by Arthur and Corinne Cantrill in the very specialised selection called 'The Colours of Experimental Cinema'. The films were Warrah  (1980) and Printer Light Play (1978). The copies of the films were supplied by the Arsenal in Berlin.

The Road to Bologna (5) - CAFE ELECTRIC (Gustav Ucicky, Austria, 1927), THE AMAZING DR CLITTERHOUSE (Anatole Litvak, USA, 1938), BONA (Lino Brocka, Phillipines, 1981) and ITSUWARERU SEISO (Kozaburo Yoshimura, Japan, 1951)

Marlene Dietrich, Willi Forst, Cafe Electric

There was prolonged applause at the end of Cafe Electric but it may have had something to do with the crowd's acknowledgement of the virtuoso accompaniment on piano, piano accordion and flute by Stephen Horne and less to do the morality movie included in the Marlene Dietrich strand. The programme notes focussed on Dietrich's turn, a rather minor and far from compelling contribution. The notes also failed to mention in any way that the film was missing its last reel and the abrupt ending with some words describing what happened caused more than a bit of "Whaaat!" throughout the Arlecchino Cinema. Superb digital restoration of the remaining seven eights of the film by the Austrian Film Museum

Edward G Robinson, Humphrey Bogart
The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse

But on to better things and a smart move by the programmers not to do Anatole Litvak chronologically but to start with one of his best American films The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse  with Edward G Robinson as a pyschiatrist study the criminal mind whose research takes him into the heart of gang where he orchestrates a brilliant series of robberies. "A film and three quarters" said a companion. John Huston's name as the second scriptwriter suggests he was brought in to put the polish on an adaptation of a play by Barre Lyndon. A packed house watched a very good 35mm print.

Nora Aunor, Bona

Bona by Lino Brocka is almost unknown outside the Phillipines but Carlotta Films in Paris have managed to retrieve the materials that were in France after Pierre Rissient placed the film in the Quinzaine back in 1981. The driving force may have been the lead actress Nora Aunor who plays the title role and produced the picture. She is the quintessential oppressed young woman in a Catholic patriarchal society where fathers and brothers whip and beat women who step out of line. Bona has made the mistake of becoming infatuated with Gardo, a preening philandering film extra, and she runs away from home and moves herself into his 'house' as a servant prepared to suffer all manner of indignity just to be near her idol. The applause at the ending was seriously well-deserved and you felt it wan't just the movie itself but Bona's final violent action which abruptly concludes proceedings that was being strongly endorsed. Superb 4K restoration.

Machiko Kyo, Clothes of Deception

Kozaburo Yoshimura is almost unknown outside Japan and curator Alex Jacoby suggested some of the titles in the strand will literally be having their first ever screenings outside Japan. The Kyoto set story , variously titled Clothes of Deception, Under Silk Garments  and on the 35 mm print itself The Disguised. The story of rival families who operate  geisha houses tips into modernity as the youngest children of the families fall in love with each other and run into snobbery before things are settled. Standout is Machiko Kyo as Kimicho, the smartest and most cynical of the young geisha women and her increasing efforts at keeping ridiculous male admirers at bay.