Each summer, the Cineteca di Bologna, one of Europe’s most renowned archives for film restoration and preservation, organizes one of the world’s most unique film festivals, Il Cinema Ritrovato (“Rediscovered cinema”). Eight memorable days to dive into cinema’s past, Cinema Ritrovato also offers opportunities to meet renowned experts on film history as well as celebrated filmmakers. More than 360 titles are presented annually in six cinemas and on a giant screen in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. In the words of the former Artistic Director, the late Peter von Bagh, Il Cinema Ritrovato is pure heaven for cinéphiles. Our Cinematheque series highlights international feature films that all screened at the 2024 edition of the festival, including an Academy Film Archive and Cineteca di Bologna restoration of the original release version of Amadeus and selections from the Festival’s extensive retrospective tributes to actress Delphine Seyrig and director Anatole Litvak.
SAT., 2/1, 7 p.m.
MURDERING THE DEVIL (VRAZDA ING. CERTA)
Czechoslovakia | 1970 | DCP | 87 min. | Czech with English subtitles
Director: Ester Krumbachová
Cast: Jirina Bohdalová, Vladimír Mensík, Ljuba Hermanová
In this absurdist, allegorical comedy, a lonely woman entertains an insatiable gentleman caller who devours her food and sanity with equal gusto. As he leaves behind a trail of destruction and chicken bones, she clings to the hope that her chaotic visitor might rescue her from monotony—if only she can keep him out of her forbidden Pandora’s box, aka her refrigerator. Murdering the Devil is the only film directed by Ester Krumbachová, co-screenwriter of a number of Czech new-wave classics like Daisies and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. A new 4K restoration will be screened. Preceded by Tex Avery’s Billy Boy (1954, 6 min.). Presented with the support of the Center for Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (CREECA) at UW-Madison.
SAT., 2/8, 7 p.m.
SEVEN SAMURAI
Japan | 1954 | DCP | 207 min. | Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
A small village in medieval Japan is besieged by bandits and hires seven rogue samurai to defend it. Cinematic mythmaking at its finest, no true fan of movies should go without at least one viewing on the big screen. “Not only a great film in its own right but the source of a genre that flowed through the rest of the century.” (Roger Ebert). A 4K DCP of a new restoration will be shown.
FRI., 3/21, 7 p.m.
LA VISITA
Italy | 1963 | DCP | 112 min. | Italy with English subtitles
Director: Antonio Pietrangeli
Cast: Sandra Milo, François Périer, Gastone Moschin
Pina (Milo), a beautiful and dignified woman in her 30s from a provincial Italian village, meets Adolfo (Périer), a seemingly promising suitor from Rome, after placing a personal ad. Through flashbacks and the unfolding of their meeting, Adolfo’s superficiality and self-centeredness are revealed, while Pina’s quiet resilience and yearning for happiness—rooted in memories of a passionate affair—paint a bittersweet portrait of her enduring strength amidst the mediocrity and prejudices of her time. Echoing themes from Pietrangeli’s acclaimed I Knew Her Well, La Visita is a poignant exploration of loneliness, societal expectations, and the human longing for connection. A new 4K DCP, restored by Italy’s Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, will be screened.
SAT., 3/22, 7 p.m.
PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
USA | 1973 | DCP | 117 min.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, Bob Dylan
In Peckinpah’s haunting Western death poem, Kristofferson is Billy the Kid, the fiery gunslinger who parts ways with his companion-turned-lawman, Pat Garrett (Coburn). After Billy busts out of a New Mexico jail, a group of powerful cattlemen hire Garrett to assemble a posse and track the bandit down, along with his gang (including Dylan, who wrote the film’s music). Recently reconstructed by a team that includes original editor Roger Spottiswoode, this special edition comes closest to realizing Peckinpah’s vision than any of the previously released versions.
FRI., 4/11, 7 p.m.
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
France | 1964 | DCP | 92 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Jacques Demy
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon
Demy’s colorful, romantic, and bittersweet study of love and chance is one of the most beloved and cherished of all movie musicals. Guy (Castelnuovo) and Geneviève (the radiant Deneuve) are the lovesick couple who are torn apart when Guy must leave the seaside town of Cherbourg for military service in Algeria. Every line of dialogue is sung to the memorably haunting score of Michel Legrand. A newly restored 4K DCP will be screened.
SAT., 4/12, 7 p.m.
ACT OF VIOLENCE
USA | 1948 | DCP | 82 min.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh
Heflin stars as a seemingly upright father and husband who is relentlessly stalked across Los Angeles by Ryan, a menacing figure from his past. One of the darkest and most morally ambiguous visions of post-war American life from the prime era of film noir, Act of Violence was made after The Search (1948) and before The Men (1950), making it “the centerpiece in a trilogy of films by Fred Zinnemann about people living in the physical or emotional ruins of World War II” (Imogen Sara Smith). A new restoration, made from original fine grain elements, will be screened.
SAT., 4/19, 7 p.m.
BONA
Philippines | 1980 | DCP | 86 min. | Tagalog with English subtitles
Director: Lino Brocka
Cast: Nora Aunor, Philip Salvador, Rustica Carpio
Spellbound in a fevered haze of devotion, middle-class student Bona forsakes her family and future to follow Gardo, a vain and womanizing movie actor. Bona’s infatuation for Gardo, a glorified extra who lives in a shack, curdles into servitude as she becomes his obedient maid and surrogate mother, setting the stage for a crescendo of heartbreak and reckoning. Little seen since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, this marvelous tale of obsessive love is told in a decidedly un-florid, neorealist fashion by one of the Philippines’ most celebrated directors. Bona has been restored in a new 4K DCP.
FRI., 4/18, 7 p.m.
AMADEUS
USA | 1984 | 35mm | 158 min.
Director: Milos Forman
Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge
Forman’s enthralling, Oscar-winning period piece tells the story of the brilliant, but buffoonish Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Hulce). Mozart’s life is captured in flashback from the point of view of fellow composer Salieri (Abraham), who remains resentful of Mozart in light of his own musical failures and mediocrities. Restored to the running time of Amadeus’ original release, a new 35mm print from the Academy Film Archive will be shown. Presented with the support of Madison Opera.
FRI., 4/25, 7 p.m.
GOLDEN EIGHTIES
Belgium, France, Switzerland | 1986 | DCP | 96 min. | French with English subtitles
Director: Chantal Akerman
Cast: Myriam Boyer, Delphine Seyrig, John Berry
Set in a bustling Brussels shopping mall, Golden Eighties follows a tapestry of characters—led by Seyrig’s Jeanne, a serene shopkeeper whose joyful façade hides the trauma of the past—as they navigate a whirl of romantic entanglements and heartfelt longing, expressed through vibrant song and dance. Balancing the candy-colored allure of pop spectacle with a profound meditation on survival and hope, Akerman crafts a bittersweet serenade to human connection in an age of consumerism.
SAT., 4/26, 7 p.m.
BLUES IN THE NIGHT
USA | 1941 | DCP | 88 min.
Director: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Jack Carson, Elia Kazan
Chasing a dream of pure musical expression, a scrappy band of musicians gets tangled in the smoky allure of a roadhouse run by a fugitive, where illegal gambling and a sultry femme fatale threaten to tear the band apart. Anchored by its Oscar-nominated title track with lyrics by Johnny Mercer (“My momma done tol’ me…”), this crime-infused musical is one of Warner Bros. finest entertainments from the early 1940s, thanks to director Litvak’s fast-paced direction, a jazzy script by Robert Rossen, and deliriously expressive montages from director-in-the-making Don Siegel. A DCP derived from a 16mm print at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research will be screened.