Rediscovering Masterworks of World Cinema | To Save and Project: The Ninth MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation

To Save and Project: The Ninth MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, the annual festival of preserved and restored films from archives, studios and distributions around the world is currently on show at MoMA, New York. Featuring festival films by Roger Corman, Forugh Farrokhzad, George Kuchar, Alberto Lattuada, Louis Malle, Agnes Martin, Georges Méliès, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Jean Rouch, and Seijun Suzuki, this year's festival comprises over 35 films from 14 countries, virtually all of them having their new New York premieres, and some shown in versions never before seen in the United States. Complementing the annual festival is a retrospective devoted to filmmaker Jack Smith, featuring 11 newly struck prints acquired for MoMA's collection.

Festival highlights includes such masterworks as Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov’s rediscovered A Nail in the Boot (1931), shown with Salt for Svanetia (1930); Marcel Carné’s fatalist romance Le Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows) (1938), written by Jacques Prévert and starring Jean Gabin; Raúl Ruiz’s first feature film, Tres tristes tigres (1968), made in his native Chile; Ken Loach’s Kes (1969), a moving portrait of a boy and his kestrel; Claude Lanzmann’s hauntingly prescient documentary Pourquoi Israël (Israel, Why) (1973), which premiered three days after the Yom Kippur War and forms a loose trilogy with Shoah (1985) and Tsahal (1994); Seijun Suzuki’s deliriously hyper-stylized Zigeunerweisen (1980); and a tribute to underground legend George Kuchar, featuring new prints of I, An Actress (1977), Wild Night in El Reno (1977), and other short films. Four classics of Italian cinema are also presented: two by Alberto Lattuada, Il Cappotto (1952)—an adaptation of Gogol’s The Overcoat—and La Spiaggia (1954), the film that helped usher in the commedia all’italiana of the 1950s; and two starring Marcello Mastroianni, Elio Petri’s existential crime thriller L’Assassino (The Assassin) (1961) and Ettore Scola’s melodramatic satire Dramma della gelosia (The Pizza Triangle/Drama of Jealousy) (1970).

To Save and Project: The Ninth MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation continues until 19 November at The Roy and Niuta Titus Theatres, MoMA, New York.

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The Aesthetica Short Film Festival is the first film festival ever to be hosted in the historic city of York. The festival is a celebration of independent film from across the world with 150 films being screened from 30 countries. ASFF opens 3 November and continues until 6 November. For tickets and further information visit the website www.asff.co.uk or call (+44) (0) 1904 629 137.

Images (Top to Bottom)
Cruel and Unusual Comedy from the Desmet Collection of the Eye Film Institute, The Netherlands: A Special Concert. Onésime horloger. 1912. France. Directed by Jean Durand. Image courtesy of Collection of the EYE Film Institute, The Netherlands.
Dramma della Gelosia (Drama of Jealousy). 1970. Italy. Directed by Ettore Scola. Pictured: Marcello Mastoianni (left), Monica Vitti (center), and Giancarlo Giannini (right). Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive.
Cruel and Unusual Comedy from the Desmet Collection of the Eye Film Institute, The Netherlands: A Special Concert. Bebe soigné son père. 1912. France. Directed by Louis Feuillade. Image courtesy of Collection of the EYE Film Institute, The Netherlands.
Cruel and Unusual Comedy from the Desmet Collection of the Eye Film Institute, Mr. Smith fait l’ouverture. 1914. France. Image courtesy of Collection of the EYE Film Institute, The Netherlands.
The Adventures of Hajji Baba. 1954. USA. Directed by Don Weis. Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive.