Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (David Heeley, 1993)

Cover of All About Me's VHS edition of 

Playing on June 18, 2025 at Il Cinema Ritrovato XXIX. – EK

Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (David Heeley, 1993)

When Katharine Hepburn appeared in All About Me at age 85, it was a year after she had published her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life – stories from which she repeats on camera. Not exactly all about her, but still very much focused on a star who was, at various times, deemed “unusual,” “box office poison,” and a feminist trailblazer in a film industry built on familiarity, money, and misogyny.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025 | Films on Film

Summertime by David Lean, shot in Venice, in colour, on 35mm

Il Cinema Ritrovato shows more films on film — from 35mm, 16mm, and 70mm prints — than any other festival in the world. (If you have any doubt, ask FedEx or DHL.)

This year, 130 titles will be projected from celluloid. It's true that a good number of these belong to early cinema, but there is an equally substantial selection—from the silent period to the early 21st century—shown in archival prints and occasionally brand-new prints.

Here is a list of 50 titles to be shown on film that I think are worth adding to your schedule, once the schedule is out!

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025: Twenty Recommendations

Il Museo dei sogni

Il Cinema Ritrovato XXIX is just around the corner, and I think you should not miss these twenty titles:

Safar (Bahram Beyzaie, 1972)

Safar

The world premiere of the new restoration (from the camera negative) will take place on June 24 at 14:00, at Il Cinema Ritrovato XXIX.

A 12-year-old orphan with a habit of seeking out his potential parents takes his friend along on a journey through the wastelands on the outskirts of Tehran. Seemingly a children’s folk tale, Safar is so visually singular that it evades easy breakdown. It is allegorical, but allegory is the engine; visual density the result.

Online with SFFP—Discussing the Work of Lewis Milestone

Lewis Milestone with Joan Crawford during the shooting of Rain (1932)

On Thursday, June 5, SFFP Board President Rob Byrne will be joined by Ehsan Khoshbakht to discuss Lewis Milestone’s incredible body of work, including—of course—The Garden of Eden, which SFFP restored!

This event is free and open to everyone. Simply register below to attend.

Cecil Taylor à Paris (Gérard Patris, 1968)

The brand-new restoration of Cecil Taylor à Paris, courtesy of INA, will be premiered at the 2025 edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato. – EK

“He doesn’t come from my community,” replies avant-garde jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, hidden deep behind dark glasses, when asked by the interviewer about Stockhausen. The same response follows for questions about Bach and John Cage. In a style characteristic of 1968, the African-American musician, filmed for Cecil Taylor à Paris in an old French palace with oversized chimneys, dismisses European traditions in favour of “across the track” culture – the lived experiences of African-Americans.

Ida Lupino: The Best of Her Television Work

My selection of Lupino's TV work as a director will play at Close-Up Cinema on May 25. – EK

The London-born Hollywood movie star Ida Lupino, known as one of the screen’s 'tough girls', found acting insufficient for her intellectual and social ambitions. In 1949, she ventured into directing, “investigating the social condition of women in contemporary society.” With Dorothy Arzner retired, Lupino became the only active female director in Hollywood at the time. Her remarkable directorial output has been restored and widely screened in recent years. However, her rich, and fascinating body of work for television – usually individual episodes within ongoing series – remains largely unexplored. These works encompass proto-feminist stories, genre pieces, and tightly knit dramas. This programme features some of Lupino’s most outstanding television work from the 1950s and 1960s.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025 | Which Films Play in Each Strand

La ragazza di Bube

This is a list of the titles that will be screened at Il Cinema Ritrovato, excluding the 1905 and 1925 strands. The listings for the Documentary and Restored & Recovered strands are not exhaustive — more titles will be added later.

Lewis Milestone Retrospective at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025

Milestone (left) on the set of Rain with Joan Crawford

Lewis Milestone: Of Wars and Men

A milestone of visual flair and virtuosity in American cinema, the career of Lewis Milestone – a Russian Jewish émigré – bridged silent cinema and the 70mm spectacles of the 1960s. Renowned for having one of the most distinctive and eclectic styles of his generation, his popular and dazzlingly original work ranged from the anti-war magnum opus All Quiet on the Western Front to the popular-front musical Hallelujah, I’m a Bum!. As dense, dark, and daunting as his films could get, they were often laced with wit, camaraderie, and bravery amid mass atrocities. Yet, he barely survived the Hollywood blacklist, which forced him to drift into mediocre assignments. This programme, covering his silent films up until the blacklist, features new restorations and archive prints, aiming to recover the artistry of a man who fought many battles of humanity in the 20th century with a sense of wisdom and poetry that can still shake us.

Centenary screening of Grass (1925) with live music by Payman Yazdanian

Grass

Screening at Kings Place, London, on May 25, 2025. I'll be introducing the screening. Book here.

Grass (1925), one of the canonical greats of the silent era by the directorial team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack—today mostly remembered for their iconic sound-era cult film King Kong—is a documentary on the heroic annual migration of the nomadic Bakhtiari tribes of Iran. It is an epic film about people who live epic lives. The restless filmmakers identify with the people they follow, transforming their journey into some of the grandest vistas of silent cinema ever captured on film.