Doroshkechi (Nosrat Karimi, 1971)

The new digital copy of Doroshkechi that world-premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022 (for which this note was composed) is now (September 12, 16:00) playing at Forum des Images in Paris. I shall be introducing the Parisian screening of the film. – EK

Doroshkechi [The Carriage Driver] (Iran, 1971, black & white, 115 min)

Writer and Director: Nosrat Karimi

Writer: Nosrat Karimi. Cinematographer: Houshang Baharlou. Editing: Sirus Jarrahzadeh. Music: Mojtaba Mirzadeh. Cast: Nosrat Karimi (Gholamali), Shahla Riahi (Zinat Sadat), Masoud Asadollahi (Morteza), Arghavan (Pouri), Babak Karimi (Hassan), Ezattollah Navid, Diana. Producer: Manouchehr Sadeghpour. Scanned in 5K and digitally cleaned in 4K by CNC.

Hugo Fregonese: Man on the Run (MoMA retrospective, September 2022)

Blowing Wild

Perhaps history’s most restless filmmaker, Hugo Fregonese directed his first films in his native Argentina in the 1940s and then embarked on a globe-trotting career that took him to Hollywood, London, Paris, Rome, Munich, and eventually back to South America, all the while exploring themes of claustrophobia, entrapment, and imprisonment. This program, originally organized with Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival of archival film, includes a new restoration of Fregonese’s boldly stylized Western Apache Drums (1951) and a new 35mm print of Fregonese’s masterpiece Black Tuesday (1954), a strikingly harsh and violent gangster film featuring Edward G. Robinson in his last thoroughly villainous role and spectacular noir cinematography by Stanley Cortez (Night of the Hunter).

Organized by Dave Kehr, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and Ehsan Khoshbakht, Co-Director, Il Cinema Ritrovato.

The series runs from September 1 to 15 in New York City. More info here.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022: Favourites & Discoveries

Singin' in the Rain in Piazza Maggiore, July 1

When they unscrewed the heavy and majestic La Nonna (our carbon arc projector) from the pedestal in Piazzetta Pasolini and the ice cream vendor packed his stuff and went home it was clear that Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVI was over. We had a ball. More than 400 films were shown during 8 and a half days. Cinema could be found in every corner of the city.

After the last year's round-up – seen and read by many – I asked colleagues, curators, film historians, silent film accompanists, scholars and the attendees to pick the title of the two films from the festival, one as their favourite film and the other of their major discovery at this year's edition. You can read them below.

The magic of Bologna lies in the fact that while we showed films by the masters we love (Hitchcock, Lang, Ophuls, Melville), the filmmakers that are championed in this poll are Niskanen, Muratova, Fregonese, Shahid Saless, Rossi, and Ovanessian. Rewrite the film histories now!

See you next year!

THIS BLOG POST IS BEING REGULARLY UPDATED. THE NEW ENTRIES WILL BE MARKED BY [new]

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A View into Yugoslav Cinema by Mina Radović

Man Is Not a Bird

During its XXXVI edition, Il Cinema Ritrovato will present a section dedicated to Yugoslav cinema. The curator of the programme, Mina Radović, has written an introductory article, discussing the ideas behind the selection, as well as the significance of each selected title. All the films will play at the Jolly cinema of Bologna between June 25 and July 2, 2022.

“Tell the Truth!” A View into Yugoslav Cinema, 1955-1969

By Mina Radović

Yugoslav cinema represents a rich, multifaceted, and for many film connoisseurs, untapped resource of film heritage. One of the most diverse states in twentieth century Europe, Yugoslavia was originally founded in 1918 in the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of several empires as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The country was governed as a constitutional monarchy governed by King Aleksandar Karađorđević and in 1929 the country changed its name to Yugoslavia – ‘the land of South Slavs’.

A hub of film culture, pedagogy, and production, the film industry was nationalised after the Second World War and a sophisticated studio system quickly emerged. The new government led by Josip Broz Tito turned Yugoslavia into a socialist country with its own brand of self-management and a form of diplomacy which connected East, West, and the ‘Non-Aligned’ world.

The post-war years saw the rise of formidable new artists who examined, mediated, and challenged contemporary Yugoslav reality, breaking social taboos, and forging new means of cinematic expression. Their work is often diametrically different, but they are connected by an innovative, experimental, and altogether refreshing spirit to see the world anew. The retrospective will present two decades of cinema, moving from the Classical Cinema of the 1950s to the New Yugoslav Film of the 1960s and incorporates a range of feature and short, fiction, documentary, and experimental films by master filmmakers of the era.

Iranian Films at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022

The Carriage Driver (Nosrat Karimi, 1971), shot by Houshang Baharlou (Chess of the Wind)

The forthcoming edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato (June 25-July 3, 2022) doesn't include an individual strand for Iranian cinema, however, it'll nonetheless feature at least five dazzling Iranian films, made between 1961 and 2022, shown across 3 different strands.

The documentary section will see the Italian premiere of À vendredi, Robinson (Mitra Farahani, 2022), a dialogue between Ebrahim Golestan, a giant of Iranian cinema and literature (now only a few months shy of his 100th birthday) and Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. This is a truly beautiful work and should prepare you for what comes next.

A Fire (Yek Atash) by Ebrahim Golestan was premiered at Venice Film Festival in 1961. We screened it in 2016 when a retrospective was dedicated to Golestan's cinema of poetry and politics. Now we have updated the faded 35mm print previously shown with a 4K restoration of the film, presented for the first time in its original Persian voice-over, spoken by a famous voice artist, Asadollah Peyman. (The 2016 screening was from an English-dubbed version.) 

Interview with Hugo Fregonese

Hugo Fregonese

Films Can't Played Off Too Fast; Public Catch Up, Declares Fregonese

By Richard Bernstein

(The Independent Film Journal, November 1952)

"Phoniness in pictures, as in money, has no real value,” explained Director Hugo Fregonese at lunch. Fregonese has just returned from Europe where he directed the Mike Frankovich production, Decameron Nights, which stars Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan.

“I feel that an audience can sense a formula picture,” Fregonese said. “An audience likes to be surprised. They don't like to see the same film over and over with a different cast.”

Fregonese pointed out that nowadays a film goes through the theatre circuit too fast. Many pictures are worth a holdover and don't get it. Pictures should be exploited like plays for longer runs. Many times a person finally gets time to see a picture and finds that it has gone. By the time word-of-mouth on a film gets around, a film is sometimes not even playing in the city anymore.

Cinema Reborn 2022 catalogue (featuring The Deer essay)

The 2022 edition of Cinema Reborn focuses on the worldwide activity of film preservation and restoration. Held in Sydney from April 27 to May 1, the festival would see the Aussie premiere of The Deer (Masoud Kimiai, 1974) on which I have written an essay for the festival catalogue. The catalogue is now available in digital format and print formats.

Download the catalogue (in PDF) here.

The Drifter's Escape: Hugo Fregonese

THE DRIFTER’S ESCAPE: HUGO FREGONESE

A retrospective at Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna (June 25-July 3, 2022)

Curated by Dave Kehr and Ehsan Khoshbakht

As swiftly as some directors changed studios, Hugo Fregonese (1908-87) changed countries. The perfect ‘saddle tramp’ figure, he drifted and made films about drifting and escape. A master of brisk and unsentimental westerns and crime thrillers, with a career spanning over four decades and numerous bases of production – from his home country Argentina, to America, Spain, Italy, the UK and West Germany – Fregonese’s cinema is unjustly underappreciated to the point of obscurity. This is a step in the direction of claiming him as an important figure; one whose cinema of impassioned subjectivity blends the aesthetic of low-budget films with fatalism, myth and raw violence. Fregonese’s name is often associated with the ten films he made during his five-year residency in Hollywood in the 1950s. This programme picks some of the finest from that period to screen alongside films made elsewhere. Forming one of the most coherent cinematic oeuvres that one could expect from a wandering director, this will be one of the major revelations of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022.

The Prose-Poetry Cinema of Ebrahim Golestan

"And the earth is a woman, with reveries and roots," says the Iranian filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan, narrating over the image of a 3,000-year old skeleton as it is unearthed, in his short documentary The Hills of Marlik (1964). This is where the heart of the filmmaker, who recently turned 100, lies: in the earth, to which he returns repeatedly in his films...

 

Read the full essay -- a tribute to Ebrahim Golestan -- in the March 2022 issue of Sight & Sound magazine.

Company Cinema in Abadan — A History (by Abbas Baharloo)

Taj Cinema in Abadan

Commissioned by me and originally published in the now defunct Underline magazine, this piece by the prolific (and Abadani) historian of Iranian cinema, Abbas Baharloo, sheds light on a lesser-known and nonetheless very significant chapter in the history of film culture in pre-revolutionary Iran. — EK

 

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company ushered in a ‘golden age’ of cinema-going in Abadan before nationalisation in 1951. Overseen by the Company, however, popular entertainment and propaganda were mixed, and screenings did little to bridge social divisions. 

By Abbas Baharloo

 

Many years ago now, Abadan was a city that welcomed immigrants and a place where many settled. Its population was made up of people from many different Iranian and international cities; Isfahanis, Shirazis, Baluch, Kurds, Lors, Arabs, and Azeris lived alongside Britons, Americans, Indians, and people from Rangoon in Burma. At the time Abadan was a bustling city and a vibrant centre of all sorts of cultural and artistic activities. There were leisure clubs; modern cinemas; libraries housing books and other publications in Persian, English, and Arabic; theatre, photography, and gardening associations; concerts of Iranian and foreign music; lectures on literature, music and painting, and sporting competitions. Despite all this, in Abadan doors were not always open to everybody. The prominent Iranian filmmaker Nasser Taghvai, born in Abadan in 1941, remembers it thus:

This Gun For Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942)

“Murder didn't mean much to Raven. It was just a new job”. These lines open Graham Greene's novel about an assassin with a cleft lip who is hired to kill a government minister, only to find himself double-crossed by his contractor. Enraged, he seeks revenge while the police are on his tail. Proving adept at translating many of the book's details to the screen, Tuttle was also chiefly responsible for inventing cinema's angelic killer, in the way he reshaped the image of the disfigured Raven into a shiningly handsome yet darkly destructive messenger of death. (The action was also transferred from pre-war England to wartime California). Given unprecedented freedom, Tuttle wrote a treatment based on the book, which Paramount obtained upon publication in 1936 but had abandoned as unfilmable. 

Rivalry in the City

Tehran’s newly built modernist buildings shown during the title sequence of Reghabat dar Shahr [Rivalry in the City] (Uncredited, 1963)

This is the censored and re-edited version of Jonob-e Shahr [South of the City] (Farrokh Ghaffari, 1958)

Monogramming#2

Monogram Pictures, 1942 | 1725 Fleming Street in East Hollywood

From an ad campaign, May 1942:

MONOGRAM'S 10th  ANNIVERSARY

Promise  vs.  Performance 

A  promise  is  a  sacred  obligation.  Monogram  Pictures  will  not  tolerate  a  promise  unfulfilled. 

A  promise  is  only  as  good  as  the  one  who  makes  it.  As men  are  judged  by  what  they  have  done  in  the  past,  so  we  of  Monogram  Pictures,  with  a  background  of  promises  fulfilled, sincerely  ask  for  your  support  in  what  we  are  offering  for  the season  1942-43. 

We  are  young  in  years,  but  old  in  showmanship.  We  have  approached  the  coming  year  with  a  determination  to  make  this MONOGRAM'S  GREATEST  YEAR! 

Never on Sunday: Under Your Skin (Mikko Niskanen, 1966)

Under Your Skin

NEVER ON SUNDAY is a series of screenings of rare classics, archive masterpieces, obscure delights and forgotten gems taking place the last Sunday of each month at Close-Up Cinema in east London. The first screening, on January 30, is dedicated to Mikko Niskanen's Under Your Skin. Tickets here.

Käpy selän alla [Under Your Skin]

Dir: Mikko Niskanen, 1966, 99 min, 35mm

Directed by Mikko Niskanen, an indispensable figure of Finnish new cinema of the 1960s, Under Your Skin is one of the most significant films in the history of Finnish cinema which, in the spirit of New Wave, embraces a whole new generation of Finns dreaming of "a universal sense of responsibility." (Peter von Bagh). The tender and real depiction of this new politically-conscious generation, as well as fresh cinematic ideas employed, were warmly welcomed by both the Finnish audiences (making the film the second box office hit of 1966) and the critics, the latter leading to the film winning six Jussi awards, the Finnish equivalent of the Oscar.

Sixtynine (Jörn Donner, 1969)

Sixtynine (1969)

As a part of tribute to Jörn Donner, Sixtynine plays (on 35mm) at London's Closeup Film Centre on January 14, 2021. - EK

When a working woman learns of her part-time hockey referee husband's infidelity, she takes her gynaecologist's advice, to "take a lover", seriously and ends up sleeping with him.  

This sex comedy, Jörn Donner's second Finnish feature after four films made in Sweden, was deemed too scandalous even for Finnish society in the late 1960s. It continues some of the themes the director had previously explored in Black on White (1968) and with its fluent use of fast cutting and motion, fantasy sequences and documentary style camerawork, it could be seen as Finland's response to the Swinging Sixties, as the decade was coming to a close.  

As well the title's allusion to the year, Donner (who himself appears playing the role of the dispassionate gynaecologist) says the film is called Sixtynine because the relationships in the film have turned upside-down – despite some Finns feeling near certain that some "immoral sexual acts" were meant to be promoted by the film. 

Monogramming

 

A survey of the production line (shooting and editing stages) of Monogram studio as in July 1952. The "star directors" in the stable for summer productions are William Beaudine, Lesley Selander, Kurt Neumann, Lew Landers and also less appealing Thomas Carr and Ray Nazzarro.

Click to enlarge.

La revolució oblidada. Cinema iranià anterior a 1979

Programme curated for Filmoteca de Catalunya (December 2021). — EK 

[Short introduction in Catalan]

La revolució del 1979 va canviar el destí i el rostre de l’Iran. Com la majoria de les revolucions, també va suprimir el passat i les seves imatges, i amb això un dels cinemes més innovadors d’aquella època. Aquest programa mostra algunes de les pel·lícules clau de la revolució cinematogràfica més progressista, interrompuda per una altra de social per la qual el país va acabar sent conegut.

Aquesta retrospectiva de cinema iranià anterior al 1979 fa reviure pel·lícules prohibides, perdudes o simplement oblidades. Obres mestres de la Nova Onada Iraniana que s’estrenen ara, acabades de restaurar, al nostre país.

I Wake Up Screaming (Bruce Humberstone, 1941)

I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941)

Dir: Bruce Humberstone

Originally titled Hot Spot and even released in some territories as such, this is an indispensable work in the development of film noir. Focusing on the psychological complexions and sexual obsessions of its characters, the film's expansion of noir themes as well as its use of chiaroscuro lighting are pioneering, even if the "wrong man" story doesn't always abide by the rules it has defined and ventures into other, lighter territory.

The murder of rising star Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis) is announced at the beginning of the film and through a series of flashbacks, narrated by her sister Jill (Betty Grable) and the suspects, we learn about how the capricious Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) has turned Vicky from a waitress into a celebrity. During the investigation we are also introduced to a psychotic detective, Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar), who is already convinced of Frankie's guilt and determined to send him to the "hot chair". The framed Frankie and Jill, now in love, embark on their own investigation while Cornell is on their tail.

Conversation with Paul Haggis

Paul Haggis (left) in Bologna

My conversation with writer and director Paul Haggis, recorded in Bologna on July 27,  2021.

The Cinema of George Stevens: A Dialogue Between Imogen Sara Smith & Ehsan Khoshbakht

George Stevens (standing, right) on the set of Giant

Video of a dialogue between Imogen Sara Smith and I about the cinema of George Stevens, recorded in Bologna, July 2021. — Ehsan Khoshbakht

Esmail Koushan: The Storm of Life (by Abbas Baharloo)

Esmail Koushan

When serving as the editor-in-chief of the now defunct Underline arts quarterly, I celebrated the centenary of Iranian film director-producer by commissioning two pieces on him. This is the second essay (the first one, by Nima Hassani-Nasab, is already available here), written by the untiring historian of Iranian cinema Abbas Baharloo. I'm publishing it here for the first time. — EK

Esmail Koushan: The Storm of Life

By Abbas Baharloo

A portrait of Esamil Koushan, one of the fathering figures of Iranian cinema

Esmail Koushan, producer, director, screenwriter, cinema owner and founder of the largest film studio in Iran, has been described as both ‘the father of Iranian cinema’ and ‘the bad guy of Iranian cinema’.

From the very beginning, Koushan was determined to be a pioneer. He was responsible for the first foreign film to be dubbed into Persian; he founded the first film studio in Iran, Mitra Film, after cinema had experienced a fallow period (1937-47) following the art form’s initial development there; and was the producer of the first Iranian talkie to be made in Iran, The Storm of Life (1948). He made possible the production of the first episodic film in Iran (The Spring Variety, 1949); he initiated the making of the first black and white CinemaScope film (Accusation, directed by Shapur Yasami, 1956), colour CinemaScope film (The Runaway Bride, which he directed himself, 1958), and the first films co-produced with France (Ebram in Paris, directed by himself, 1964), Turkey (Divine Justice, 1969), and West Germany (The Sleeping Lion, directed by Esmail’s brother, Mahmoud Koushan, 1976). He also initiated the publication of one of the first Iranian film magazines (Alam-e Honar or ‘The World of Art’, 1951).

Divine Justice (1969)

Esmail Harir-Forush (his surname meant ‘the silk merchant’), who following the example of his uncle changed his surname to Koushan, was born in Tehran in 1917. He passed away in the same city on 5th July 1983. He began his studies at the Dar ol-Fonun School, and at the end of autumn 1937, at a time when the reign of Reza Shah had led to a contraction of commercial relations with Britain and an increase in contacts with Germany, he moved to the latter country to continue his education, studying economics in Berlin. At a time when he benefited from no financial assistance, he made the acquaintance of Bahram Keykhosro Shahrokh, son of a prominent Iranian politician and a newsreader for Radio Berlin.

Filmfarsi on DVD!

Filmfarsi

 
Filmfarsi will be released on DVD in North America (via Grasshopper Film) on November 9, 2021. Pre-order here.

The design is by F Ron Miller.

The Curious and the Downcast: An Interview with Kamran Shirdel

Kamran Shirdel at the exhibition. Photo (c) Houshang Golmakani

The Curious and the Downcast: An Interview with Kamran Shirdel

By Houshang Golmakani

An interview with the distinguished Iranian filmmaker, photographer, and writer about his latest exhibition of films and photographs taken during the days of the Iranian Revolution. I commissioned this for a winter 2019 issue of Underline magazine but by the time this was translated and edited, the Underline project was abruptly folded. I publish it here for the first time. — EK

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the revolution that saw the monarch of Iran overthrown and replaced with an Islamic republic, renowned documentary filmmaker and photographer Kamran Shirdel is now exhibiting his photographs and raw, unedited footage of the historical event for the first time at a gallery in Tehran. Born in 1939, Shirdel originally studied architecture at the University of Rome before going on to study film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Upon his return to Iran in 1964, he produced a number of documentaries on Iranian social issues in the space of just a few years, the most famous of which include Women's Prison, Women's Quarter, Tehran Is the Capital of Iran, and his satirical masterpiece The Night It Rained. Due to their controversial subjects, all of these early documentaries were banned at the time of their release and Shirdel had several encounters with the Shah's secret police force SAVAK as a result. With the exception of his first and only feature-length film, The Morning of the Fourth Day (1972), Shirdel was forced to pursue industrial documentary filmmaking in the years that followed. 1978 saw a rise in strikes and social unrest that fuelled the fires of an impending revolution: the event that Shirdel had been waiting for ever since his return to Iran. Armed with a video camera and a camera, Shirdel took to the streets of Tehran, tirelessly documenting every development throughout the course of the revolution.

40 years later, and for the first time since they were taken, Shirdel's photographs and footage from those days are now being exhibited at the Nabshi Centre in Tehran from 30 November 2018 to 25 January 2019.  Shirdel, who was 39 years old at the time of the revolution, will turn 80 later this year. Despite his age and a spinal condition that requires him to use a walking stick, Shirdel still attends the exhibition almost every day in order to see the effects of his work first-hand. The exhibition itself is relatively large, covering two floors, with mostly large-scale photographs displayed on the walls and 40-year-old, antique television sets showing 8mm footage on repeat. Unfortunately, Shirdel's 16mm footage was confiscated in the days following the revolution and no trace of them has been seen since then. 

The Spat-on Messenger: Youssef Chahine in Conversation with Tom Luddy

Youssef Chahine

Bologna, June 2019. I spotted an Arab name on the badge of the hotel's night porter. When I asked, he turned out to be one—an Egyptian. I mentioned to him that Youssef Chahine's films would be playing in Bologna for the next few days. His face lit up. A floodgate of emotions, about Egypt, his past, and cinema opened, temporarily drowned him in nostalgia, passion and regret. He shared stories of Chahine, of his beloved Alexandria. He even cursed the extra who had forgotten to remove his wristwatch during the battle scene of Salah Eddin (a film about the Crusade, from the Arabs' point of view). According to him, by doing so he had prevented the film from entering the Oscar competition.

Very few directors can make that impact on their people, endowing them with a sense of pride and identity. Chahine's generosity with emotions is contagious. In reaction to a Chahine film, it is as legit to dance or holler as it is to write an essay. In Bologna the scholar and musician Amal Guermazi decided to sing, as her introduction to Al Ard.

Sometimes effortlessly Ophulsian (especially in the '70s, in the fluidity of his carousel-like narratives) and sometimes dialectically Chaplinesque, Chahine brought together the seemingly irreconcilable worlds existing in 20th-century Egypt and gave them a sense of harmony. There was a wise calmness about him. He had every reason to be angry, but instead he gave a sad smile which became the Chahine cinema.

Aligned with Pan-Arabic sentiments, he looked beyond Egypt, too. However, his Algeria-set Djamilah (1958) is nearly impossible to see in a cinema. Telling the story of the Algerian Independence War fighter Djamila Bouhired, it has been absent from recent Chahine retrospectives. It's an anti-French film, in exactly the same manner that hundreds of western films, including some French ones, have been anti-Arab. But it's more than just tit-for-tat—it is a celebration of change in the Arab world, done in the best of Hollywood traditions which Chahine adored. Find the film and show it!  (For the Chahine tribute at Il Cinema Ritrovato, we tracked down a print in Albania but the subtitles were so big, covering almost half the screen, in the process turning them into Godardian onscreen statements.)

Sight & Sound's 100 'Hidden Heroes' of Cinema: Lily Amir-Arjomand

Lily Amir-Arjomand

From Sight & Sound magazine, Summer 2021, Vol. 31, Issue 6, dedicated to unsung heroes of cinema. This was my contribution, trying to go beyond the familiar names and professions one hears on a film set. — EK

Lily Amir-Arjomand (b. 1938)

One of the key architects of the new Iranian cinema, Lily Amir-Arjomand was most likely unfamiliar with even the most basic film terminology. But no matter when she had one thing that no one else in Iran has possessed before or since: trust in the filmmaker.

Emerging from a privileged background, this former classmate of the Queen of Iran was a technocrat with imagination. In 1964 she founded a library for children. Four years later Kanoon had become an impeccably streamlined production house for first-rate cultural goods (including films) aimed at children, with centres spread all over the country. And everything was free.

Alias Nick Beal (John Farrow, 1949)

Alias Nick Beal, publicity still

Written for the catalogue of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021. -- EK

In 1948 director John Farrow began a close, decade-long collaboration with writer Jonathan Latimer that resulted in ten films, including one marvel (The Big Clock), quite a few greats (Night Has a Thousand Eyes among them), and some obscurities. The intensely engaging Alias Nick Beal, their fourth collaboration, is a dark, claustrophobic variation on the story of Faust (Mindret Lord's original story was titled Dr. Joe Faust) in keeping with the increasingly relevant "political corruption" cycle of the late 1940s (the Oscar for Best Film in 1949 went to All the King's Men). Thomas Mitchell plays Joseph Foster, an ambitious district attorney who meets a shady character who offers to help him in his rise up the political ladder. But there's a price to be paid, especially when one is dealing with the Devil, alias Nick Beal.

Duke Ellington in Isfahan

Duke Ellington in Isfahan 

Director: Ehsan Khoshbakht

UK, 12', 2018/2021, colour/b&w

World premiere: Telluride Film Festival 2021

This short documentary by the Iranian filmmaker, writer and archivist Ehsan Khoshbakht tells the story of Duke Ellington's concert tour of the Middle East in 1963 and the development of one of the most beautiful jazz standards.  

The legendary composer and bandleader was seen as the ideal cultural ambassador for the United States at the height of the Cold War, when President Eisenhower's desired perception of the US as a moral force for good in the world was being undermined by an awareness of its treatment of African-Americans. 

Arriving in Iran with his band, Ellington was inspired by the historical city of Isfahan and especially its architectural riches. It would give its name to one of the pianist's most enduring compositions, and the tour as a whole helped to shape a Grammy Award-winning album, Far East Suite, which showed how much Ellington had absorbed from the sounds of his travels. 

Using archival images and video footage, and with added insight from broadcaster and jazz historian Alyn Shipton, Duke Ellington in Isfahan shines a light on a largely forgotten episode in jazz history and political history, and provides a clearer sense of the ways in which Ellington's music was affected by, and reflects, his vision of the East.

The Lady of the Harem (Raoul Walsh, 1926)

Hollywood Orientalism involving Iran#1: The Lady of the Harem

A lost silent from 1926, produced by Paramount, directed by Raoul Walsh.

"Jesse L. Lasky announced that The Lady of the Harem has been selected as the title for the Paramount picture which, under the working title of "The Golden Journey," Raoul Walsh has just made from James Elroy Flecker's play Hassan. The new title is considered exceptionally appropriate, as the story deals largely with the lavish harem of the Caliph of Khorasan, Persia, during the twelfth century. 

"Featuring Ernest Torrence, Greta Nissen, William Collier, Jr., and Louise Fazenda," said Mr. Laskey, "The Lady of the Harem will be one of the most colorful and sensational pictures ever produced by this company. Mr. Walsh, who directed The Wanderer and The Thief of Bagdad has filled  this new spectacle with all the colorful atmosphere of the East and I am confident that this production will receive an even  greater reception than was accorded The Wanderer." [From Moving Pictures, 1926]

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021: Favourites & Discoveries

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 ended last week, on an uplifting note. More than 400 films and other projectionable audiovisual curiosities were shown and seen. While still in the post-festival haze, I sought the insight of some of the festival attendees on what they thought to be the essential — what was liked and cherished most, what was discovered and became a revelation.

I posed two questions on colleagues and friends who attended the festival in person: What was your absolute favourite film this year and which film turned out to be a major discovery or rediscovery at the festival. They were gracious enough to send me their picks which you can read here in alphabetical order. (Please feel free to add your favourites in the comment section of this post.) 

Some contributors have sent along some notes which I wanted to share with you. They come at the bottom of the post, marked by * (star)

You can also view this list on Letterboxd where it has been nicely compiled and illustrated by Jon M.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 Opening Speech (July 20)

A Place in the Sun at Arlecchino on July 25. (C) Lorenzo Burlando

Short speech made at the launch of the festival at Cinema Jolly, July 20. — EK

We are back but some of our friends are not here.

During the weeks and months that have interrupted lives, movements and careers, I found myself filming the entrances of cinemas. Those that I wasn't able to shoot myself, I asked the people who worked there to shoot for me. These images of the factory, captured at a time when no workers were to be seen leaving, was intense. 

This longest of intermissions that any of us can recall when it comes to cinema might be unique in its universality, but interruption as a cruel reality is hardly new. In fact, it's old enough to have been used many times before as an intellectual and artistic tool of reinforcement.

Through the films we are presenting this year, you'll see a history of the many possible forms of interruption which filmmakers and viewers have experienced – particularly those living and working in the 20th century. At the same time they offer a mirror to what we have felt and experienced in the recent past.

The More the Merrier (George Stevens, 1943)

The More the Merrier

Restored in 4K in 2019 by Sony Pictures Entertainment at Cineric, Roundabout West and Prasad laboratories, from the nitrate original negative and the nitrate dupe negative preserved at Library of Congress and BFI National Archive. Playing at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna on July 24 & 27 and at Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol on July 31.

In this, George Stevens’s most sophisticated comedy, the wartime housing (and male species) shortage in Washington DC is the main excuse for the mischievous Charles Coburn – sharing a tiny flat with Jean Arthur – to sublet his half of the living space to Joel McCrea, deliberately pushing the two younger flatmates into a shared bed. The credit for the script should go to the uncredited Garson Kanin who wrote it for, and was paid by, the scrupulous Arthur, in search of a script that she could like (she was temporarily suspended from Columbia for rejecting too many). When the script finally reached Stevens’s hands in June 1942, it had a different ending in which the three characters continue to share the flat – typically of Stevens, he altered it.

All the Films of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021

Bologna getting ready for Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXV

All the titles programmed for Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXV, listed by the year of production:

George Stevens Has Found a Place in the Sun... in Bologna

All photos by Margherita Caprilli

 

Nattlek (Mai Zetterling, 1966)

Nattlek

Nattlek [Night Games] (Mai Zetterling, 1966)

Actors: Keve Hjelm, Ingrid Thulin, Jörgen Lindström, Naima Wifstrand, Lena Brundin

In this compelling work of cinematic rigour, a man returns to his childhood country home, accompanied by his fiancée. In flashbacks, we learn of his troubled relationship with his mother, who is also the object of his sexual fantasies. Living a sybaritic life, the mother hosts one party after another, the guests resembling characters from a nightmare or circus, completed by a jazz band (the ensemble featuring well-known Swedish musicians Jan Johansson and Georg Riedel). The present is woven into these scenes from the past which, rather than offering simple reminiscences, provide explanations for the behavioural traits of the leading character.

This second feature by actor-turned-director Mai Zetterling, after the remarkably accomplished, if highly scandalous Loving Couples, is arguably even more controversial. Described by some as "pornographic" (accusers included the former child star Shirley Temple), it is in fact one of the most intelligent and sincere studies of the agonies of puberty; the story of a young boy surrounded and troubled by women.

Cinemas in Antonioni's Films

Cine Romolo in La signora senza camelie (1954)

 

Walden Cinema (?) in Saffron, UK, in I Vinti (1953)

Cuadecuc Vampir (Pere Portabella, 1970)

Cuadecuc Vampir

This note was written on the occasion of the screening of Cuadecuc Vampir at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020 where Mr. Portabella's scheduled and much-anticipated attendance was cancelled due to the Covid crises. Fortunately, he managed to participate via Zoom and Esteve Riambau engaged in a conversation with him which you can view over here. — EK

Duke Ellington disliked the term jazz, instead preferring "beyond category" when referring to any type of musical accomplishment. This mesmerising tour de force of audio-visual etching by Catalan filmmaker Portabella, which plays with but shrewdly eschews experimental filmmaking, underground cinema, documentary film, behind-the-scenes film and even fiction, is strictly Dukish in being "beyond category".

The Spanish genre director Jesús Franco was churning out one of his more expensive horror flicks (El conde Drácula), starring Christopher Lee, when Portabella, who was present on the set, made his own film based on the events. Cuadecuc Vampir is a film about images being constructed (with fake fog and cobwebs), and about Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is far more eerie and haunting than not only Franco's film, but anything since Dreyer's Vampyr. It is also a film of political metaphors, the kind one would expect being made under Franco's dictatorship.

Cinemadoosti: Iranian Cinephile Documentaries

Poster for VHS Diaries

A programme curated for DocuNight, currently streaming on their platform. Although I have discussed Jerry and Me here, the rights couldn't be acquired by DocuNight, so this one is not being streamed as planned. — EK

In Memory of Negahdar Jamali

This programme celebrates the intense passion for film and its possibilities that persists among Iranians, in a series of documentaries that reflect 'cinemadoosti' – the Persian word for cinephilia. These are films about daydreaming and the high price one pays for it, the story of marginalised and estranged people whose passion for cinema becomes their raison d'être.

The image of an Iranian cinephile asserts certain clichés which are not entirely unfounded: often a lonely male who collects filmic memorabilia and devours the content of film magazines; a figure occasionally facile and portentous yet burnt by an unbounded love for the movies. A name-dropper and date-of-production memoriser who likes to be seen as a walking film history, a 'cinemadoost' (cinephile) living in a parallel universe.

The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler, 1942)

After the successful Hollywood adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Paramount joined the race to find another story by the author to bring to the screen. When an initial attempt to make a film based on Red Harvest (with Alan Ladd as the lead) fell through, the studio dusted off one of its older properties, The Glass Key, previously filmed by Frank Tuttle in 1935. 

The Forgotten Revolution: Iranian Cinema Before 1979 (A Retrospective at Sinema Transtopia, Berlin, September 2021)

Downpour (1972)

The Revolution of 1978-79 changed both the fate and face of Iran. Like most revolutions, it also suppressed the past and its images – and with it one of the most innovative cinemas of its time. This programme aims to show some of the key films from the more progressive cinematic revolution, which was discontinued by a social one for which the country eventually became known. Films banned, lost or simply forgotten are revived in this overview of Iranian cinema before 1979, which features German premieres of newly restored Iranian New Wave masterpieces. Starting and moving forward from the 1962 Oberhausen prize-winner The House Is Black, directed by poet Forough Farrokhzad, the programme traces the course of the blazing years before the Revolution. — Ehsan Khoshbakht

This selection of Iranian pre-revolutionary films plays at Bi'Bak's Sinema Transtopia (Berlin) in September 2021. For further information on the screenings and tickets visit Transtopia's website here.

Ahmad Shah Qajar Being Filmed for Fox Newsreel

The last Qajar king being filmed

 
Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last shah of the Qajar dynasty (1789-1925), being filmed in Paris by Frédéric Fesneau for the Fox Newsreel in either 1925 or 1926 (a year after he was stripped of his title, so no longer the Shah of Iran).

Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXXV

 
Download the guide to Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021 in pdf format.

The full line-up and titles in each strand will be announced later.

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2021

A few days ago we reopened Cineteca’s cinemas and all the screenings are seeing an extraordinary presence of audiences. It’s been a wonderful start!

The 35th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato will take place in person in the theatres and open-air venues of Bologna between July 20 to 27, 2021.

The programme is fantastically rich and full of discoveries from across the world, an invitation to start experiencing again the thrill of being part of an audience, watching and sharing cinema masterpieces.

Also this year, for all those who will not be able to attend in person, a selection of films from the festival will be made available through the MYmovies streaming platform.

The Glass Key (Frank Tuttle, 1935)

The Glass Key (1935)

Written in spring 2020 for the catalogue of Il Cinema Ritrovato. EK

Based on a celebrated novel by Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key focuses on the relationship between a crooked businessman and his loyal associate, whose plans for the upcoming election are blown apart by a murder. The story first appeared in “Black Mask” magazine in 1930. Paramount bought the movie rights for $25,000 before the hardcover edition was even published in 1931. Though Gary Cooper was announced as the leading actor, the film was not made until 1935, possibly due to a fear of failure (the crime cycle of the early 1930s was quickly falling out of fashion). 

However, Tuttle’s take was very different, shaping the characters in a more psychologically nuanced way. Ed Beaumont (played by George Raft in one of the better roles of his career) is a rye-drinking, sharp-dressed gambler who protects businessman Paul Madvig (Edward Arnold) against rival gangs and is smart enough to tell him what to wear too. Madvig is backing a local senator in his electoral campaign, and also plans to marry his daughter; meanwhile Madvig’s own daughter, Opal, is in a relationship with the senator’s troubled son. Ed stays cool-headed, balancing these conflicting interests, which are increasingly open to exploitation by a rival gang. When the senator’s son (Ray Milland) is killed, the rival gang mobilise their newspapers to accuse Madvig of the crime. 

The Crown Jewels of Iran (Ebrahim Golestan, 1965) | Notes on the film and its restoration

Ebrahim Golestan's 1965 short documentary, Ganjineha-ye Gohar [in English: The Crown Jewels of Iran], will be screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2021. This will mark the world premiere of the restored version and a new beginning for a film very difficult or even impossible to screen in a cinema for almost 55 years. Like its title, The Crown Jewels of Iran is a true jewel of Iranian cinema, though so far a buried one. 

Made for the Central Bank of Iran to celebrate the collection of precious jewels kept in the treasury, this film remains filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan's most visually dazzling work, embellished with terrific camera movements. 

Some of the most iconic landscape photography in the history of Iranian cinema can be found within a minute after the opening credits, in which peasants of various ethnicities and tribes are quickly reviewed, all posed in a graceful manner, like kings without being kings. Like a work of musical composition, a simple act of ploughing is spread across shots of various size and angle, creating an intimate visual symphony. And then appears one of Golestan's allegorical match-cuts: a farmer seen on the horizon before a cut to a diamond on a dark background – the farmer is the jewel.