Digitisations and Restorations (11) - The Film Foundation, Freaks...

Associate Editor (Restorations and Revivals) Simon Taaffe has come across the following screenings and other information. Click on the links for times etc where indicated.

Martin Scorsese, Chairman of the Film Foundation

Time to draw attention to the work of The Film Foundation an organization whose work is without peer in the world of film retrieval. Here’s what’s on its webpage about its Mission Statement The Film Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1990 dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history. By working in partnership with archives and studios, the foundation has helped to restore over 700 films, which are made accessible to the public through programming at festivals, museums, and educational institutions around the world. The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project has restored 28 films from 20 different countries representing the rich diversity of world cinema. The foundation's free educational curriculum, The Story of Movies, teaches young people - over 10 million to date - about film language and history.

But if you would like to spend a little time contemplating the results of over two decades’ work then just click here and scroll down.

How do we get to see them? Well that’s a little more difficult. While major events like Cannes Classics and Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato no doubt get special screening privileges, common or garden second and third tier festivals and cinematheques have to pay a fee. These fees are not token and a festival has to give serious thought as to how many tickets and how much revenue are going to be generated. But the movies are there and growing in number year by year.

……..the latest restoration by Bologna’s Cinema Ritrovato laboratory is Tod Browning's Freaks. Click on the link for a minute long trailer…. Screenings at the Cineteca di Bologna were on this weekend.