The World Cinema Foundation was launched during the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
In representation of the whole Board some of the world most acclaimed filmmakers gathered around Martin Scorsese to announce the project.
The event in Cannes received full media coverage and reverberated internationally
Films Restored by the WCF
TOUKI BOUKI
by éty, Senegal, 1973
Written and directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty.
Editing: Siro Asteni.
Director of Photography: Pap Samba Sow, Georges Bracher.
Music: Joséphine Baker, Mado Robin, Aminata Fall.
Sound: El Hadji Mbow.
Production Company: Cinegrit.
Starring: Magaye Niang (Mory), Mareme Niang (Anta), Aminata Fall (Tante Oumy), Ousseynou Diop (Charlie).
Running time: 88’. Colour.
Language: Wolof with French/English Subtitles.
From:GTC Paris.
Restored in 2008 by the World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory.
The story of Touki Bouki goes back centuries: men have always set out for new lands where they believe time never stops… Only few adventurers seem to make it, but that has never stopped anyone…
Djibril left his country with the dream of finding success and solace in Europe. He soon discovered, however, the cruelty of life. While his dream fell apart little by little Djibril found he was unable to leave “Europe”, his host country. That was when returning to Africa became the real dream for him. Ending his days in Africa was a dream he would never fulfill.
“Touki Bouki is a prophetic film. Its portrayal of 1973 Senegalese society is not too different from today’s reality. Hundreds of young Africans die every day at the Strait of Gibraltar trying to reach Europe (Melilla and Ceuta). Who has never heard of that before? All their hardships find their voice in Djibril’s film: the young nomads who think they can cross the desert ocean and find their own lucky star and happiness but are disappointed by the human cruelty they encounter. Touki Bouki is a beautiful, upsetting and unexpected film that makes us question ourselves.What a pleasure and what an achievement for Martin Scorsese’s Foundation to give Djibril Diop Mambéty a second life. To all those who support cinema: bravo!”
Souleymane Cissé,
May 2008
Notes on the restoration
Touki Bouki has been digitally restored at 2K resolution using the original 35 mm camera and sound negatives provided by the director’s son Teemour Diop Mambéty and preserved at the GTC in Paris. Digital restoration brought the film’s original chromatic elements to light. At the end of the digital process a new 35 mm internegative was produced.
The restoration has been carried out by Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory in May 2008.
SUSUZ YAZ (Dry Summer) by Metin Erksan, Turkey, 1964
Directed by Metin Erksan. Story by: Necati Cumali. Screenplay: Metin Erksan Kemal Inci, Ismet Soydan. Editor: Stuart Gellman. Director of Photography: Ali Ugur. Original Music: Manos Hatzidakis, Yamaci. Producer: Ulvi Doğan.
Starring: Ulvi Doğan (Hassan), Erol Taş (Osman), Hülya Koçyiğit (Bahar).
Length: 2349 m. Running time: 75’.
Colour: b&w. Language: Turkish with French and English subtitles.
Restored in 2008 by the World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory.
“Dry Summer is a film of passion. A passion for water as well as the obsessive passion created by forbidden love. Who does water belong to? Can anyone actually own this fundamental life element, “the blood of the earth” as the director describes it? Here is a film that, in the 45 years since it was made, has lost none of its universal qualities, none of its relevance, particularly today when wars and rebellions are waged because of droughts. Dry Summer is an important piece of cinema because it is unlike any other film made at the time and its narrative is strikingly original.
Dry Summer is a take on the Cain and Abel story… It is a contemporary version of the tragedy that scarred humanity thousands of years ago. And another version of the film’s story was to unfold in real life simply because the film was made. Dry Summer is a film of captivity…
Authorities at the time objected to Dry Summer representing Turkey overseas, which presented all kinds of obstacles when the film came to the Berlin Film Festival. The film walked away with the Golden Bear, but before success could even be celebrated it was ‘taken captive’ and completely forgotten for the next 45 years. Today, in these times of intellectually dry summers, when greed is driving humanity to the brink of starvation, this film could hardly be more valid. Dry Summer is one of the most important legacies of Turkish cinema, and thanks to restoration it can be re-discovered by the next generations of audiences all over the world.”
Fatih Akin,
May 2008
Notes on the restoration
The restoration of Susuz Yaz used the original 35mm camera negative and the original 17.5 mm sound negative and recaptured the black and white film’s tonal nuances. The film’s producer, Ulvi Dogan, provided the prints. An interpositive preserved at the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung in Wiesbaden was used for the negative’s last missing reel.
The opening and closing credits, missing from all available sources, have been digitally reconstructed.
The restoration has been carried out by Cineteca
di Bologna / L’Immagine
Ritrovata Laboratory in May 2008.
TRANSESby Ahamed El Maanouni, Morocco, 1981
Written and directed cinematography by Ahamed El Maanouni.
Editing: Jean-Claude Bonfanti.
Cast: ‘Nass El Ghiwane’.
Produced by: Souheil Ben-Barka, Izza Gennini.
Production: S.O.G.E.A.V. and Interfilms.
Running time: 87’. Colour. Language: Arabic.
Restored in 2007 by The World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory
Ahmed El Maanouni’s 1981 documentary records concerts, interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the pioneering group, Nass El Ghiwan, who were credited as an inspiration for his Last Temptation of Christ and have been famously described by Martin Scorsese as ‘the Rolling Stones of North Africa’. Nass El Ghiwan emerged from the impoverished city limits of Casablanca, combining elements of traditional Moroccan music – Sufi chants, Berber rhythms and the mystical dances of the Gnawa – to create a sound all of their own, introducing a new generation of North Africans to their roots, and the rest of the world, to a musical revolution. The film has been restored by the Cineteca di Bologna.
“It was in 1981 while I was editing a film, The King of Comedy. We worked at night so no one would call us on the telephone and I would have television on, and one channel in New York at the time, around 2 or 3 in the morning, was showing a film called Trances. It repeated all night and it repeated many nights. And it had commercials in it, but it didn’t matter. So I became passionate about this music that I heard and I saw also the way the film was made, the concert that was photographed and the effect of the music on the audience at the concert. I tracked down the music and eventually it became my inspiration for many of the designs and construction of my film The Last Temptation of Christ. The music was also the basis for Peter Gabriel’s music in the film. I would play the music for most of the musicians I knew, Robbie Robertson of The Band…What you see here is a mix of the poetry, the music and the theatre that goes way back to the roots of the Moroccan culture. And I think the group was singing damnation: their people, their beliefs, their sufferings and their prayers all came through their singing. And I think the film is beautifully made by Ahmed El Maanouni; it’s been an obsession of mine since 1981 and that is why we are inaugurating the Foundation with Trances.”
Martin Scorsese
HANYO (The Housemaid)
by Kim Ki-Young, South Korea, 1960
Written, directed and edited by Kim Ki-Young.
Music: Han Sang-Ki.
Art director: Park Seok-in.
Director of Photography: Kim Deok-jin.
Producer: Kim Young-chul.
Production Company: Korean Munye Films Co., Ltd.
Starring: Lee Eun-shim (Housemaid), Kim Jin-kyu (Dong-sik), Ju Jeung-nyeo (Dong-sik’s wife), Um Aeng-ran (Cho Kyung-hee).
Running Time:110’. Colour: b&w.
Language: Korean with English subtitles.
Restored in 2008 by KOFA with the support of the World Cinema Foundation
“Kim Ki-young’s Hanyo, or The Housemaid, is one of the true classics of South Korean cinema, and when I finally had the opportunity to see the picture, I was startled. That this intensely, even passionately claustrophobic film is known only to the most devoted film lovers in the west is one of the great accidents of film history. I’m proud that the World Cinema Foundation is participating in the restoration and preservation of this remarkable picture. I am eager for more people to get to know and love The Housemaid.”
Martin Scorsese, February 2008
“In the film, the composer sleeps with his housemaid while his wife is gone to her parents’ house; he loses everything to the housemaid with personality disorders. Viewers of the film said that the story could sufficiently occur in reality; at that time, many such incidents occurred. Many households could afford to hire housemaids for low costs; but housewives were worried about such situations at the back of their minds. I made a set for the two-story house, which I thought to be a miniature of the world. I made all accessories and furniture for the film on my own, and especially I worked hard on lighting. Viewers of the film praised the beautiful scenes, and asked me what was the secret; however, I did not readily give the answer.”
KIM Ki-Young
Notes on the restoration
Hanyo (The Housemaid) has been restored digitally by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA) with the support of the World Cinema Foundation. The original negative of the film was found in 1982 with two missing reels, 5 and 8. In 1990 an original release print with handwritten English subtitles was found and used to complete the copy. Unfortunately, this copy was highly damaged, and the English subtitles occupied almost half of the frame area. So far the restoration process has included flicker and grain reduction, scratch and dust removal, color grading, etc. and has turned out to be very complex. The final removal of the subtitles is expected by the end of the year.
LIMITEby Mário Peixoto, Brazil, 1931
Written, directed and edited by Mário Peixoto.
Cinematography: Edgar Brazil.
Cast: Iolanda Bernardes, Edgar Brasil, Olga Breno (woman n.1), Brutus Pedreira (man n.1), Mário Peixoto.
Produced by: Mário Peixoto.
Running Time: 95’. Black & white.
Restoration in progress in cooperation with the Cinemateca Brasileira
Mário Peixoto’s visually entrancing Brazilian classic was the director’s only film. A stunning silent poem inspired by a photograph by André Kertesz, Limite was described by Peixoto as ‘a tuning fork’ to capture the pitch of a moment in time, recounting a simple story of three people adrift on a boating trip. The first screening took place on May 17th 1931 in the Cinema Capitólio in Rio de Janeiro, a session organized by the Chaplin Club, which announced Limite as the first Brazilian film of pure cinema. It received favorable reviews from the critics who saw the film as an original Brazilian avant-garde production, but never made it into commercial circuits and over the years was screened only sporadically, as in 1942 when a special session was arranged for Orson Welles who was in South America for the shooting of his unfinished It’ s all true and for Maria Falconetti, lead actress of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Due to various facts,
Limite, sometimes referred to as the “unknown masterpiece” – an expression derived from Georges Sadoul who in 1960 had made an unsuccessful trip to Rio de Janeiro just to see the film – along with Mário Peixoto, became quite legendary subjects. The celebrated Brazilian director Walter Salles rediscovered the film a decade ago and was inspired by it to found the Mário Peixoto Archive.
Restoration in progress in cooperation with the Cinemateca Brasileira.
Pădurea Spânzuratilor (Forest of the Hanged)by Liviu Ciulei, Romania, 1964
Directed by Liviu Ciulei.
Screenplay: Titus Popovici based on a novel by Liviu Rebreanu.
Edited by: Yolanda Mîntulescu.
Cinematography: Ovidiu Gologan.
Original music: Theodor Grigoriu.
Cast: Victor Rebengiuc (Apostol Bologa), Anna Széles (Ilona), Stefan Ciubotarasu (Petre), György Kovács (Von Karg).
Produced by: Liviu Ciulei.
Original running Time: 165’. Black & white.
Romanian actor and director Liviu Ciulei’s Pădurea Spânzuratilor (The Forest of the Hanged) adapted from a novel by Liviu Rebreanu, appeared in competition at Cannes in 1965 where it received the Best Director award. The thrilling historical masterpiece takes place during the First World War, presenting a little-seen portrait of Romanian society at the turn of the century as it tells the story of a Romanian officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who refuses to fight against his own. Following the presentation in Cannes of Liviu Ciulei’s Pădurea Spânzuratilor (Forest of the Hanged), in direct co-operation with the Romanian Film Archive, the long version of the film was rediscovered and is currently undergoing restoration. The third film that we screened in Cannes, Mario Peixoto’s Limite, has been now registered by the Brazilian Committee of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program as a part of our documentary heritage. This program was established to “guard against collective amnesia, calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive holdings” which is perfectly in line with the idea behind our mission.
Restoration in progress in cooperation with Centrul National al Cinematografiei under the auspices of Liviu and Thomas Ciulei.