The Venice International Film Festival makes headlines for rolling out new films graced by the stars of today and tomorrow, but every year it also makes history by preserving the past. Venice Classics, a festival section founded in 2012, presents the world premieres of restorations recently completed by film libraries and other cultural institutions around the world.
This year’s section showcases 18 titles. The program mingles established classics and underappreciated masterpieces, including “Kwaidan” from Japan, “Bashu, the Little Stranger” from Iran, “Port of Shadows” from France, “Two Acres of Land” from India, “Rome 11:00” from Italy and “3:10 to Yuma” from the United States.
The international array of Venice Classics makes sense within the context of the Venice Biennale, the institution behind the global art biennial, as well as the film festival, which opens on Wednesday and runs through Sept. 6. The variety also allows greater curation than the previous practice of presenting a retrospective of a single filmmaker, according to Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director.
“I realized already 15 years ago that there were more and more investments in restoring cinema, both by the archives and the production companies,” Barbera said in a phone interview.
The consideration of submissions starts at the beginning of the year. Around a hundred submissions were narrowed down to the final slate, which Barbera curated in collaboration with the film critic Federico Gironi. The selections for Venice Classics reflect cinema as artistic landmark, social document, and enduring well of emotion and pleasure. These titles then go on to premiere on the same days as new films in the main competition — a kind of festival within the festival.
The following titles are examples of the processes that give films a fresh look and a chance to be rediscovered.
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