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The month of May has brought not one, but two notable developments in the field of film restoration in India. On the 5th of this month, the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting (MIB) announced that it will grant the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) Rs. 363 Crores to restore about 2200 films over an unspecified time period. On a more human scale, the 75th Cannes Film Festival revealed that it will show two restored Indian films in its Classics section: Satyajit Ray’s Pratidwandi (1970), restored by the NFAI, and Aravindan’s Thamp̄ (1978), restored by the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) under the direction of founder-filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, in collaboration with the Prasad Corporation (India), The Film Foundation (USA) and Cineteca di Bologna (Italy). 

Born in Kottayam, Kerala, in 1935, Aravindan is often classified under the loosely defined, pan-Indian Parallel Cinema movement. But he was a poet in that assembly of prose stylists, a genius primitivist in a world of professionals. Aravindan’s third feature, Thamp̄, is an observational portrait of a traveling circus setting up shop at a riverside hamlet in Kerala. The filmmaker initially planned Thamp̄ as a documentary around the circus troupe, and large sections of the final film attest to this original intention. The story is skeletal, there is no plot and very little dialogue or musical score. Aravindan instead devotes the better part of the film to capturing the quotidian rhythm of the village, its landscape and buildings, its people and places, as well as the troupe’s performances.

These improvised vignettes are organized into a symmetric, cyclical day-night structure anchored by recurring figures: a bourgeois repatriate, his rebellious son, the manager of the circus, its muscleman and clown, two young lovers, a prostitute, a truck driver. Discursive elements surface late in the film in the form of sabotage, worker unrest and familial discord, but these sparse incidents are only hinted at, relegated to the margins of the whatever narrative there is.

Thamp̄ is a circus movie and Aravindan’s view of the troupe is coloured not by nostalgia or lament for the circus, but by a bitter fatalism. The performers are a hopeless lot, trapped in the circus since childhood and subject to its waning fortunes, who are likened to their animal colleagues. Their promotional parade through the village is accompanied by upbeat music, but their solemn, downcast attitude turns the procession funereal. A birthday party for a troupe member looks like a wake, until someone is instructed to sing. Resigned to abuse and abjection, the artistes form a lumpen mass whose rootless existence outside the class system is contrasted with the politicized factory workers that constitute their audience.

The performance of the troupe, though accomplished, is marked by a certain weariness that the 43-year-old Aravindan seems to share. The filmmaker appears to be more interested in life at the periphery of the circus, in the fleeting connections that its members forge outside the tent and in the village. This disenchantment with spectacle results in the most extraordinary passages of the film in which Aravindan cuts between the audience and the performers.

While the circus routines are perfunctorily photographed, these candid reaction shots — the first that Aravindan filmed for the project — register a gamut of primal emotions: men and women, babies and toddlers, all staring agape in fear and wonderment at the dangerous, graceful stunts unfolding before them. The performance becomes little more than an occasion to film the villagers, whose virginal reaction contrasts with the camera-aware presence of the handful of professional actors. Like Herz Frank’s Ten Minutes Older, made the same year, Thamp̄ is fascinated by the possibility of innocence, of belief in the spectacle.

The film’s restoration journey began in early 2020, when Dungarpur travelled to Kollam, Kerala, to meet the film’s producer K. Ravindranathan Nair. A cashew baron, Nair had artistic aspirations and financed several canonical works of Malayalam ‘New Wave’ cinema, including films by Aravindan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Dungarpur notes that the producer was forthcoming in giving his approval for the restoration. The real hurdle, though, lay ahead.

Since the master negatives of Aravindan’s films had all decomposed, the FHF had to work from a surviving print of the film that it obtained from the NFAI. This posed a triple challenge. “Prints don’t have a great degree of latitude,” says Dungarpur, describing how positives can inherit only a part of the tonal range of the original negative. To begin the restoration process from a duplicate negative generated from the NFAI print, then, already entailed a loss.

Moreover, budget demanding, Thamp̄ was shot on the locally manufactured Indu film stock, which wasn’t as sensitive or fast as the better monochrome stocks of the time. Shot by regular cinematographer Shaji N. Karun, it was Aravindan’s second work in black-and-white (and bookended by two films in colour, Kanchana Sita (1977) and Kummatty (1979, restored by the same team in 2021). Shaji worked mostly with available light, which produces images of harsh contrast and imposes visible limitations in the outdoor scenes, where figures tend to meld into the background.

The NFAI print, finally, had already been projected a number of times, accumulating significant amount of wear and tear in the process. This copy had to be first physically repaired at the FHF facility in Mumbai before being sent to co-sponsor Prasad Corporation in Chennai for 4K scanning and digital clean-up. The restoration laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, which oversaw the high-resolution transfer, also did the sound restoration and colour grading.

“When it comes to challenges in film restoration,” declares Dungarpur, “you have to be a purist.” Fundamental to FHF’s work is the conviction that the intent of the original creator and the artistic integrity of the film must be the guiding factors in a restoration project. To this end, Dungarpur collaborated with Shaji and Ramu Aravindan, the filmmaker’s son and photographer, on getting the grading and the sound right. This painstaking process of shepherding a single film over many months seems to run counter to the MIB’s monumental ambitions, but the conscientiousness stems from an attitude of respect towards the work under consideration.

Would the FHF’s restoration bring back Thamp̄ in the form Aravindan conceived it? Best intentions notwithstanding, perhaps not. “A film and its restoration are ultimately different works,” says Dungarpur. One would hope, even so, that the restored version comes as close as possible to the vision of the singular cine-poet that was Aravindan.

NEW YORK (AP) — While Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker were holed up in an apartment cutting “Raging Bull” — an intense process that would have consumed the thoughts of most filmmakers — Scorsese told his editor to take a break. He had a movie he needed to show her.

“He said, ‘You have to see this one,’” recalls Schoonmaker.

Scorsese was by then already a passionate fan of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the British filmmaking duo known as the Archers. He considered Technicolor films like “The Red Shoes,” “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and “A Matter of Life and Death” to be masterpieces. But he had held off watching their 1945 black-and-white Scottish romance, “I Know Where I’m Going!” fearing it might be “a lighter picture.” Something about that title. And besides, just how many masterworks could Powell and Pressburger have made?

Yet Scorsese was coaxed into screening it with his friend Jay Cocks the night before shooting began on “Raging Bull.”

“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Scorsese recalled in an email. “It was funny, it was exciting, it was truly mystical and it was deeply stirring. I’ve seen ‘I Know Where I’m Going!’ many times since then — so many times, in fact, that I’ve almost lost count — and I’m always moved and always surprised every time, and I’m held in suspense right up to those amazing final moments.”

On Monday, Scorsese and the film restoration nonprofit he founded, the Film Foundation, will launch a new virtual theater, the Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room. Every month, for one night only, films that have been restored by the Film Foundation will be presented in free online screenings accompanied by discussions from Scorsese and other filmmakers. The screening room begins, naturally, with the restoration of “I Know Where I’m Going!”

Since it was released in the waning days of World War II, “I Know Where I’m Going!” has played a unique role in the hearts of moviegoers. It isn’t the most celebrated Powell and Pressburger film, nor is it regularly listed on all-time lists. Instead, it’s a movie that tends to be shared moviegoer to moviegoer, like a cherished gift or family treasure. It’s a buried gem that anyone who’s ever seen it wants to tell everyone about. “You have to see this one” is how most conversations about “I Know Where I’m Going!” begin.

“At the end of the war, people had suffered so much,” says Schoonmaker, speaking recently by phone. “And here is this movie that lifts your heart.”

Shortly after seeing “I Know Where I’m Going,” Powell visited Scorsese, who encouraged Schoonmaker to come along to dinner. They hit it off and by 1984 were married. Powell died in 1990; Pressburger in 1988. Ever since, Schoonmaker and Scorsese’s have dedicated themselves — when they’re not making films (they’re currently finishing the edit on “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an expansive crime film for Apple about the 1920s murders in Oklahoma’s Osage Nation )— to restoring Powell and Pressburger’s movies. Scorsese recently signed on to narrate a documentary on their films. For years, Schoonmaker has been combing through Powell’s diaries with the hope of publishing them.

“I inherited that,” says Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s celebrated longtime editor. “Michael, when he died, left a little furnace burning inside of me. What keeps me going is loving and trying to get other people to love his work.”

How much can come from loving an old movie? For Schoonmaker, the answer is almost everything. Scorsese’s passion for the Archers’ movies inspired Schoonmaker’s own, and in turn led to the love of her life.

Schoonmaker and Scorsese in 2020. (AP Photo)

“It was Marty’s passion for film history that made this all happen,” she says, chuckling.

The Film Foundation, which collaborated with the British Film Institute on the “I Know Where I’m Going” restoration, has restored more than 925 films, preserving wide swaths of film history and picking up the slack of many of today’s film studios, who have showed less interest in preserving cinema’s past than keeping pipelines of new “content” flowing.

“At this point, they’re not film companies anymore, but vast media conglomerates. For them, old movies are one small item in a wide array of properties and activities,” says Scorsese. “The people who run them are several generations from the very question of cinema: the word is meaningful only as a marketing term. Their interest is not in making good films, but in making their shareholders richer. So, no, restoring a Howard Hawks picture is not high on their list of priorities. The idea that it should be, for reasons that have nothing to do with profits and losses, is not even entertained. In this atmosphere, the idea of art has no place. It throws a wrench in the works.”

“I Know Where I’m Going!,” though, stands for the foolhardiness of best laid plans. Powell and Pressburger made it in 1944 while awaiting the Technicolor cameras Lawrence Olivier was using to make “Henry V.” Pressburger is believed to have written it in a matter of days. They pitched it to Ministry of Information, which controlled wartime moviemaking, as an anti-materialistic tale. (Britain feared a rash of consumerism would follow wartime rationing.)

In it, a headstrong woman, Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) travels to the Scottish Herbrides (the film was shot on the picturesque Isle of Mull) to marry a wealthy lord. But stormy weather prevents her from crossing to Kiloran (the island of Colonsay). While awaiting passage, she meets a naval officer (Roger Livesey) from the area. They become quickly enmeshed in local life, as we grow enchanted with it. Joan feels increasingly pulled off course.

But summarizing the exhilarating magic of “I Know Where I’m Going!” never quite does it justice. It reverberates with a warm, lyrical spirit that feels poised between past and present, legend and reality. It’s a movie that you, just as helpless as Joan, can’t help falling for.

The film’s devotees are a passionate tribe. “The Big Sleep” author Raymond Chandler once wrote, “I’ve never seen a picture which smelled of the wind and rain quite this way.” Tilda Swinton, who has a family home on Colonsay, thinks “I Know Where I’m Going!” should be handed out by Scottish diplomats when they travel the globe. “It’s like a confessional,” Swinton says in a video made for the Film Foundation. “You go back to it every few years.”

“I Know Where I’m Going” is in part about reconnecting with something — with nature and old ways — that makes it a particularly fitting film to kick off the Restoration Screening Room. With appointed showtimes and robust conversation around the film, the virtual theater is set up in a way that clearly differs from the standard streaming experience.

“We’ve gotten used to watching and listening on our own time. Something’s been gained, but something has also been lost,” says Scorsese. “We felt it was important to create a way of watching movies that guaranteed there was a greater audience out there watching and responding at the same time.”

At a time when film culture can be unsure of its direction, the lovingly restored “I Know Where I’m Going!” may help light the way. It is, at any rate, one spirit-lifting port in a storm.

“I’ve always felt that you can’t have a present or a future of cinema without its past. The films that I’ve seen, that I’ve re-seen and studied, that I’ve discovered for myself or through a friend ... they enrich me, they inspire me, they sustain me,” says Scorsese. “I suppose it’s possible to imagine someone making movies without bothering to see anything made before their own time. But the question is: why? What’s the point? Why not see what you come out of? Every film is in conversation with every film before it and every one that follows it. It’s true of all art. Isn’t that amazing?”

The result is I Know Where I’m Going!, a singular work that is less a movie and more a gossamer dream captured on celluloid. Joan (Wendy Hiller, outstanding) is an ambitious young woman who always knows where she’s going. Today, it’s off to the Scottish island of Kiloran, where she’ll marry Sir Robert Bellinger, a wealthy industrialist too old to fight at the front but not so old he can’t make a killing funding it. Sir Bellinger never appears on screen, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know he is well beyond Joan in years and probably half as energetic.

The reason Sir Bellinger is never seen is because Joan fails to arrive. A terrific storm has settled between Kiloran and the Isle of Mull, where Joan is stranded. Lucky for her—but not so much for Sir Bellinger—Joan won’t have to wait alone: The storm has also stranded Naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livsey, also outstanding) on Mull. And Torquil isn’t well beyond Joan in years, and he’s got the energy to match. Cue the fireworks.

Familiar as that might sound, I Know Where I’m Going!—IKWIG, pronounced ick-wig by Powell and Pressburger fans—is anything but. Few were enchanted by the magic of setting as was the English-born Powell, and fewer still were enchanted by English customs and language as was the Hungarian-born Pressburger. Known as The Archers, theirs is one of the most impressive and curious careers in cinema. They wrote, produced and directed 16 movies, a string of 6 in the ’40s that still represent an artistic high-water mark few have touched. That they go in and out of fashion is one of the more baffling aspects of cinephilia.

IKWIG is more than a movie: It’s a charge. Watching it makes you want to find happiness. When filmmaker Martin Scorsese encountered IKWIG in the ’80s, it so moved him he had to seek out Powell. But the movie industry left Powell behind, and Scorsese found a forgotten genius working on his memoirs. So Scorsese reignited an appreciation for Powell and Pressburger’s incomparable contributions to cinema, not to mention introducing Powell to his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, who married Powell in 1984. Schoonmaker-Powell was pivotal in bringing her husband’s memoirs to publication (A Life in Movies and Million Dollar Movie are among the greatest books on cinema you’ll read) and is currently working on a book of Powell’s correspondences while continuing to preserve and restore The Archers’ films through The Film Foundation, Scorsese’s ongoing charge to preserve and promote cinema worldwide.

Created in 1990, The Film Foundation has rescued and restored over 900 films. Many have played theatrically, and more are available for purchase, but now The Film Foundation is bringing them home via a free monthly series: The Restoration Screening Room. On the second Monday of every month, The Film Foundation offers a new restoration with an introduction and conversation shepherded by Scorsese. The series kicks off May 9 with IKWIG, and, naturally, Schoonmaker-Powell will join Scorsese along with director Joanna Hogg, actor Tilda Swinton and filmmaker and Pressburger’s grandson, Kevin Macdonald. 

For The Restoration Room’s full lineup and screening sign-ups, visit delphiquest.com/film-foundation/restoration-screening-room

Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore as grand opening to Cannes Classics, two episodes of Ethan Hawke’s event series on Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, a tribute to Gérard Philipe, Patrick Dewaere being gone for 40 years, one last conversation with Jean- Claude Carrière, the Cinemateca Brasileira and Glauber Rocha, Pilipino director Mike De Leon, Arrabal the poet, a Czech new wave masterpiece, a close-up on Romy Schneider, one last goodbye to Fernando Solanas, a salute to Souleyman Cissé from his daughter. 

There will also be India as Country of Honor, The Film Foundation and the World Cinema Project, an homage to Indian Cinema, the 70th anniversary of Singin’ In The Rain, Orson Welles and Kafka, a continuation of Vittorio movie restorations, De Sicca and Duvivier’s timeless classics, Robbie Robertson’s The Band for their last show. And a last a double Olympic feature with the official film of the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 directed by 8 directors from the whole world and the one presented as world premiere of the Olympic Games in Tokyo directed by Naomi Kawase.

This is Cannes Classics 2022.

The Mother and the Whore back in the theater!
50 years after it began filming, The Mother and the Whore’s rerelease World Premier will happen May the 17th at 2 pm in Salle Debussy, in the presence of François Lebrun, Jean-Pierre Léaud and Boris Eustache. Winner of the Grand Prix du Jury presided by actress Ingrid Bergmann in 1973 and winner of the Prix de la Critique, this movie caused riots at the time. Rarely seen, The Mother and the Whore will once again grace French theaters June 8th, before the rerelease of Jean Eustache’s entire body of work, slated in 2023.

La Maman et la putain (The Mother and the Whore)
Jean Eustache
1972, 3h40, France
4K digital restoration of The Mother and the Whore was done in 2022 by Les Films du
Losange, with backing from the CNC and participation from the Cinémathèque Suisse. Image
restoration was done by Immagine Ritrovata Laboratories, supervised by Jacques Besse and
Boris Eustache. Sound restoration was provided by Léon Rousseau of L.E. Diapason.
Screening in the presence of Françoise Lebrun, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Boris Eustache

India as Country of Honor
Right as the Marché du Film chose India as country of honor this year, a brand new
restoration of Indian director, writer Satyajit Ray’s rare movie Pratidwandi will be presented
an exclusive screening. Present at the Festival de Cannes since 1956 with Pather panchali,
Satyajit Ray will have left his mark on the world of cinema with his great body of work.

Pratidwandi (The Adversary)
Satyajit Ray
1970, 1h49, India
Presented by NFDC - National Film Archive of India, the film is restored under National Film
Heritage Mission, a project undertaken by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India. The original 35mm Camera Negative, which was scanned in 4K on
ARRISCAN XT, and the original 35mm Sound Negative were provided by producer Ms.
Purnima Dutta for this restoration. Few portions of the negative were damaged and were
instead scanned from a 35mm Release Print. The restoration was carried out by Prime Focus
Technologies, Mumbai, and grading was supervised by renowned Indian cinematographer,
Sudeep Chatterjee.

Singin’ in the Rain’s 70th anniversary
Just in time for the 70th anniversary of Singin’ In The Rain, this iconic movie will be presented
in a brand new 4K restoration. An homage to musicals, ode to the art of filmmaking and love
letter to human creation, this monument of American cinema detailing the transition from
silent film to talkies will be screening on the Croisette.

Singin' in the Rain
Gene Kelly et Stanley Donen
1952, 1h43, États-Unis
A Warner Bros. presentation. The new 4K master has been created by meticulously aligning
the 3 separate masters obtained from the original Technicolor negatives. Warner Bros.
Imaging carefully scanned each of the black and white “recordings” representing the primary
colors Red, Green and Blue. The results present the phenomenal Technicolor photography as
it has never been seen before.
This is a great leap forward from previous remasters: For the movie’s 50th anniversary, in
2002, Warner Bros. exclusive Ultra-Resolution technology had been used to realign the
separation masters, which was at the time a great stride forward. In 2012, for the 60th
anniversary, the process was improved greatly with the Blu-Ray release.
Now, for the 70th anniversary, the use of cutting-edge image-realignment and image separation
technology is a remarkable step forward, with results that look even-more brand
new than the initial release. Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging used the transfer of the
original archived Technicolor dyes as reference for the new master’s color grading, creating
even better image resolution with the use of HDR, making the color palette more vibrant
than it’s ever been. For the audio, the new 4K copy offers the audience a new 5.1 mix derived
from the original MGM tapes produced during the making of the movie and the best audio
technology to offer an even clearer soundtrack than that of the original.

Restoration World Premieres

Sciuscià
Vittorio de Sica
1946, 1h33, Italy
Presented by The Film Foundation and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna. Restored in 4K by
The Film Foundation and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata in
association with Orium S.A. Restoration funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Thamp (The Circus Tent)
Aravindan Govindan
1978, 2h09, India
A presentation of Film Heritage Foundation, India. Restored by Film Heritage Foundation,
Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Cineteca di Bologna at Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd.'s
Post - Studios, Chennai, and L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, and in association with General
Pictures, National Film Archive of India and the family of Aravindan Govindan. Funding
provided by Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd. and Film Heritage Foundation.

The Trial
Orson Welles
1962, 2h, France / Germany / Italy
This restoration was produced in 2022 by STUDIO CANAL and the Cinémathèque Française.
The image and sound restoration were done at the Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory (Paris-
Bologne), using the original 35mm negative. This project was supervised by STUDIO CANAL,
Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget. The restoration was funded thanks to the patronage
Chanel.

If I Were a Spy…
Bertrand Blier
1967, 1h34, France
Presented by Pathé. 4k restoration, done scanning the original negative film. A project
undertaken by the Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory (Paris-Bologne). Restoration funded by the
Centre national du cinema et de l’image animée (CNC).

Poil de Carotte
Julien Duvivier
1932, 1h31, France
A TF1 presentation. New 4K restoration done by TF1 studios, with the backing of CNC, using
the original nitrate negative and a combined dupe negative on non-flammable film. Digital
and photochemical work done in 2021 by the Hiventy laboratory.

The Last Waltz
Martin Scorsese
1978, 1h57, USA
MGM Studios’ THE LAST WALTZ (1978) is presented by Park Circus thanks to a new 4K digital
restoration from the Criterion Collection, approved by director Martin Scorsese. Presented in
its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this new 4K digital restoration of THE LAST WALTZ was
created from a scan of the 35mm original camera negative made in 16-bit 4K resolution on a
Lasergraphics Director Film scanner at Roundabout Entertainment in Burbank, California. A
35mm print courtesy of Sikelia Productions was used as a color reference. The 5.1 surround
soundtrack was remixed from the original two-inch 24-track magnetic masters in 2001 by Ted
Hall at POP Sound in Santa Monica, California, under the supervision of Robbie Robertson.
Stereo mixes and stems made by Robertson’s mixer Dan Gellert and approved by Robertson
were used in the creation of the 5.1 surround mix.

Itim
Mike De Leon
1976, 1h45, Philippines
A Mike De Leon presentation, distributed in France by Carlotta Films. Restoration done using
the original 35mm negative and optical soundtrack, stored at the British Film Institute. The
negative, scanned in 4K, benefited from a 2K digital restoration done at the Immagine
Ritrovata Laboratory, Bologna. Color grading was supervised by the director, Mike De Leon
and his co-director of photography, Rody Laccap. This presentation is a preview of the French
release of Mike De Leon’s entire restored body of work, slated 2022-2023.

Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol
Glauber Rocha
1964, 2h, Brazil
Presented by Metropoles.com and Paloma Cinematográfica. Restored from the original 35mm
negative preserved at Cinemateca Brasileira and with a brand new 4K restoration by Estudios
Cinecolor and Estudios JLS, Cinematographer Luis Abramo/Rogerio Moraes and with the
supervision of Rodrigo Mercês.

Sedmikrásky (Daisies)
Vera Chytilová
1966, 1h14, Czech Republic
Digital restoration of this film funded by the donation of Mrs. Milada Kučerová and Mr.
Eduard Kučera was carried out by Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in collaboration
with the Národní filmový archiv, Prague and the Czech Film Fund in UPP and Soundsquare.
The sources for the digitization were the original image negative, the original sound negative
and original magnetic mixing tapes. Film materials are preserved by the Národní filmový
archiv, Prague. The restoration was done in 2022. Release in French theaters by Malavida.

Viva la muerte
Fernando Arrabal
1971, 1h30, France / Tunisia
Viva la Muerte! was scanned and restored in 4K by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse using the
original 35mm image negative, the original 35mm sound negative of the French version, and
a 35mm interpositive element containing the end credits missing from the original negative.
The image digitization and restoration were done by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse
laboratory, in collaboration with Fernando Arrabal.
The sound digitization and restoration were done by the L.E. Diapason studio.
The restoration was finished in 2022.
This restoration was made possible thanks to the unfailing support of Fernand Arrabal, the
Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Tunisia, Mohamed Challouf (Ciné-Sud Patrimoine Association)
and Mr. Samir Zgaya (Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Tunisia).


Documentaries

JOANNE WOODWARD & PAUL NEWMAN BY ETHAN HAWKE
The Last Movie Stars
Ethan Hawke, episodes 3 and 4
1h47, USA
Actor, director and producer Ethan Hawke and executive producer Martin Scorsese explore
the lives and careers of actors Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, in a captivating,
intellectual, and moving documentary. This carefully crafted film, featuring Karen Allen,
George Clooney, Oscar Isaac, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Zoe Kazan, Laura Linney and Sam
Rockwell, among others who voice interviews of Elia Kazan, Sydney Pollock, Paul Newman,
Jacqueline Witte, and more in an incredible exploration of the iconic couple and American
cinema. It is revealed in six chapters, two of which will be screened in the presence of Ethan
Hawke.
Presented by Nook House Productions, Under the Influence Productions, CNN Films, and
HBOMax.
Screening in the presence of Ethan Hawke and Clea Newman Soderlund

Romy, A Free Woman
written by Lucie Cariès and Clémentine Déroudille, directed by Lucie Cariès
1h31, France
Romy Schneider has been En Compétition ever since 1957 with Sissi, before coming back to
the Croisette multiple times, notably for Claude Sautet’s Les Choses de la vie. This exceptional
documentary recounts her illustrious career with passion and dedication. A Zadig Productions
production, in association with Diaphana Films and with the participation of France
Télévisions.
Screening in the presence of Lucie Cariès and Clémentine Deroudille

Jane Campion, Cinema Woman
Julie Bertuccelli
1h38, France
Director Julie Bertuccelli paints Jane Campion’s portrait with great precision, humor and
admiration, telling the tale of the first-ever woman to win the Palme d’Or in 1993. A Les Films
du Poisson production, co-produced by ARTE France.
Screening in the presence of Julie Bertuccelli.

Gérard Philipe, le dernier hiver du Cid
Patrick Jeudy
1h06, France
An adaptation of Jérôme Garcin’s novel Le dernier hiver du cid, this documentary built
exclusively on archive footage and a delicate story telling style will permit a Cannes style
celebration of Gerard Philipe’s 100th birthday anniversary. He will also be coming back to the
Croisette through the screening of Fanfan la tulipe. Produced by Temps Noir, with the
participation of France Télévisions and the backing of the CNC and the PROCIRED.
Screening in the presence of Patrick Jeudy, Jérôme Garcin and Anne-Marie Philipe.

Patrick Dewaere, mon héros (Patrick Dewaere, My Hero)
Alexandre Moix
1h30, France
The actress Lola Dewaere recounts the film career and traumatic life of celebrated actor
Patrick Dewaere, the father she never knew, under the watchful eye of director Alexandre
Moix. A Zoom Production and Bleu Kobalt coproduction, with the participation of France
Télévisions, the RTS, and the RTBF, with Studiocanal.
Screening in the presence of Alexandre Moix and Lola Dewaere.

Hommage d’une fille à son père
Fatou Cissé
1h11, Mali
Fatou Cissé accompanies her father, malien director Souleymane Cissé, through a trip down
his film career, painting an intimate and poetic picture of one of Africa’s most celebrated
actors. A les films Cisse/Sise filimu production.
Screening in the presence of Fatou Cissé and Souleymane Cissé.

L’Ombre de Goya par Jean-Claude Carrière
José Luis Lopez-Linares
1h30, France / Spain / Portugal
It is with great emotion that we rediscover the magical language of the late screenwriter Jean-
Claude Carrière, as he researches the painter Goya. An incredible trip through culture,
emotion, cinema, painting and Spain. A French-Hispanic-Portugese coproduction: Mondex et
Cie/Lopezlifilms/Zampa Audiovisual/Fado Filmes. With backing from Eurimages, CINÉ+, the
Amis du Louvre, RTVE, the ICAA and RTP. International sales: RESERVOIR DOCS.
Screening in the presence of José Luis Lopez Linares.

Tres en la deriva del acto creativo (Three in the Drift of the Creative Act)
Fernando Solanas
1h36, Argentina
Last homage to the great director Fernando Solanas, dear to our hearts, who came multiple
times in Competition to the Festival and two times to Cannes Classics. Through this
documentary rich in sensibility and visual flair aided by stunning graphics, “Pino” Solanas
evokes creation. ACinesur s.a. production, with the backing of the INCAA (Instituto Nacional
de CIne y Artes Audiovisuales).
Screening in the presence of Victoria and Juan Solanas, and Gaspar Noé

Finally, the Festival de Cannes will host a double screening to celebrate the film work of the
International Olympic Committee. Indeed, since the first Games were filmed by the cinema,
the IOC has never ceased to encourage filmmakers to film sport until deciding to produce
official films. In 2020, the year when the Tokyo Games were postponed, then in 2021, it was
the Japanese filmmaker who was in charge of directing which film will be presented in
preview. To accompany this presentation and salute this initiative which will also continue for
the Paris 2024 Games, Cannes Classics will screen the official film of the Munich 1972
Olympic Games, Visions of Eight, which brings together Miloš Forman, Youri Ozerov, Claude
Lelouch, Mai Zetterling, Michael Pfleghar, Kon Ichikawa, Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger.

Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side A
Naomi Kawase
1h59
Japanese director Naomi Kawase directed the official film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
with her style and all her subtlety. A strong work on sport, Japan and the union of nations. A
real message that goes beyond the physical exploit to mark souls. To discover absolutely on
the big screen in Cannes to be swept away by its beauty. An IOC, TOCOG, and KINOSHITA
GROUP production.
Naomi Kawase in attendance.

Visions of Eight
Miloš Forman, Youri Ozerov, Claude Lelouch, Mai Zetterling, Michael Pfleghar, Kon Ichikawa,
Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger
1973, 1h49, Allemagne / États-Unis
Back at Cannes, this incredible project, which had its world premiere at the Festival in 1973, 
was shot by directors who each filmed different sports with their own eye. The film
impressed with its ambition, its power and dynamism, each filmmaker having chosen a sport.
For example Miloš Forman, the decathlon, Kon Ichikawa, the 100 meters, John Schlesinger, 
the marathon, Mai Zetterling, the strongest athletes as well as Claude Lelouch the camera of
whom lingers on the losers.
A must-see again in 2023, 50 years later.
Claude Lelouch in attendance.