Film series: Recent Digital Restorations

image from Sergei Bondarchuk’s 4-part epic, War and Peace

Cornell Cinema presents a semester-long series of recent digital restorations, beginning with Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Hyenas. In most all cases, “restoration” means going back to original film elements, scanning them, and digitally repairing the image by removing scratches and tears, dust/dirt, and color correcting for modern digital projection. The line-up includes a sparkling new restoration of I am Cuba, Diane Kurys’s French coming-of-age film Peppermint Soda, and Sergei Bondarchuk’s budget-busting epic masterpiece War and Peace (screening in four parts that can be viewed in one day, November 3, or over the course of 3-4 days). The latter is screening in conjunction with Olga Litvak’s (History) seminar Tolstoy: History and Counter-Culture, and she is organizing an informal public discussion and reception, which will take place on November 6, sponsored by the Dept of History. The film was awarded the 1966 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Documentaries too have received renewed attention from digital restoration: landmark drag ball documentary Paris is Burning, and For All Mankind, shown in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The series ends with the Alloy Orchestra’s return to Cornell Cinema, when they perform live music and foley to the French film, Gallery of Monsters, a fascinating rediscovered silent film about love, danger, and the circus, with art direction by Marcel L’Herbier (L’Inhumaine).