Classici fuori Mostra: screenings at the Cinema Rossini from 14 February to 15 May

CLASSICI FUORI MOSTRA

From February 14 to May 15 – on a weekly basis, at 7 pm at the Cinema Rossini (Salizzada de la Chiesa o del Teatro, 3997) – the fifth edition of the film series Classici fuori Mostra. Permanent Festival of Restored Films will be held in Venice; the series is organized by La Biennale di Venezia in collaboration with the City of Venice’s Circuito Cinema and the professors of film studies at Ca’ Foscari University and Università IUAV in Venice.

It begins with Il terrorista (The Terrorist, 1963) by Gianfranco De Bosio, starring Gian Maria Volontè and set in Venice in 1943. One of the most important and original movies about the Resistance, it was presented in 1963 at the Venice Film Festival, where it received the Pasinetti Award. Il terrorista will be presented on February 14 at 7 p.m. as a world premiere of the version restored by the Société Cinématographique Lyre of Paris, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the director Gianfranco De Bosio (Verona, 1924 – Milan, 2022). The film will be introduced by Stefano de Bosio, Maria Ida Biggi, Giuseppe Ghigi, and Marco Borghi.

On a weekly basis, Classici fuori Mostra will present eleven film Classics that have  recently been restored by major film archives worldwide, in the original language and with Italian subtitles. Each film will be introduced by an expert and followed by a question and answer session with the audience. Special discounts will be available for students (reduced student ticket price, 3 euros; reduced student pass, 30 euros; full price ticket, 6 euros).

“Classici Fuori Mostra, which Venice’s public has shown it appreciates through its assiduous attendance during the past editions, is back for the fifth time,” declared the Film Festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera. “The possibility to see, or see once again, on the silver screen some of the masterpieces that have marked the evolution of the seventh art over the course of the past century, in versions that have been carefully restored by some of the major film archives and specialized laboratories throughout the world, is obviously a precious opportunity that students, in particular, intend to exploit”.

Il terrorista (The Terrorist) by Gianfranco De Bosio stars Gian Maria Volonté, Philippe Leroy, Giulio Bosetti, Anouk Aimée, and Raffaella Carrà. Produced by Tullio Kezich, Alberto Soffientini and Ermanno Olmi for the production company 22 dicembre and by the Société Cinématographique Lyre of Paris, the screenplay was written by De Bosio and Luigi Squarzina. The movie is set in 1943 in Venice, where  Renato Braschi (Volontè), a partisan fighter, is determined to continue his sabotage attacks even though his superiors want him to desist.

 “Venice as the setting for a movie about the Resistance (an action story) is a stylistic choice before it is a historical one. It is so harsh and indifferent under the rain, with a foggy dreariness that divests it of its Mediterranean charm, that it takes on an almost ethereal allure, like an aquarium”. (Morando Morandini)

“One of the movie’s strong points is that it is like a debate, open and confrontational, about the forms of struggle, a vision of the Resistance that fractures every schema of unanimism. The dialectic between the parties becomes, in itself, the film: a film of high ’reflection.’ Without a doubt, one can sense in de Bosio, a theatrical director in one of his rare incursions into filmmaking, the influence of Brecht’s teachings but he observes the crux of individual violence in a Camus-like key: like a man who rebels”. (Gianni Volpi)

After Il terrorista, the following films will be presented:

• February 21  Blow Out (1981) by Brian De Palma (introduced by Sara d’Ascenzo)
• February 28 Il grido (1957) by Michelangelo Antonioni (introduced by Adriano De Grandis)
• March 6 Le mépris (Contempt, 1963) by Jean-Luc Godard (introduced by Carmelo Marabello)
• March 13 Badlands (1973) by Terrence Malick (introduced by Marco Dalla Gassa)
• April 3 Peeping Tom (1969) by Michael Powell (introduced by Marco Contino)
• April 10 Magasiskola (The Falcons, 1970) by István Gaál (introduced by Giuseppe Ghigi)
• April 17 Rio Bravo (1959) by Howard Hawks (introduced by Michele Gottardi)
• April 24 Banditi a Orgosolo (Bandits of Orgosolo, 1961) by Vittorio De Seta (introduced by Marco Bertozzi)
  May 8  Classe tous risques (The Big Risk, 1960) by Claude Sautet (introduced by Elena Pollacchi)
• May 15 Il ferroviere (The Railroad Man, 1956) by Pietro Germi (introduced by Roberta Novielli)

Venice Classics is the increasingly popular section that, since 2012, has presented world premiere screenings of a selection of the best restorations of film classics that have been conducted over the past year by film archives, cultural institutions, and production companies throughout the world. Venice Classics is curated by Alberto Barbera with the collaboration of Federico Gironi.