Showcasing digitally remastered, restored, and preserved works from renowned filmmakers, films in Revivals for the 62nd New York Film Festival looks at political unrest and conflict, women’s resistance against oppression, photography and other groundbreaking topics.
Revivals titles looking at political unrest and conflict, include Ousmane Sembène and Thierno Faty Sow’s Camp de Thiaroye, which depicts the tragedy of the Thiaroye Massacre after the Battle of France during World War II; Ardak Amirkulov’s The Fall of Otrar, a historical epic about the upheaval that unfolded before Genghis Khan’s calculated destruction of the lost civilization of Otrar; and Northern Lights, John Hanson and Rob Nilsson’s work of political cinema from the 1970s, a transfixing dramatization about the formation of the populist Nonpartisan League in North Dakota during the mid-1910s.
Women’s resistance against oppression plays a crucial role in two Revivals titles: Lino Brocka’s Bona, the spirited and fierce tale of a woman who falls for a philandering B-movie actor that becomes a parable for the plight of Filipino women under Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship; and Marva Nabili’s The Sealed Soil, the earliest surviving Iranian film directed by a woman, depicting the everyday struggles of women in a patriarchal society in Southwestern Iran.
Photography is the focus of two selections: Frederick Wiseman’s Model, which closely observes the world of fashion photography on both sides of the camera; and documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon’s Reporters, an examination of the press agency he founded, and the dynamic between photographer and subject.
Other highlights include Marguerite Duras and Paul Seban’s devastating La Musica, which tracks three people whose paths cross in a small Northern French town, and is preceded by Chantal Akerman’s short film J’ai faim, j’ai froid; Zeinabu irene Davis’s world premiere 4K restoration of Compensation, which uses American Sign Language and title cards to tell parallel stories of two couples across two different time periods in Chicago; and Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer, a poignant reflection on human connection over four nights during the aftermath of the May ’68 student protests in France.
In a special treat for festival audiences, Revivals presents Clive Barker’s directorial debut Hellraiser, based on his novel The Hellbound Heart, an unrelenting, terror-filled journey into a portal to hell, inhabited by the gruesome Cenobites who are subsequently unleashed upon the world.
The 62nd New York Film Festival takes place September 27–October 14, 2024.
REVIVALS FEATURES & DESCRIPTIONS
Bona
Lino Brocka, 1980, Philippines, 85m
Filipino and Tagalog with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 4K Restoration
A fierce work of quasi-neorealist melodrama that melds pop cinema instincts and political indignation, Lino Brocka’s 1980 feature endures as a lively, searing parable on the plight of Filipino women under the Marcos dictatorship. The great Nora Aunor stars as the titular heroine who falls for a womanizing B-movie actor (Phillip Salvador) and abandons her abusive bourgeois family to shack up with the philandering lumpenprole thespian. But Bona quickly finds herself forced into a role both more servile and more maternal than strictly amorous, and tensions between the two swell to an astounding, violent crescendo. This moving mid-career film encapsulates the intelligence and sensitivity of Brocka’s influential work. A Kani Releasing release.
In 2023, Carlotta Films and Kani Releasing acquired the rights to the film from its producer and actor, National Artist of the Philippines Nora Aunor. Bona has been scanned, restored, and color graded in 4K, from its original 35mm camera and sound negative reels, at Cité de Mémoire in Paris, France. The sound restoration was handled by L.E. Diapason.
Camp de Thiaroye
Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow, 1988, Senegal/Algeria/Tunisia, 154m
Wolof, French, and German with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 4K Restoration
Depicting a too-little-known tragedy from the immediate postwar period in Senegal, the legendary Ousmane Sembène partnered with Thierno Faty Sow to craft this rich, enraging work of cinema as historical corrective. Camp de Thiaroye chronicles the lead-up to the Thiaroye Massacre, a horrific event in which the French military murdered hundreds of West African soldiers, freshly returned from serving in the European theater of WWII, for their righteous insistence upon receiving their promised (and unpaid) wages and benefits. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1988 Venice Film Festival, Camp de Thiaroye was banned in France for more than a decade; it endures as one of cinema’s most powerful and precise portraits of both war and colonial racism.
Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with the Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and Historical Heritage. Restoration funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers and UNESCO—in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna—to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema.
Compensation
Zeinabu irene Davis, 1999, U.S., 103m
World Premiere of 4K Restoration
Inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem of the same title, Zeinabu irene Davis’s debut feature is an exploration of language, migration, illness, love, and ritual that likewise illuminates unique Black histories, cultures, and artistry. Starring Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks, the film follows two couples in different time periods between the early and late 20th century who must contend with their emotions, tensions between Deaf and hearing experiences, and the toll of structural racism on Black lives during major medical epidemics. Shot in luminous black-and-white and incorporating a rich trove of historical photos, an original ragtime score, and title cards, Compensation evokes both a sense of tragedy and a hopefulness for life that remains persistent in the hearts of Black Americans today. A Janus Films release.
Guided and approved by director Zeinabu irene Davis, this 4K digital restoration was undertaken by the The Criterion Collection, The UCLA Film and Television Archive, and Wimmin With a Mission Productions in conjunction with The Sundance Institute from a scan of the 16mm original camera negative. The 5.1 surround soundtrack was mastered from DAT tapes by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Newly created open captions have been implemented, designed by Alison O’Daniel in collaboration with the Compensation Caption Creative Team.
The Fall of Otrar
Ardak Amirkulov, 1991, Kazakhstan/USSR, 156m
Kazakh, Mandarin Chinese, and Mongolian with English subtitles
World Premiere of 4K Restoration
Ardak Amirkulov’s staggering historical epic (co-written by Aleksei German) concerns the intrigues and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar. The movie that spurred the extraordinary wave of great Kazakh films in the 1990s, The Fall of Otrar is hallucinatory, visually resplendent, and ferociously energetic, packed with eye-catching (and gouging) detail and traversing an endless variety of parched, epic landscapes and ornate palaces. But this is also one of the most astute historical films ever made, its high quotient of gore grounded in the bedrock realities of realpolitik: when the Kharkhan of Otrar is finally brought before the Ruler of the World, he could be facing Stalin or, for that matter, any number of latter-day CEOs. A movie that has everything, from state-of-the-art 13th-century warfare to perfumed sex, The Fall of Otrar is truly a one-of-a-kind experience.
Restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with Ardak Amirkulov. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. The Fall of Otrar (1991) was restored in 4K from the original camera and sound negatives. Scanning was performed by ARDFILM in Almaty (Republic of Kazakhstan). Ardak Amirkulov supervised the scanning and approved the final grading. Special thanks to Daniel Bird. Restoration work was completed in 2024 by L’Immagine Ritrovata.
Four Nights of a Dreamer
Robert Bresson, 1971, France, 82m
French with English subtitles
North American Premiere of 4K Restoration
Perhaps Robert Bresson’s most underrated film, Four Nights of a Dreamer finds the ascetic master again adapting Fyodor Dostoevsky, here transposing the short story “White Nights” to contemporary Paris. Four Nights of a Dreamer captures a series of meetings across consecutive nights between Jacques (Guillaume de Forêts) and Marthe (The Mother and the Whore’s Isabelle Weingarten). Surrounded by the still-smoldering remains of May ’68, the two open their hearts to each other, conjuring the majesty and mystery of human connection, at once obscure and clarifying, direct and ambiguous. A characteristically sophisticated system of sounds, images, and sounds-replacing-images, Four Nights of a Dreamer was only the second Bresson film in color, and it stands as one of his most vivid and romantic works. A Janus Films release.
The restoration was made by mk2 Films under the supervision of Mylène Bresson, at Éclair Classics (Paris) and L.E. Diapason, with the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC).
Hellraiser
Clive Barker, 1987, U.K., 93m
North American Premiere of 4K Restoration
In the singular first feature directed by the one-of-a-kind horror/fantasy author Clive Barker, a portal to hell opens, gruesome creatures called Cenobites are unleashed, and a man named Frank is torn apart when he tinkers with a mysterious puzzle box. When his brother’s family moves into their ancestral home, they find themselves at the mercy of Frank’s reanimated corpse, demanding blood to create fresh flesh on his bones before he’s found by the Cenobites, including Doug Bradley’s infamous Pinhead. Brimming with perverse sexual tension and exquisitely gross practical effects, Hellraiser creates a wholly unique world that viscerally lives and breathes, slowly oozing new life into the darkest corners of existence in every frame.
Hellraiser has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with stereo 2.0 and 5.1 sound. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned and restored in 4K resolution at Silver Salt Restoration, London. A 35mm Interpositive was also sourced for sections that had been removed from the negative. The film was graded in SDR, HDR10 and Dolby Vision by Silver Salt Restoration, London. The stereo and 5.1 mixes were sourced from the original sound mix masters. All materials sourced for this restoration were made available by Lakeshore Entertainment via Technicolor UK. Restoration supervised by James White and James Pearcey, Arrow Films.
La Musica
Marguerite Duras, Paul Seban, 1966, France, 86m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 4K Restoration
Already an accomplished writer, Marguerite Duras made her filmmaking debut in 1966 with La Musica, co-directed with Paul Seban. Elaborating on a one-act play Duras had written the previous year, the film takes shape as a delicate and devastating dance among three characters whose paths cross in a small northern French town: a man and a woman (Robert Hossein and Delphine Seyrig) who are there to formalize their divorce, and a mysterious young American woman (Julie Dassin) who meets the man in a café. The ornate staging and the stark black-and-white photography by Sacha Vierny (known for his work on Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad) imbues the film with a ghostliness that heightens its exploration of love and the passage of time.
Restored in 2024 by the Cinémathèque française with Arte Vidéo, with the authorization of Rene Chateau editions.
Preceded by:
J’ai faim, j’ai froid
Chantal Akerman, 1984, France, 14m
French with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere of 4K Restoration
In this spirited short by Chantal Akerman, two teenage girls run away from Belgium to Paris, haunting its cafes, chain-smoking, and repeatedly declaring their needs: “I’m hungry, I’m cold.” In Akerman’s own words: “A little musical comedy without singing.”
Chantal Akerman’s short film J’ai faim, j’ai froid is part of the collective work Paris vu par…20 ans après. It was restored by the Royal Film Archive of Belgium – CINEMATEK and the Cinémathèque française, in collaboration with the Chantal Akerman Foundation. The restoration work was carried out using 35mm negatives held in the collections of the Cinémathèque française, deposited by Philippe Garrel. The film was digitized in 4K at the CNC laboratory and the image restoration was carried out at the laboratory of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium under the supervision of Director of Photography Luc Ben Hamou. The sound was restored by Léon Rousseau (Paris).
Model
Frederick Wiseman, 1981, U.S., 129m
North American Premiere of 4K Restoration
The great Frederick Wiseman sets up shop in New York City’s Zoli modeling agency, housed in a townhouse in the East 60s, exploring each and every angle behind the institution of fashion modeling. It’s a pivotal film for Wiseman, turning his camera toward people who stand in front of cameras for a living, as well as on the photographers themselves. The repetitive processes of the fashion world blend seamlessly with Wisemen’s characteristic examination of the systemic, creating a film whose form perfectly mirrors its subject. Oscillating between the glamorous and the grim, Model highlights the specific and oft-forgotten labor behind the images that corporate America uses to elicit an unending consumption. A Zipporah Films release.
A presentation and restoration by Zipporah Films with the participation of the Library of Congress. New version restored in 4K from the 16mm image negative and original sound. Digitization and color grading carried out at DuArt and Goldcrest laboratories in New York. Digital restoration by Jane Tolmachyov, supervised by Frederick Wiseman and produced by Karen Konicek. Digitization of the complete works of Frederick Wiseman, which will be the subject of retrospectives around the world beginning in the fall of 2024.
FLC will present a Frederick Wiseman retrospective in early 2025.
Nightshift
Robina Rose, 1981, U.K., 68m
World Premiere of 4K Restoration
Action is distilled into an eerie series of moods in Robina Rose’s beguiling film, which takes place in a small hotel over the course of one desk clerk’s night shift. Time stretches as routine tasks give way to the ethereal fantasies of those spending the night in the transitive space. Shot over five days at the Portobello Hotel in West London, Nightshift makes use of a location that the filmmakers worked at themselves when money was tight. Their connection with the space accounts for the lived-in feeling that defines the film, which blurs the line between the familiar and the fantastic, and indelibly conjures a nocturnal state of mind. An Arbelos Films release.
Nightshift has been digitally restored by Lightbox Film Center at University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in collaboration with the British Film Institute and LUX. Restoration funding provided by Ron and Suzanne Naples. Restored in 4K resolution from the original 16mm reversal a/b rolls and 16mm optical track on loan from the British Film Institute. Digital picture restoration: Illuminate Hollywood. Color grading: Andrew Drapkin. Sound restoration and transfers: John Polito, Audio Mechanics. Restoration supervised by: Ross Lipman, Corpus Fluxus. Special thanks: Robina Rose, Jesse Pires, Charlotte Procter, Kieron Webb, Lynn McVeigh.
Northern Lights
John Hanson, Rob Nilsson, 1978, U.S., 98m
English, Norwegian, and Swedish with English subtitles
World Premiere of 4K Restoration
Winner of the Camera d’Or at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, the sui generis Northern Lights marks one of the most moving and committed works of political cinema from the late 1970s. Dramatizing the formation of the populist Nonpartisan League in North Dakota in the mid-1910s, Northern Lights captures the plight of immigrant Dakotan farmers as they toil and struggle against the combined forces of industry and finance. Amid this paroxysm of class tension, two young lovers find themselves swept up in the tide. Shot on location (on grain-rich black-and-white 16mm) in the dead of winter and featuring an astonishing cast of non-professional actors, this handmade masterpiece remains a stirring monument to collectivity. A Kino Lorber release.
The 4K digital restoration of Northern Lights was created by IndieCollect and Metropolis Post in collaboration with directors John Hanson and Rob Nilsson.
Reporters
Raymond Depardon, 1981, France, 90m
French and English with English subtitles
World Premiere of 2K Restoration
Having begun his singular career as a photojournalist, documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon trained his focus on the press agency he founded in this thought-provoking work on the mutually parasitic (and frequently unrewarding) relationship between photographer and subject. Harnessing the visual language of direct cinema to depict and dissect this socially knotty relation, Reporters deconstructs the mythology of such prominent personalities as Jacques Chirac, Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Jean-Luc Godard being ambushed by paparazzi to conjure an incisive point of view on French society. It ranks among the great Depardon’s most profound and self-reflexive films.
Restored with the support of the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC).
The Sealed Soil
Marva Nabili, 1977, Iran, 91m
Farsi with English subtitles
The earliest surviving Iranian film directed by a woman, Marva Nabili’s astonishing debut is a deftly observant work that conjures the plight of the female subject in a time of political subjugation. The film follows Roo-Bekheir, a woman living in a poor village in southwest Iran who must prepare to move in order to accommodate a state-ordered construction project. We watch as she goes about her everyday routine, a life structured as much by repetitiveness as by social repression. Evoking Akerman and Bresson through its uncompromising rigor, yet marked by its own brand of low-key sensuality, The Sealed Soil is shot through with criticality and an attentiveness to the inner world of a woman rebelling, in her way, against stifling patriarchy. An Arbelos Films and Venera Films release.
Digitally restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by the Golden Globe Foundation, Century Arts Foundation, Farhang Foundation, and Mark Amin. Restored from the 16mm original A/B negatives, color reversal internegative, magnetic track and optical track negative. Laboratory services by illuminate Hollywood, Corpus Fluxus, Endpoint Audio Labs, Audio Mechanics, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Thomas Fucci, Marva Nabili and Garineh Nazarian.
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