Mumbai has a date with Oscar awardee Giuseppe Tornatore at a festival of Italian classics

‘Cinema Italian Style – Celebrating Tornatore And The Masters Of Italian Cinema’ will take place at Regal Cinema, Mumbai, from September 27-29.

To call oneself an ardent lover of cinema one must have had watched two films, among all rest. American filmmaker Orson Welles’ pivotal film Citizen Kane (1941), which went on to shift the grounds of filmmaking, and Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore’s coming-of-age love letter to movies, Cinema Paradiso (1988). Both the films redefined cinema in their own way. If Citizen Kane gave directors new idioms of cinematography, editing and technical innovation, new perspectives in storytelling and genre filmmaking, Cinema Paradiso, buoyed by the music of the inimitable Ennio Morricone and a universal story, made us fall in love with cinema, the art of filmmaking and the singular experience of watching movies together in the communal space of theatres.

Memory is what we make in the best of times, memory is what helps us live through the worst of times. Memory is both the greatest companion and the worst enemy. And memory is what connects these two films thematically. If in the former, Jedediah Leland tells a young reporter in the hospital, “I can remember everything. That’s my curse, young man. It’s the greatest curse that’s ever been inflicted on the human race: memory.” In the latter film, it is the memory of the film theatre in his small war-torn Sicilian village, and the memory of his friendship with the film projectionist Alfredo, that brings Salvatore back, only to be told by Alfredo, “Life is not like the movies…Life is much harder” and “Don’t come back. Don’t think about us. Don’t look back. Don’t write. Don’t give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don’t come see me.”

But, like Salvatore, giving in to nostalgia rescues us from the ravages of the present and anxieties of the future. Thanks to Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s efforts, if you are in Mumbai, you can might just catch the 4K restored version of the classic Cinema Paradiso on the big screen this month.

On the one hand, the founder of the not-for-profit Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) has cashed in on his own and our collective nostalgia for cinema of the bygone era, on the other hand, what he is doing for Indian cinema through FHF is climacteric. The preservation of the arts is, perhaps, more crucial than the creation of the new, for the new always builds on the pillars of the past, even if it were to dismantle it, the new needs the old as a reference and vantage.

If it weren’t for India’s Henri Langlois, the film archivist and scholar PK Nair, who established the National Film Archive of India in 1964, a Dungarpur wouldn’t have been born. Dungarpur, who founded FHF in 2014 to preserve India’s cinematic heritage, has been restoring old films, across Indian languages. Dungarpur, who will be the artistic director of this year’s Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Fetsival after Anupama Chopra stepped down, has been taking the restored versions of Indian classics, such G Aravindan’s Thampu (1978), Aribam Syam Sharma’s Ishanou (1990), Shyam Benegal’s Manthan (1976), Nirad Mohapatra’s Māyā Miriga (1984), Girish Kasaravalli’s Ghatashraddha (1977) to premiere at global festivals, and, at the same time, bringing back filsm from golden age of Indian cinema to the theatres, across some cities, from centenaries (Dev Anand last year and Akkineni Nageswara Rao on September 20) to birth anniversaries (Amitabh Bachchan).

Most recently, Mumbai queued up in a serpentine-long line at the Regal cinema hall for a screening of Ramesh Sippy’s Hindi film Sholay (1975). And, while, the whole of India deserves to see these films, not just Mumbai, the Maximum City will once again be treated to another festival. A three-day Italian film festival, from September 27-29: ‘Cinema Italian Style – Celebrating Tornatore and the Masters of Italian Cinema’, thanks to FHF, in partnership with Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Mumbai, Axis Bank and IED Istituto Europeo di Design. Open to public, on a first-come, first-served basis, the screenings of restored Italian classics will take place, yet again, at Mumbai’s Regal Cinema.

The festival will be headlined by the Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore for its inaugural edition. The 68-year-old legend, on his first visit to India, will present the FHF Lifetime Achievement Award for Cinema Projection, helm an interactive masterclass for budding film students, and deliver an exclusive sit-down fireside chat for film aficionados and the Indian film fraternity. The festival will, thus, include a mini Tornatore retrospective, with his cult classics: Cinema Paradiso (1988), Malèna (2000) and Ennio (2021).

Tornatore says he was “delighted to hear that my film Cinema Paradiso is known and loved in India.” The classic will open the three-day festival, which will also showcase seven restored films of Italian masters, including Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, neorealist master Vittorio de Sica, whose Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) turned Bengali auteur Satyajit Ray into a filmmaker of global repute, and Spaghetti Western master Sergio Leone, whose Once Upon A Time in the West (1968) turned Sholay into an Indian cult classic, among many other contributing factors, of course.

The films have been restored by “highly skilled laboratories with advanced and innovative technologies, including L’Immagine Ritrovata, from Bologna, that has been working also on the restoration of several Indian masterpieces that belong to the world heritage, like, just to mention one, Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy,” says Francesca Amendola, director, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Mumbai.

Films to be screened

1.     Cinema Paradiso (1988) – Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar-winning moving coming-of-age film – a love letter to cinema that is considered one of the greatest films of all time.

2.     Ennio (2021) – Giuseppe Tornatore’s documentary celebrating the life and legacy of Ennio Morricone, considered one of the most prolific and greatest film music composers of all time.

3.     Malèna (2000) – Giuseppe Tornatore’s acclaimed film starring the gorgeous Monica Bellucci in an unforgettable role

4.     Marriage Italian Style (1964) – Vittorio de Sica’s acclaimed romantic comedy starring the glamorous Sophia Loren and screen idol Marcello Mastroianni

5.     Senso (1954) – A lush Technicolor tragic romance that is an extraordinary evocation of reckless emotions and deranged lust, from one of cinema’s great sensualists – Luchino Visconti.

6.     La Dolce Vita (1960) – Federico Fellini’s biggest hit offering a damning critique of the culture of stardom provides a prescient glimpse of just how gossip- and fame-obsessed our society would become.

7.    Once Upon a Time in America (1984) – Sergio Leone’s visually stunning, stylistically bold, and emotionally haunting epic crime drama filled with great performances from the likes of Robert De Niro and James Woods.

Bon Appetit!