Jornal da Mostra
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Success of silent classics in the festival demands more projects
By Leon Cakoff, specially for `Jornal da Mostra`.
Edited by Renata de Almeida and Leon Cakoff.
The 29th Mostra BR de Cinema - São Paulo International Film Festival was brought to a close, in partnership with the Goethe Institut and the Symphonic Jazz orchestra, conducted by João Maurício Galindo, with a restored copy of the classic "The Battleship Potemkin", by Sergei Eisenstein, shown at the América Latina Memorial - a great success. The performance of the Symphonic Jazz orchestra was much applauded by the public that bought out the two special presentations by Mostra. Equally acclaimed by the public were the renovated films by Swedish pioneer Victor Sjöström, in a retrospective, with the support of the Swedish Film Library - as one of the outstanding items in the event, with great acceptance by the public.
The 29th Mostra Internacional de Cinema also brought to the fore the American find "Esposa e Martir/Beyond the Rocks", by Sam Wood, a 1922 production, regarded as lost forever, found in 2004 in the inventory of a Dutch collector after 75 years and restored by the Amsterdam Film Library. "Beyond the Rocks" was a myth in that it brought together for the one and only time, Rodolfo Valentino and Glória Swanson, two actors of the silent films that induced the audiences in the twenties to a state of delirium.
Again, in partnership with the Goethe Institut and the Symphonic Jazz orchestra, with conductor João Maurício Galindo, the Mostra Internacional de Cinema is to announce other events with silent films that have been restored with musical accompaniment, live, for the next edition of the festival. Silent films were originally shown, invariably, with musical accompaniment - live. With the advent of sound films, the tradition was gradually lost. Film festivals must now retrieve this rich tradition that today, once again, enchants modern audiences.
Tickets sold out in record time, for both sessions of "The Battleship Potemkin" at the Latin American Memorial, and some 1.8 thousand kilos of non-perishables were collected and donated to charitable institutions. Each ticket was bought for one kilo of grain.
It is a tradition for Mostra to show restored copies of films made by
the pioneers in cinema. In the last years, this respect for cinephilia
was reinforced with a number of special retrospectives. The 24th Mostra
included the complete retrospective of French film maker Louis Feuillade
with the series "Fantômas",
"Judex",
and "Les
Vampires". Outstanding at the 27th Mostra was the pioneer
cinema by Swedish film maker Maurice Stiller, with films made between
1916 and 1927. Although this is an important contemporary author, the
retrospective dedicated by the 28th Mostra to Canadian Guy Maddin, approximated
the language of his films to that of the primitive silent films. In collaboration
with cultural entities such as Goethe Institute and film libraries the
world over, mainly the Brazilian Film Library, Mostra Internacional de
Cinema will continue with its tradition of retrieving the memory of cinema
for the benefit of contemporary audiences.
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