Fascinating footnotes in Regained
10 January 2019
Full lineup revealed of IFFR’s programme for cinema’s memory
Recycling, reinterpreting and reflecting on film. These are the central concerns of Regained, IFFR’s programme for restored classics, films about film(making) and new creations with old footage. Here, the scraps and footnotes of film history come to life in exciting new works.
A perfect example of such a delicious footnote is explored in Bathtubs over Broadway by Dava Whisenant. It’s a little known fact, but in the 1960s and 1970s, companies like McDonalds, Ford and Xerox ordered entire musical productions 'solely for in-house screening'. Steve Young, a former ghostwriter of David Letterman’s Late Show, developed a wonderful obsession for this hidden, mysterious side of show business and takes us on a ride along such wonders as, yes, a musical entitled The Bathrooms Are Coming.
Regained also shows three restorations of short films by Georgian-Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. Two of these restorations, Arabeskebi Pirosmanis temaze and Kiev Frescoes, are brand new and will be screened for the very first time. Tip: combine these short films with a visit to Arminius, where restoration expert Daniel Bird has created an exhibition showing never-before-seen outtakes from Parajanov’s masterpiece The Colour of Pomegranates.
Another interesting footnote in film history is the documentary Barbara Rubin & the Exploding NY Underground by Chuck Smith. This film portrays Rubin as a figurehead of the New York underground film scene whose entire oeuvre consists of only one, highly stirring avant-garde film. Her fame faded as quickly as it appeared.
Regained:
- Barbara Rubin & the Exploding NY Underground, Chuck Smith, 2018, USA/France/Israel, European premiere
- Bathtubs Over Broadway, Dava Whisenant, 2018, USA, European premiere
- The Broadcast, Theo Angelopoulos, 1968, Greece
- Faites sortir les figurants, Sanaz Azari, 2019, Belgium
- First Feature, Bentley Brown, 2018, Saudi Arabia
- Going South, Dominic Gagnon, 2018, Canada
- Horizont, Sid Iandovka/Anya Tsyrlina, 2019, Switzerland/Russia/USA, world premiere
- Humberto Mauro, André Di Mauro, 2018, Brazil
- El Laberinto, Laura Huertas Millán, 2018, Colombia/France
- Lettre à Théo, Élodie Lélu, 2018, Belgium
- Liquid Snake, Leslie Thornton, 2018, USA
- Night Horse, Jeroen Van der Stock, 2019, Japan/Belgium, world premiere
- Pirotecnia, Federico Atehortúa, 2019, Colombia, world premiere
- (to) preserve, Sid Iandovka, 2016, Switzerland/Russia, international premiere
- Sombra Luminosa, Mariana Caló/Francisco Queimadela, 2018, Portugal
- Stains and Scratches, Deimantas Narkevicius, 2017, Lithuania
- Vesuvius At Home, Christin Turner, 2018, USA/Italy
- Within the Temple Without, Matthew C Wilson, 2018, Netherlands/Greece/UK/Switzerland, world premiere
- Ziva Postec. La monteuse derrière le film Shoah, Catherine Hébert, 2018, Canada, international premiere
Regained – Restored short films by Sergei Parajanov:
- Arabeskebi Pirosmanis temaze, Sergei Parajanov, 1985, USSR, 25’
- Hakob Hovantanyan, Sergei Parajanov, 1967, Armenia, 10’
- Kiev Frescoes, Sergei Parajanov, 1966, Armenia, 8’