Preservation Film Festival at MoMA
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Monday, June 4------The Museum of Modern Art is one of the leading forces in the world of film preservation. With one of the largest and most diverse film archives in the world, the Museum's film department has been a tireless champion of restoring and resurrecting the films and reputations of artists both well known and virtually forgotten from the early years of cinema. The Museum is celebrating its commitment to film restoration with To Save and Project, its fifth annual festival of preserved and restored films from member institutions of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), studio and distributors worldwide.
[img_assist|nid=5052|title=Faces|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=175|height=125]The Festival, which runs from June 1-18, 2007, will be presented in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at the Museum of Modern Art and includes many rarities and seldom-viewed titles. The Festival began on June 1 with a rare screening of FACES (1968), a seminal independent film by John Cassavetes, which was introduced by the film's cinematographer and editor Al Ruban. One highlight of this year’s event is a rare week-long theatrical run of Andy Warhol’s THE CHELSEA GIRLS (1966), which will be screened daily June 2 through 9, and will be projected in its original split-screen format. It will be introduced, during the course of its run, by Warhol scholar and film preservationist Callie Angell, among others. Warhol’s experimental soap opera, actually directed by Paul Morrissey, was intended to reflect the lives of the inhabitants of the fabled bohemian Chelsea Hotel, features some of the Factory’s superstars, including Nico, Ondine, Gerard Malanga, International Velvet, and Brigid Berlin, with music by The Velvet Underground.[img_assist|nid=5053|title=Whirlpool of Fate|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=100|height=163]
Other highlights of the 50-film cinema classic smorgasboard include: two film noirs by B-movie auteur Gordon Douglas: BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN (1950) and I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI (1951); British directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s thriller THE SPY IN BLACK, introduced on June 6th by Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker (THE DEPARTED); Roberto Rossellini’s UN PILOTA RITORNA (A Pilot Returns, 1942); Victor Sjöström’s Swedish silent classic TERJE VIGEN (A Man There Was, 1917); Indian director Satyajit Ray’s rarely screened NAYAK (The Hero, 1966); Luis García Berlanga’s classic postwar Spanish satire BIENVENIDO MR. MARSHALL (Welcome, Mr. Marshall, 1953); MGM's first international blockbuster THE BIG PARADE (1925), directed by King Vidor; and French iconic director Jean Renoir’s first feature, WHIRLPOOL OF FATE (1925), which has not been presented in the United States for several decades.
For more information on this film program, visit the Museum's official website: www.moma.org. These are the films that are likely to change your life (I kid you not).
Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor
