landmarks in the history of the cinema – eleventh edition
event promoted by
Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and La Farfalla sul Mirino
in conjunction with
SNCCI - Sindacato Nazionale Critici Cinematografici Italiani
acknowledgments
Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Lab80 Film, Park Circus, Cineteca D.W. Griffith, Paolo Ferro
all films are 35mm
Some Like It Classic, an event that has become something of a tradition with classic 35mm movies screened in a movie theatre the way they were meant to be seen, is back for its eleventh edition. But the event’s traditional formula is even richer this year thanks to a project we’ve devised with the Sindacato Nazionale Critici Cinematografici Italiani, the National Italian Cinema Critics Union to have each film introduced by a different critic, thus offering audiences a kind of compass to help them find their way around the story lurking behind each movie.
The retrospective kicks off on 25 January with Jacques Demy’s Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, a sweet, if melancholy, fairy tale that has charmed generations of viewers in addition to winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and that had the immense merit of launching the young Catherine Deneuve to stardom. Music is also the star of both Ernst Lubitsch’s irresistible Merry Widow and of the legend that is West Side Story, the film that revolutionised the music scene in the early ‘60s and that has recently earned the tribute of a remake directed by Steven Spielberg. Nor will true music lovers want to miss Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Mikaël either, a jewel from the age of the silent movie that was one of the very first films to discuss homosexuality explicitly. The screening will be accompanied on the piano by Maestro Antonio Coppola who has himself become something of a fixture at our event.
Peter Bogdanovich casts a loving glance at classic Hollywood in Paper Moon, but the lion’s share of US moviemaking in this edition goes to two now legendary movies from the ‘50s, Fred Zinneman’s High Noon and Sidney Lumet’s first film, 12 Angry Men, a still highly topical example of socially committed cinema. Commitment is also very much the name of the game in Mike Leigh’s more recent High Hopes, an ironic and bitter take on Thatcher’s Britain, and in the decidedly original war propaganda film 49th Parallel, one of Powell and Pressburger’s first supreme masterpieces. The retrospective winds up with Stranger on the Prowl, a movie that owes its checkered production history precisely to politics: director Joseph Losey couldn’t put his name to it because he had been blacklisted for anti-American activities during filming. Often unjustly considered a minor film, it is absolutely worth rediscovering (thanks also to masterly restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna).
Download the brochure (in Italian)
Info
Palazzo delle Esposizioni - Sala Cinema
Admission via steps in Via Milano 9 a, Rome
ADMISSION FREE WHILE PLACES LAST – RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
As long as the COVID-19 emergency is ongoing, admission is restricted to individuals with both COVID-19 certification proving that they have either completed a full vaccination cycle or recovered from the disease (the so-called “Super Green Pass”), and an FFP2 face mask.
Reservations may be made on the www.palazzoesposizioni.it website from 9.00 am on the day before the chosen performance until one hour before the performance is due to begin.
If for any reason you are unable to come, please remember to cancel the reservation in your basket so that someone else can book the place you’re freeing up.
Please show up at least 10 minutes before the performance starts, otherwise your reservation will no longer be considered valid and your place will be given to the first person waiting in line at the entrance.
Please show up in good time to comply with all the measures designed to contain the spread of COVID-19, and remember to wear your face mask from the moment you enter the building until you leave it after the performance.