Great recognition for the Macedonian Cinematheque at the Festival of newly restored films in Bologna

At the end of June and beginning of July, in the Italian city of Bologna, best known for the oldest university in continuity in Europe, the Festival of newly restored films "Il Cinema ritrovato" is held every year, without a doubt the most renowned festival of this type of "filmophile" festivals in the world.

At this festival, extremely renowned names from the world of film attend as guests every year. In the past 35 editions of the festival, directors Jean-Luc Godard, Betran Tavernier, Ken Loach, Peter Weir, Dusan Makaveev, Michael Cimino, Stanley Donen, Fatih Akin, John Burman, Agnes Varda, Costa Gavras, Martin Scorsese, Margaret von Trotta have been guests. , Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, Volker Schlendorf, et al.; the most important directors of Italian cinema: Ermano Olmi, Mario Monicelli, Francesco Rosi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Tornatore, Dario Argento, Marco Bellocchio, etc.; actors Ben Gazzara, Charlotte Rampling, Claudia Cardinale, Isabel Iper, Isabella Rossellini and others - news from the Macedonian Cinematheque.

This year, at the 36th edition of the festival, special guests were the last diva of the Italian film, Stefania Sandrelli, and her compatriot, the director Gianni Amelio, as well as one of the biggest names of "New Hollywood", the director of "The Driver". 1978), "The Warriors" (1979), "Southern comfort" (1981) and many other films - Walter Hill, who presented himself to the audience with longer interviews in which they discussed many issues related to their career , but also with film art in general.

In addition, the Cinematheque of Bologna as the organizer of the festival, famous for its laboratory in which many masterpieces of world cinema have been restored, has excellent cooperation with other film archives and cinematheques, so every year it has the opportunity to offer a representative program in which hundreds of classics from all meridians on the planet and from all eras of film art can be streamed.

The Bologna festival also has an unwritten rule, to present several films as a surprise (sorpresa) at the opening ceremony. Most of the time, these are films that have long been considered lost, or some forgotten archival pearls, or newly restored classic works of film art.

This year, the selection fell on several silent films recorded exactly one hundred and twenty years ago, in 1902, with live piano music, as well as two completely short films by the Polish director Andrzej Wajda, two completely unknown archival pearls from the sixties filmed in Paris, the first unfinished short in which the leading role as a debutant is played by the great French actor Gerard Depardieu, and the second interview of Wajda with the great Italian writer and director, born in Bologna – Pier Paolo Pasolini.

However, the main surprise at the opening of the festival in the "Jolie" cinema was the Macedonian short, eighteen-minute feature film from 1957, directed by Dimitrie - Ruli Osmanli, and written by Ljube Petkovski, who is also the director of photography - "Rebellion on the dolls." This children's film with an anti-war message, with many oneiric elements, was evaluated by the colleagues of the Cinematheque in Bologna as a real "pearl" and it was not by chance that it was on the program at the opening of the festival, points out Dr. Atanas Chuposki, filmologist-advisor at the Cinematheque of RS Macedonia.

"Rebellion of the Dolls" is a film in which the main role is played by the then nine-year-old doyen of Macedonian acting - Emil Ruben, but it is not his debut film. Namely, Ruben had already starred in Georges Scrigin's film "The Two" (Njih dwojica) two years earlier, and the same, in 1957. plays the main role in the Macedonian feature film "The Little Man" directed by Zika Cikulić.

Here, in "Revolt of the Dolls", Emil Ruben is simply brilliant, and that childlike spontaneity, supported by the masterful direction of Dimitrie Osmanli, managed to convey it to the delighted audience in Bologna, who laughed, rejoiced and was afraid in the corresponding scenes from the film, in the realization of which Vasilie Popović - Tsitso participated as scenographer, the Skopje Philharmonic Orchestra, which performs the music of the composer Ladislav Palfi, and members of the Ballet at the Skopje National Theater choreographed by Gjorgi Makedonski.

- "Rebellion of the Dolls", which was rewarded with a long applause after the screening, was later shown in the official festival program, and the recognition received by Macedonian cinema with its screening at the opening of the Festival of newly restored films "Il Cinema ritrovato" in Bologna is all the more, as this was the first and so far the only Macedonian film projected at this renamed festival - informed Dr. Atanas Chuposki, filmologist-advisor at the Cinematheque of RS Macedonia.

In 2020, the Cinematheque of the Republic of North Macedonia digitally restored the movie "Rebellion of the Dolls", together with thirty other representative short feature films from all stages of Macedonian cinematography, in Belgrade and in the Cinematheque, and in the same year it was also published bilingually DVD-edition with the restored films, in Macedonian and English, under the title "Macedonian Short Feature Films".

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