Day 1
Upon landing in Bologna, I was met by the stifling heat of late June. The city was alive with the Bologna Film Festival in full swing, piazzas crowded with students, cafés humming with cinephiles trading recommendations.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, organised annually by the Cineteca di Bologna, is widely regarded as the world’s foremost festival dedicated to film history and restoration. Now in its 39th edition, the festival brings nearly 500 titles to screens across the city, from open-air screenings in Piazza Maggiore to intimate cinema halls. More than a showcase of restored masterpieces and rediscovered rarities, it is a meeting point for archivists, scholars, and cinephiles alike, an international celebration of cinema’s past as a living, shared experience.
Securing tickets had been a race, but we’d done well. After a brief rest, we set off for our first day of screenings
Frank Tashlin’s Artists and Models bursts with technicolor gags, sexual innuendo, and cartoonish surrealism, pairing Dean Martin’s smooth charm with Jerry Lewis’ manic slapstick. In a whirl of artistic rivalry, Cold War paranoia, and erotic misunderstandings, a struggling illustrator (Martin) and his pulp-obsessed roommate (Lewis) collide with a seductive painter (Dorothy Malone) and her zodiac-obsessed model (Shirley MacLaine). Musical numbers, homoerotic undercurrents, and sly double entendres –“I can’t keep this dicky down, Ricky!”, “My Sagittarius is rising!” – drive a plot that spirals into government conspiracy and Eva Gabor’s flamboyant espionage, all set against a backdrop as absurd as it is alluring.
From Gabor’s seductive undressing to Lewis’ rodent costume, Artists and Models delights in blurring the lines between childish farce and adult innuendo. While its relentless pace and Lewis’ manic persona may feel exhausting to modern viewers, particularly in an era where slapstick comedy has largely faded, the dazzling VistaVision restoration reaffirms the film’s value as a technicolor pop-art artifact. As the head of the restoration remarked in Bologna: “Every movie deserves a restoration, because every movie is someone’s favorite movie.”
Day 2
We woke up and grabbed an espresso at Green Bar, a local spot a Cinema Ritrovato veteran had recommended. We hadn’t managed to book anything for that morning, so we attempted to catch a screening of Holiday (1938). We had no luck, the line went around the block, and tickets were long sold out. Still, whilst waiting in the queue, the festival goers’ chatter excited us for all the other films to come.
David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (adapted by Josh Olson from John Wagner & Vince Locke’s graphic novel) follows a seemingly ordinary American family whose identity fractures over a few fateful days after the father (Viggo Mortensen) kills two intruders at his café. It quickly emerges that the act not only triggers a wave of suspicion, tension and moral collapse at home but also draws the attention of underworld figures convinced that the father is someone else from his shadowy past, possibly living under witness protection. Cronenberg also delves into the intertwining of violence and sexual arousal, as the family’s trauma manifests in a complex dynamic between the couple, where aggression and desire become dangerously entangled. Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky captures the low-lit, somber mood of a desolate Midwestern town, a place where there’s nowhere to hide and everybody knows who you are, amplifying the tension between anonymity and exposure and reinforcing the idea that violence, once introduced, seeps into every aspect of domestic life, making the film a 21st century classic.
Following the film, a conversation with the cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky, began. A creative pillar in David Cronenberg films who was also involved with iconic projects, such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). When he mentioned the latter, I could barely contain my excitement; few cult classics hold a place in my heart quite likeThe Rocky Horror Picture Show. He spoke of growing up immersed in classical music and recalled with quiet amusement the surprise he felt when the director first reached out to him, an unexpected detour from the world he thought he knew.
Regarding The Empire Strikes Back, he shared: “I went straight into the meeting with George Lucas and the first words that came out of my mouth were ‘I have no experience in visual effects, I’m afraid’ and he said ‘Probably doesn’t matter’. I said, ‘Should’ve gotten Jeff Unsberg, who shot 2001, ’ he said, ‘You’re probably right, but he’s not available, so I’m asking you.’
Later that night, we made our way to the legendary Piazza Maggiore, where The Gold Rush (1925) was being screened beneath the open sky. Chaplin’s daughter and granddaughter were in attendance. The piazza itself, framed by its historic architecture, set the perfect backdrop.
The Gold Rush, written, directed, produced, and scored by Charlie Chaplin, follows a lone gold prospector in the 1898 Klondike gold rush in Alaska, in a one-of-a-kind fusion of comedy, tragedy, adventure, and romance. A towering achievement in silent comedy, blending slapstick with emotional depth, the film traces a man’s rags-to-riches journey through snow-ridden mountaintops, deadly blizzards, rival prospectors, starvation, loneliness, northern bullies, and heartbreak, all without ever losing his hope, inventiveness, and drive to survive. Chaplin’s inimitable physicality and signature sentimentality hold you spellbound throughout, in a silent masterpiece that manages to portray the real-life tragedies of death and hunger while gently stirring the soul with its humanism and longing for love and companionship.
With legendary scenes, from boiling and sharing his boot for dinner with Big Jim, to the famous dance with the cat and dog, to the heartbreaking New Year’s Eve dream, The Gold Rush becomes one of the most singular audiovisual experiences in all of cinema, transcending the barriers of language, time and culture. The 2025 4K 100-year anniversary restoration (faithful to the 1925 version) brought together, beneath Bologna’s clear sky, thousands of film lovers of all ages and nationalities, who laughed and wept in unison, mesmerized by a live orchestra and united by a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a luminous celebration of cinema’s power to endure.
Day 3
In the morning, we caught Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror Show (2025), a documentary directed by Linus O’Brien which traces the journey of the film, from its creation by Richard O’Brien (the director’s father) to its enduring legacy as a cult phenomenon. Blending interviews with cast, crew, and devoted fans, it explores how the film became a liberating safe space for self-expression and why its message of defiance and inclusivity remains strikingly relevant today.
Adapted from the 1909 play Only a Dream by Lothar Schmidt, the 1932 musical comedy One Hour with You, directed by Ernst Lubitsch with assistance from George Cukor, playfully explores the boundaries of fidelity in a lively mix of gags, witty one-liners, and musical numbers, led by the ever-charismatic Maurice Chevalier. The film’s cheeky message – that a little affair can’t do any harm to a marriage – makes for a hilarious story, highlighted by Chevalier’s unforgettable musical number, “Oh, But That Mitzi!”. The marvelous 4K DCP restoration, featuring brown and blue tinted frames preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, brought this romantic farce vividly back to life, delivering a cinematic experience powered by Chevalier’s irresistible charm and Lubitsch’s comedic genius.
We wandered through the Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini, once the city’s municipal slaughterhouse, now a cultural hub. Just across from the Cineteca di Bologna is a small bar. I’m not sure if it’s a permanent fixture or something set up just for the festival, but it felt perfectly placed. I sipped on an ice-cold lemonade while my friends ate gelato and drank beer. The people around us spoke in accents from Los Angeles, Sydney, Chicago, one was in casting, another in radio. They weren’t networking. They were just there. Drawn to something. You could tell they liked watching old movies in dark rooms.
Hitchcock’s courtroom drama The Paradine Case follows the murder trial of a wealthy, aging blind man poisoned in his English manor, with his much younger and enigmatic wife, Mrs. Paradine (Alida Valli), standing trial as the prime suspect. Rising star lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck) is urged by his mentor to take on her defense, only to become dangerously obsessed with his elusive client, who remains cold, unreadable, and seemingly indifferent to whether she’s proven innocent. While Hitchcock’s signature noir tones and psychological intensity are present, backed by strong performances from Peck and Valli, The Paradine Case ultimately feels like a lesser entry in the director’s canon, with slow pace and a plot lacking the mystery and suspense found in his most enduring work. Still, the film’s stunning technicolour visuals and suspenseful sound design, signature elements of Hitchcock’s style, are vividly enhanced in the newly preserved 4K restoration, completed with the involvement of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and MoMA, making this film well worth seeing, especially for courtroom thriller fans.
Day 4
We started the day with our usual coffee, a small ritual that quickly became a favourite. Lunch was mortadella panini and a scoop of hazelnut gelato, simple, satisfying, and enough to carry us into what would turn out to be one of the festival’s most exciting afternoons.
David Secter’s 1965 film Winter Kept Us Warm marks a remarkable achievement in Canadian cinema, becoming the first English-language Canadian film to be featured at the Cannes Film Festival, and standing as a landmark in queer cinema. It follows the evolving friendship of two University of Toronto students, whose bond slowly transforms into a deeply felt platonic romance charged with anger, denial, tenderness, and confusion. Drawn from Secter’s own experiences as a student, the story is gently laced with T.S. Eliot’s poetry, particularly The Waste Land. Its modest, almost amateur-style cinematography, the persistent hum of classical and jazz records, and the subtle Beat Generation aesthetics, with the two young men always in search of “kicks” and meaning, combine into a heartwarming portrait of youth and longing that feels quietly revolutionary. It isn’t just the subtext of repressed homosexuality that makes Winter Kept Us Warm so ahead of its time, but the quiet, warm scenes of intimacy between the two protagonists, wrestling in the snow, showering together, sharing moments that blur the line between friendship and love. The 4K restoration from the original 16mm negatives revitalizes its mid-60s textures and grain, preserving the film’s delicate honesty, while its inclusion at Il Cinema Ritrovato affirms its place as a foundational work of queer cinema.
Jim Jarmush
“A lot of critics say my films don’t have a plot; they do, but it’s secondary to the characters.”
I was lucky enough to score tickets for one of Jim Jarmush’s scheduled talks. I’ve long admired his work, and listening to him speak was a true full circle moment for me. When speaking about his role models, Jarmush remarked, “I mentioned these male figures, but I have to say that in my life, I have learned more from females. I have other mentors like Patti Smith, a friend and a kind of guide for me. Another one, Thelma Schoonmaker, the great editor that works with Scorsese. Of course, Tilda Swinton, who I think should be queen of the planet earth […] Tilda should be our leader and I would do whatever she says. Tilda is like a mentor. She’s incredible, I can’t keep track of all the things she does. She’s just amazing.”
He discussed his general dislike of biopics, expressing in classic Jarmusch fashion, “because they line up all the dramatic events in a person’s life, and that’s the portrait of that person. I think there is more to maybe seeing them tying their shoe.” The director was careful to praise Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette for how she managed to break so many filmmaking rules, voicing how much he loves how, in the film, Marie Antoinette speaks English, and then she has a daughter who speaks French.
Later, as we sat by Piazza Maggiore sipping on a limoncello spritz, a friend messaged me: “You should go watch the porno movie playing.” And just like that, we were on our feet, speed-walking toward Cinema Europa, determined to snag any last-minute seats.
We slipped into the red leather-seated cinema and found ourselves in the fourth row, after all, if you’re going to watch a porno, you might as well commit and sit up close. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Watching a porno in a cinema? That was a first and completely uncharted territory for me.
Avant-garde, highly stylized, surrealist – these are some of the words used to describe Sayadian’s 1982 porno flick Café Flesh. But more than anything, especially when shown in a packed cinema, it feels like a dynamic, interactive experience. In the nuclear aftermath of World War III, a virus has rendered 99% of humanity incapable of sex, while the remaining 1% are mandated to perform in bizarre live erotic shows for the sex-starved masses. The characters are sleazy, the rooms dark, dirty, foggy, and the faces of the audience ugly, drooling, ravenous in their anticipation of sexual action. That is when it becomes apparent that we, seated in the cinema, adopting a critical stance toward the kind of film we’re watching, are that same ugly audience, enduring the ridiculous narrative just to get to the sex. And Sayadian gives us what we want, but it’s not extreme nor arousing; it’s bizarre, men in pencil and rat costumes paired with secretaries and housewives. But by that point, we’ll consume whatever Sayadian serves us. Synth music, dystopian aesthetics, satirical dialogue, and an undeniable creativity in the flamboyant live shows make Café Flesh a cult porno classic.
Summertime, through the eyes of Katharine Hepburn, tells the story of a middle-aged secretary from Ohio who escapes her ordinary life for a solo vacation in sun-drenched Venice. She spends her days drifting between cafés, restaurants, antique shops, and pensions, quietly searching for something, or someone, to bring her joy. A stunning Venice unfolds around her, bustling with tourists, blooming with flowers, alive with gondolas and shimmering canals, but this postcard-perfect city stands in contrast to Jane’s constant yearning, loneliness, and quiet depression. That quiet ache in her heart only slowly lifts when she finds herself in a brief, hesitant romance with the man of her dreams (Rossano Brazzi), as she does everything in her power to cross paths with him. The painful revelation that her dream lover is married with children acts as a reminder to never trust an Italian man, and yet, she grants a second chance at love, only for it to dissolve in a bittersweet farewell framed by one of Lean’s signature train shots, the kind that always breaks your heart. The celluloid projection of the stunningly colorful 2003 35mm restoration by the Academy Film Archive and the BFI, supported by the David Lean Foundation, at Il Cinema Ritrovato made for a truly magical experience, heightening the emotional resonance of Lean’s melancholic Venetian dream.
It’s difficult to accurately describe Performance, part chaotic gangster noir, part existential, drug-fueled fever dream, all set in a crack-den kingdom ruled by none other than the then-king of rock and roll, Mick Jagger. East London gangster Chas Devlin (James Fox), on the run after a brutal job goes wrong, seeks shelter in a decaying London townhouse, where the landlord turns out to be Turner (Jagger) a reclusive and fading rock star. What follows is a hallucinatory descent into hedonism and identity disintegration, as Chas is drawn into a world that dismantles his sense of self, challenging his sexuality and gender roles, most notably in a stunning mirror sequence that pays homage to Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985). At its core, Performance is a queer film, not just in its subtext but in its very form, its fluid identities, blurred binaries, and erotic charge between its leads. Jagger, radiating charisma, leads this psychedelic, performative experiment, pulling the viewer into a trip where reality blurs, and conversations feel like drug addled riddles. Anita Pallenberg, an icon of the era and a powerful presence in the film, further fuels the atmosphere of sexual ambiguity and decadent confusion, caught between Chas and Turner in a ménage of desire and manipulation. Jagger’s haunting renditions of Robert Johnson’s blues classics “Me and the Devil Blues” and “Come on in My Kitchen” set the tone for a story that’s equal parts cryptic and seductive. Performance is, by definition, a performative experience driven by magnificent turns from both Jagger and Fox, packed with deeply philosophical (or perhaps just deliriously stoned) explorations, and ending in a shocking final note that leaves the viewer reeling, unsure of what just happened, but certain they’ve witnessed a film unlike any other.
It seems unnecessary to write anything about Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning masterpiece The Zone of Interest, given it’s one of the most talked-about films of the past few years. The final screening of the digitally restored 35mm print at Il Cinema Ritrovato’s 39th edition held hundreds of viewers in deathly silence for an hour and 40 minutes, leaving them speechless and deeply distressed, unable to move during the 10 minutes of the siren sound montage that accompanied the credits and shook the Piazza Maggiore like an earthquake.
Ending the week in Piazza Maggiore felt almost inevitable, a kind of unspoken pact among festivalgoers to gather for one last time, under the open sky, to share in cinema at its most communal.
On our final morning in Bologna, the pace of the city seemed to slacken a little, as if the festival itself had exhaled. It’s strange how quickly a place becomes familiar, how a corner café, a short walk, a voice in the queue can turn into a kind of private geography.
By then, our rhythm was in step with the festival’s early lines, late screenings, and the flicker of restored films that felt more vivid than most new ones. What the past few days had revealed wasn’t just a program of cinema, but a curated kind of attention. You begin to look more closely. Not just at film, but at everything: light, texture, pauses in conversation. The faint sound of a projector becomes more than nostalgia; it’s a reminder of how we experience time.
It’s easy to romanticize it, but the truth is simpler. The festival doesn’t transport you, it reorients you. It creates space for a different tempo of thinking and seeing. It asks you to sit with things: discomfort, beauty, silence, contradiction. And when it ends, you carry that sharpened sensitivity back into the world, like a new lens.