IL CINEMA RITROVATO
DVD AWARDS 2010
VII edizione
Jurors: Lorenzo Codelli, Mark McElhatten, Paolo Mereghetti, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Peter Von Bagh.
BEST DVD 2009 / 2010
BY BRAKHAGE: AN ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME ONE AND TWO di Stan Brakhage – The Criterion Collection (USA)
Released by Criterion in a stunning Blu-ray edition this discerning selection of 56 films made by avant-garde visionary Stan Brakhage between 1954 and 2003 received painstaking transfers from preservations conducted by Mark Toscano at the Academy Film Archive.
Our special award of distinction goes to this unprecedented project, which also includes documentation of Brakhage lectures and film salons and, in an accompanying book, concise essays and descriptions of the films.
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BEST SPECIAL FEATURES (BONUS)
Our BEST SPECIAL FEATURES (BONUS) award goes jointly to:
(a) three recent Ruscico releases of classic Russian films (two previously unavailable films by Lev Kuleshov, ENGINEER PRITE’S PROJECT and THE GREAT CONSOLER, and Sergey Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov’s OCTOBER)—both for their innovative handling of printed and illustrated commentaries by scholars and for their subtitles in many languages, despite the unfortunate fact that all three releases are identified on their covers only by their Russian titles and (b) the Filmmuseum with Filmmuseum München and Goethe Institut Deutschland release of G.W. Pabst’s DIE FREUDLOSE GASSE (THE JOYLESS STREET), for the three documentaries about Pabst that are included.
ENGINEERS PRITE’S PROJECT (Russia/1918) di Lev Kuleshov – Ruscico (Russia)
THE GREAT CONSOLER (Russia/1933) di Lev Kuleshov – Ruscico (Russia)
OCTOBER (Russia/1927) di Sergey Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov – Ruscico (Russia)
DIE FREUDLOSE GASSE (The Joyless Street, Germania/1925) di Georg Wilhelm Pabst – Edition Filmmuseum with Filmmuseum München and Goethe Institut Deutschland (Germania)
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BEST REDISCOVERY OF A FORGOTTEN FILM
Our BEST REDISCOVERY OF A FORGOTTEN FILM goes to three separate releases:
(a) Kent Mackenzie’s THE EXILES, a memorable 1961 docudrama about Native Americans in Los Angeles, issued by Milestone;
(b) MARIJKA NEVERNICE, a rare gem of 30s Czech cinema, and the only film directed by the great writer Vladislav Vancura, issued by Filmexport Home Video;
and (c) Hanns Walter Kornblum’s WUNDER DER SCHÖPFUNG, issued by Filmmuseum with
Filmmuseum München and Goethe Institut Deutschland, an unusual film about scientific experiments in the 20s.
THE EXILES (USA/1961) di Kent Mackenzie – Milestone Film & Video (USA)
MARIJKA NEVERNICE (Repubblica Ceca/1934) di Vladislav Vancura – Filmexport Home Video and National Film Archive (Repubblica Ceca)
WUNDER DER SCHÖPFUNG (Germania/1925) di Hanns Walter Kornblum – Edition Filmmuseum with
Filmmuseum München and Goethe Institut Deutschland (Germania)
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BEST DVD SERIES/BEST BOX
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI’S WAR TRILOGY: ROME OPEN CITY / PAISAN / GERMANY YEAR ZERO (Italia/1945 – 1946 – 1948) di Roberto Rossellini – The Criterion Collection (USA)
Bringing together for the first time these three great films, in careful digital restorations, and with excellent and informative interviews, both new and archival.
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BEST NON FICTION DVD
(a new category)
Goes to LA GUERRA FILMADA (WAR ON FILM) – released by the Filmoteca Española and including films made between 1936 and 1939 – for its creative and comprehensive archival research.
LA GUERRA FILMADA (WAR ON FILM) 37 documentaries and newsreels on the Spanish civil War (1936 – 1939) – Filmoteca Española (Spagna)
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BEST CRITICAL RESEARCH ON A DVD
(another new category)
Goes to Germaine Dulac and Antonin Artaud’s LA COQUILLE ET LE CLERGYMAN, a bilingual French and English book and DVD released in France by Light Cone & Paris Expérimental.
LA COQUILLE ET LE CLERGYMAN (Francia/1927) di Germaine Dulac – Light Cone & Paris Expérimental (Francia)
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Finally, we’d like to mention two other releases:
IRISH DESTINY, released by the Irish Film Archive, specifically for the original music composed by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, and performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under conductor Proinnsías Ó Duinn
and the Blu-ray presentation by Cinecittà Luce of LA ROSA DI BAGDAD, the first feature-length Italian animation in color.
MUSIC MENTION
IRISH DESTINY (Irlanda/1926) di Issac Eppels – Irish Film Archive (Irlanda)
BLU-RAY MENTION
LA ROSA DI BAGDAD (Italia/1949) di Anton Gino Domeneghini – Cinecittà Luce (Italia)
