A still image from Mohammad Reza Aslani’s restored film “Chess of Wind.” Credit: Courtesy of Janus Films
In contrast to the modern digital age, the Wexner Center for the Arts will celebrate the history of film restoration and preservation through screenings, speaker presentations and conversations with industry professionals.
The seventh-annual Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration will consist of virtual events between Feb. 25-28 available on the center’s website. The four-day festival will invite viewers to learn about film restoration — the process of reviving damaged or aging film and preserving the original images — and challenge their preconception about filmmaking throughout different time periods, Dave Filipi, director of video and film at the Wexner Center, said.
Although the festival is being held online due to COVID-19, Filipi said this format has allowed the event to be available to more people than it would in person.
“It’s certainly disappointing that we’re not able to do this in person this year, but we’re embracing what virtual programming makes available to us,” Filipi said. “The programs are certainly a lot more accessible because people are able to watch them at home and everything is free.”
Filipi said the virtual nature of the festival also brought together filmmakers and film professionals from around the world to discuss film restoration.
“I recorded a conversation last week with a filmmaker in Tehran, Iran; his daughter, who’s a film scholar who was in Spain; one of the archivists that worked on restoring the film in Bologna, Italy; the woman from the film foundation in New York City; and then me in Columbus. To have all of those people kind of come together, I’m not sure that that would have been possible if we were doing it in person,” Filipi said.
This year’s film festival is highlighting the Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University, which featured a talk between Black Film Center/Archive director Terri Francis and filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary about film preservation. Gary’s film, “Ecstatic Experience,” precedes the restored film, “Losing Ground.”
Filipi said the work done at the Black Film Center/Archive is vital to Black film history.
“A lot of the ephemera of film history is geared towards both the American Black film diaspora and the global,” Filipi said. “They have, obviously, films, people’s papers, letters and correspondence that they had with different people in making their films.”
In the theme of restoration and preservation, this year’s festival includes a new program about the field of video game restoration. Filipi said the similarities between film and video game restoration inspired this new aspect of the festival.
“It is really interesting how many parallels there are between the two fields and, in many respects, video game culture is as vital a field as film is right now,” Filipi said. “There are a lot of, especially younger, people that spend probably way more time playing video games than they do watching movies.”
The spotlight talk about video game preservation is being presented by Rich Whitehouse, head of video game conservation for the Video Game History Foundation. Whitehouse said video game preservation is fundamental to the video game industry.
“Video games offer a lot of flexibility and the creative expression they allow and facilitate. Video games I think have, at some point, not been considered art as much as other mediums — I think we probably culturally have gotten past that at this point. We understand the video games are art and they do provide a unique venue for creative expression,” Whitehouse said.
The festival also features the lost Iranian film “Chess of Wind” and will be followed by a conversation between a panel of guests, including the director of the film, Mohammad Reza Aslani. Filipi said the restoration of this 1976 film offers a new perspective on Iranian films in that era.
“It is a film that really had not been available for 45 years and is now available again and in a beautiful new restoration,” Filipi said.
Filipi said Aslani’s film was only shown a handful of times before being banned by the government for hinting at a lesbian relationship — a taboo in Iran at the time.
The festival will end with the presentation of “Grand Tour Italiano: Cinema Treasures from the Archives,” a program of films shot during the early 20th century in Italy, Filipi said.
Throughout these events, Filipi said, is the heart of the festival and its theme of not only restoration, but also change of perspective on film history.
“I’d say one thing that really kind of ties the whole weekend together, and I would say this is true every year but especially this year, is how all of the programs make you reevaluate your perceptions of a time period or filmmaking of a certain time period,” Filipi said.
