Some hidden gems were brought back into the limelight with the Wexner Center for the Arts’ ninth annual “Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration” Feb. 23-27.
During the festival, a program presented a mix of short films and feature films — such as the 1988 “Tales From the Gimli Hospital” and the 1962 “The World’s Greatest Sinner.” According to the Cinema Revival press release, some of the directors of the revived films shown were Govindan Aravindan, Luis Buñuel, Timothy Carey, Mireille Dansereau, Menelik Shabazz and more.
Dave Filipi, director of film/video at the Wexner Center, said film preservation is ensuring film — whether it is print or digital — can last for as long as they can. He said where films are preserved and the conditions around film storage play an important role in film preservation.
“It’s institutions that are in charge or that they try to provide the best possible environment to store things,” Filipi said.
Filipi said many of these restored films hold a great meaning to the history of cinema itself.
“It’s an incredibly important part of film history to kind of be reintroduced to some of the films that may have been forgotten or neglected for whatever reason,” Filipi said.
Along with the films, the festival had visits from restoration professionals — such as Mark Toscano, Ina Archer and Tim Lanza — and filmmakers — such as Guy Maddin and Greta Snider. Along with the visits, a new live soundtrack by Sue Harsh accompanied the 1919 comedy film “A Temperamental Wife” Feb. 23.
Melissa Starker, a retired film critic and the public relations manager for the Wexner Center, said many older movies have been lost, and the ones still around should be valued.
“There’s this number that always just blows my mind when I hear it, and that is that at least half of the movies made before 1950 are just gone forever,” Starker said. “Think about the fact that there are movies that were made in, you know, the teens, ‘20s, ‘30s, 50 to 100 years in the past, and if you watch them with an open mind, you will find that so many of them speak to things that are still really important and relevant.”
Starker also said films can impact people and play a role in influencing people’s lives.
“They have the same ability to touch us as things that are made in our time, and to think about the fact that so many of them are lost for good, as a film lover, that’s kind of hard to deal with,” Starker said.
“The World’s Greatest Sinner”’ was one of the films at the event that hadn’t been available to the public with great quality for a long time, Filipi said.
“That’s kind of this legendary cult film that has not been available in a kind of good copy for quite a long time, and it turns out that our screening of it this weekend is only the second time that this new restoration has been shown,” Filipi said.
When getting introduced to “The World’s Greatest Sinner” by Timothy Carey, through Mark Toscano from the Academy Film Archive, Starker said the revival of the film process was interesting.
“He shared such interesting notes as the fact that the negative is gone, that there were only four prints of the film made when it was initially released, the filmmaker kept going back and tweaking it,” Starker said.
