Returning for its sixth year, “Martin Scorcese Presents: The Sag Harbor Cinema Festival of Preservation” returns to the historical theater on Main Street, with newly restored modern classics as well as a thoroughly rare archival silent film from an equally rare female Italian director from the 1920s, all ready for your popcorn-crunching pleasure during the first full weekend of November.
“From a female pioneer of Italian silent film, to one of the fathers of African Cinema; from a visionary Hungarian puppeteer to America’s ‘King of the B’; from Pre-Code to the New Hollywood; from Powell and Pressburger to Abbott and Costello: the lineup this year reflects the vibrancy of cinema -past and present- through a wide variety of genres, styles and ideas,” says SHC’s founding artistic director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan in a statement to the press. “I often find that juxtapositions open my mind. Which is very much in the spirit of this long, packed weekend.”
Clockwise from top left: West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (1979); Puppatoons (1930s-40s); Gone to Earth (1950); Obsession (1976); Me and My Gal (1932); Citizen Ruth (1996).
This year’s line-up spans over 100 years of film excellence, with varied style, storytelling and technique. The back story of one in particular — A Santonette, the oldest in the series, made in 1922 — feels particularly relevant in today’s political climate. Its creator, the before-her-time Elvira Notari, a Neapolitan writer, director and producer who worked with her cameraman husband, Nicola, made films that revealed the truth of impoverished life in Naples, bucking the restrictions of Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who wanted to portray a façade of perfection and order to the outer world.
With the current chipping away of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the restoration and soon-to-be released film Citizen Ruth starting Laura Dern bookends the oldest and youngest films in the series with an equally pertinent, test-of-time narrative.
In addition to the films, several panels will accompany the screenings, with confirmed guests archivists Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures, Kevin Schaeffer from Disney, George Willeman from the Library of Congress and Cassandra Moore from NBCUniversal, as well as filmmaker Alexander Payne, actor Mary Corman, writer and producer and Film Forum repertory artistic director Bruce Goldstein, curatorial director of The Criterion Collection Ashley Clark, film scholar Giuliana Bruno and director, producer screenwriter and George Pal historian Arnold Leibovit.
The Festival of Preservation runs from Friday, Nov. 6 to Monday, Nov. 9. Both individual tickets and full-weekend passes ($65 for members; $110 for nonmembers), which included access to the all screenings plus special related events), as well as the full schedule are available by clicking here.
