This year we are delighted to host the 2023 FOCAL Awards at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms on June 15th, we hope you can join us. Congratulations to all the shortlisted nominees.
2023 shortlisted nominations
Pasolini's Project
Production Company:
L'Immagine Ritrovata Group
Synopsis
Accattone seems to be four decades away from his last film Salò; in between there are the Roman suburbs, the rewriting of the documentary, the films on the bourgeoisie, the reinvention of classicism, the Trilogy of life… the discovery of Citti and Davoli, and then Totò, Magnani and Mangano, to whom he offers unique and unedited roles, a new way of using music, places that cinema had never been able to look, from Matera to Cappadocia, from Sana'a to the remains of the classicism, a cinema of poetry that is also, always, a political, civil cinema that confronts the greats nodes of modernity.
Archival highlights
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini the Cineteca di Bologna as well as having shown Pasolini's main masterpieces to Italian cinemas with its Il Cinema Ritrovato al Cinema project has organized a series of insights on the director as the exhibition 'Folgorazioni figurative' as well as conferences, debates, retrospectives and publications dedicated to the poet-director.
A filmmaker condemned, insulted, smeared from the first to the last film today unanimously recognized as the artist who understood, decades in advance, the cultural genocide that was taking place in the face of everyone's silence. We are therefore proud to submit part of his restored films in the prestigious context of the FOCAL awards 2023.
Thamp̄
Production Company:
L'Immagine Ritrovata Group
Synopsis
Aravindan Govindan’s Thamp̄ is a poetic, allegorical film, that gently explores the transience of human relationships and the rootlessness of the marginalized through the ripples created in the bucolic existence of a village on the banks of a river by the arrival of a roving circus troupe. In cinéma-vérité style, Aravindan rounded up a troupe of actual circus artistes and travelled with them to the village of Thirunavaya on the banks of the Bharathapuzha river. For three days, the circus is the centre of attention of village life, but soon the villagers lose interest and move on to the preparation for a local festival and the circus troupe packs up and trundles away leaving no trace. Alienated from his own milieu, a young man from the village clambers on to the departing truck, hoping to escape his discontent by joining the circus troupe in their drifting existence.
Archival highlights
Aravindan Govindan was one of India’s most extraordinary filmmakers and a leading light of the New Indian Malayalam cinema of the 1970s and ‘80s. This film takes part in the group of films that mark the evolution of Malayalam New Wave cinema and is a landmark film.
The Draughtsman's Contract
Production Company:
Dragon Post Production (Wales)
Synopsis
In 2022 BFI celebrated Peter Greenaway’s 80 birthday and the 40th anniversary of THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT (1982), Greenaway’s first major feature, originally funded and released by the BFI. As a key British work of the last 40 years, the film’s continuing visibility and availability to future audiences had been endangered by the limited nature of optical blow-up 35mm internegatives and for this reason, restoration was deemed necessary to allow director-approved 4K masters from the original camera negative and a final mix master to be produced in time for the celebrations, ensuring reproduction of the film’s exquisite vision in the highest quality. Original film elements are preserved by the BFI National Archive. The 4K remaster premiered in Venice Classics in the Venice International Film Festival 2022 and was then subsequently presented at the London Film Festival, before being released in UK cinemas and on Blu-ray to resounding critical acclaim.
Archival highlights
As a key British work of the last 40 years, the film’s continuing visibility and availability to future audiences had been endangered by the limited nature of optical blow-up 35mm internegatives. The remastering allowed director-approved 4K masters from the original camera negative and a final mix master to be produced in time for the celebrations, ensuring reproduction of the film’s exquisite vision in the highest quality. Considering that ‘visually, the film is one of the most elegant that’s ever been made in Britain’ according to Alexander Walker, the doyen of UK film criticism, we believe the restoration to have been of the utmost importance in terms of preserving British cinema.
Apache Drums
Production Company:
NBCUniversal
Synopsis
The film follows the fast-talking gambler and gunman Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally) after being kicked out of a mining town in the New Mexico desert that is on the verge of becoming respectable. Sent into exile, Sam comes across the bodies of the dance hall girls massacred by a band of Mescalero warriors. He reluctantly returns to town to warn the residents of the impending threat.
Archival highlights
As part of Universal Pictures’ Centennial celebration in 2012, the studio announced an expanded effort to preserve and restore the Universal Film Library. Since then, the studio has restored over 100 feature films to help preserve the studio’s history.
The Apache Drums 4K restoration was made in collaboration with The Film Foundation, using the Nitrate 3-Strip (YCM) Original Negative as the primary source. Due to red layer registration issues, specifically seen in the whites of eyes, which appeared red, a black and white version of each reel was created and the YCM layers were painted out to remove the red, and retain the white color. This was the first time we used this methodology, and after experimenting with a few potential solutions, we found this gave us the best result. The picture and audio also underwent significant cleanup, due to the age of the elements used, but all of the challenges were surmounted using modern digital restoration tools and skilled technicians.
