Restored & Rediscovered
Cinema Rediscovered 2024
Please note : this season finished in July 2024
Experience some of the latest new restorations and rediscoveries on the big screen.
This year we open the festival with Charles Vidor's sultry film noir Gilda (1946), which propelled Rita Hayworth to eternal film stardom to celebrate one hundred years of Columbia Pictures and maverick director Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967), a masterpiece of cool embodied by Alain Delon in a career-defining performance.
We then close the festival with Sergei Parajanov brand new restoration of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a masterpiece of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema straight from Il Cinema Ritrovato, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth.
In between, there’s plenty more in store, including Charles Burnett’s long-lost feature The Annihilation of Fish (1999) in celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary and the 80th birthday of the visionary director; John Sayles’ Oscar®-nominated Lone Star (1996) set on the Tex-Mex border which speak powerfully to the current political climate; José Mojica Marins’ At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, the first Brazilian-produced horror film newly restored from composite materials; two of Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s rarely screened works A Confucian Confusion (1994) and Mahjong (1996) and Luis Armando Roche’s El Cine Soy Yo (1977), a celebration of the power of cinema set in Venezuela in the most unimaginable circumstances.
Previous screenings & events in this season
UK Premiere: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
classified 12A S Restored & RediscoveredSergei Parajanov’s masterpiece of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema unleashes the full breadth of his remarkable visual imagination via a simple Romeo and Juliet story.
The Colour of Pomegranates
classified PG S Restored & RediscoveredThe film that Martin Scorsese compared to ‘opening a door and walking into another dimension, where time has stopped and beauty has been unleashed’.
Female Trouble
classified 18 Restored & RediscoveredCrime is beauty in the rabid whirlwind of John Waters’ Female Trouble – the naughty middle-child in his opus “Trash Trilogy”, which celebrates its 50th birthday.
UK Premiere: El Cine Soy Yo
classified 15 S Restored & RediscoveredThe tender adventure of a very unconventional family who bring cinema magic to the people of Venezuela.
UK Premiere: At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul
classified 18 S Restored & RediscoveredOnce seen, never forgotten! Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) makes his screen debut in José Mojica Marins’ At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, the first Brazilian-produced horror film.
UK Premiere: True Love
classified 15 Restored & RediscoveredThis 1989 Sundance winner is a bittersweet comedy about getting cold feet at the altar.
UK Premiere: The Annihilation of Fish
classified 12A Restored & RediscoveredCharles Burnett’s heart-warming romantic comedy sees two great actors pair off against each other with hilarious results.
Mahjong Game Pop-up
Restored & RediscoveredJoin us after the UK Premiere: Mahjong for a pop-up Mahjong Game Session in Waterside 1, hosted by Monica Wat, Hong Kong-born artist and founder of East & South East Asian creative collective Made on the Moon and its annual event MOON FEST.
UK Premiere: The Dragon Painter
classified 15 PS Restored & RediscoveredA timeless tale of an artist both blessed and cursed by genius, featuring an almost entirely Asian cast including film star and producer Sessue Hayakawa.
UK Premiere: Paris, Texas
classified 12A Restored & RediscoveredExperience Wim Wenders’s unconventional American road movie, one of the most iconic films of the 1980s, newly restored on Bristol’s biggest screen.
UK Premiere: Mahjong
classified 15 S Restored & RediscoveredA crime comedy from Taiwanese master Edward Yang that doubles as another of his many love letters to Taipei.
The Wizard of Oz
classified U Restored & RediscoveredJoin us somewhere over the rainbow and follow Dorothy and her little dog Toto as they are whisked away from their home in Kansas, set on a magical journey down the yellow brick road.
A Confucian Confusion
classified 15 S Restored & RediscoveredEdward Yang finds humour and pathos in a group of lost and lonely twenty-somethings in Taiwan with wit, warmth, and good humour.
UK Premiere: Werckmeister Harmonies
classified 12A S Restored & RediscoveredBéla Tarr gazes into the abyss with his dark vision of a society over run by disorder and mob rule.
Deaf Conversations About Cinema: Alma's Rainbow
Restored & RediscoveredWe are delighted to be hosting a special Deaf Conversations About Cinema event as part of this year’s Cinema Rediscovered.
UK Premiere: Alma’s Rainbow + Short
classified 15 Restored & RediscoveredA coming-of-age comedy-drama about three African American women living in Brooklyn who navigate standards of beauty, self-image, and the rights women have over their bodies.
UK Premiere: Lone Star
classified 15 Restored & RediscoveredNominated for an Oscar® for its masterful screenplay, this American indie landmark from John Sayles lays bare the fault lines of life at the Tex-Mex border.
UK Premiere: Le Samouraï
classified 12A S Restored & RediscoveredAlain Delon is the peak of cinematic cool in Jean-Pierre Melville’s icy hitman thriller presented here in a brand new 4K restoration.
UK Premiere: Gilda
classified PG Restored & RediscoveredRita Hayworth stamped her name forever in film stardom with this sultry film noir revolving around lust and greed, screening newly restored on this 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures.