By Yonathan Shimelis
The Italian program at University of Maryland, in collaboration with the program of Cinema and Media Studies, hosted the first Cinema Ritrovato on Tour at the Old Greenbelt Theatre in Roosevelt Center on May 18.
Cinema Ritrovato, or cinema rediscovered, is a festival dedicated to screening classic and restored films. The festival was started in 1986 and is held every year in Bologna, Italy.
The event featured two film screenings, Ma I’Amore Mio Non Moure!, an Italian film from 1913, and La Notte, an Italian drama from the 1960s. A roundtable discussion was held between the two screenings featuring Caitlin McGrath, Luka Arsenjuk, Mauro Resmini and Joanna Raczynksa. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, the event hosted many in attendance.
One attendant, Boris Kosikov, holds an appreciation for film movies in particular. Kosikov is a senior computer science major at UMD. He runs the film club at the university.
“The nice thing about shooting in film is that you can get a lot of information from film whereas when you’re shooting digitally, it’s all pixelized,” said Kosikov.
This was Kosikov’s third time watching the second screening, La Notte.
Valeria Federici is an undergraduate professor and advisor in her first year at UMD in the Italian program. She was behind the planning for the event.
“This is a small event, it’s only a day. We want to put out a test to see how this kind of event could have been perceived and what kind of audience we could reach,” said Federici.
The planning took months of preparation starting in September of 2021.
“It requires a lot of organization and you have to be in touch with them. Cinema Ritrovato is very generous with their material, but they want to make sure it’s presented in the right way,” said Resmini.
Holding the event close to UMD is beneficial to both parties. For Cinema Ritrovato, UMD is
“They have no other outposts in the area. The closest one would be in New York. Having that kind of event at UMD really puts UMD on the map in terms of the international festival circuit. It gives us a lot of visibility,” said Resmini.
Still, this event has been described as more of a teaser of what’s to come in the future.
“The ultimate goal is really to have a full-length festival, so four or five days to give people the opportunity to experience to participate in something like this,” said Federici.
There are larger plans for events and festivals at UMD in the coming months and years.
“We’re having another event similar to this one in the fall and an actual proper festival, a four-day event, in the spring of 2023. We envision that to be much more akin to the actual festival itself,” said Resmini.
Cinema Ritrovato on Tour will be held at other universities on campuses like Brown and University of California Los Angeles as well.