A HUNDRED YEARS AGO: 1923 Now in its 20th anniversary year, the A Hundred Years Ago section continues its annual exploration of a single year in cinema’s rich and varied history with a selection of enduring classics and archival rarities as well as thought-provoking documentaries from 1923. This year we turn our attention to the exiled Russian filmmakers working at the studio Films Albatros in France.

RUSSIAN DIVAS IN ITALY Sometimes fate acts in unfathomable ways. Random findings in different places may end up shedding light on a specific subject, as though from on high. Between 2022 and 2023, Cineteca di Bologna, La Cinémathèque française and Gosfil’mofond, each of them individually, made several astonishing rediscoveries and carried out restorations of films featuring Diana Karenne, Ileana Leonidoff and Helena Makowska, who were among the main Russian actresses active in Italian silent cinema. Up until now, time cruelly denied any opportunity to appreciate the talents and beauty of many of these great performers – almost nothing seemed to survive. The programme will include three newly found films with Diana Karenne (including The Two Sisters’ Tragedy, a short 1914 melodrama that she also wrote), the brand-new restoration of Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Thaïs, two films with Berta Nelson (courtesy of the EYE Filmmuseum) and La tartaruga with Helena Makowska, rediscovered and preserved by the Cineteca di Bologna. Curated by Mariann Lewinsky and Tamara Shvediuk

The Witch & the Baby, 2020

(Баба-Яга и Малышка)

Yevgeniya GOLUBEVA
(Евгения ГОЛУБЕВА)

My Mom is a Plane, 2012

(Моя мама - самолет)

Yulia ARONOVA
(Юлия АРОНОВА)

Dnevnik Glumova, 1923

(Дневник Глумова)

Sergey EISENSTEIN
(Сергей ЭЙЗЕНШТЕЙН)

The Burning Brazier, 1923

(Пылающий костер)

Ivan MOZZHUKIN
(Иван МОЗЖУХИН)

Tragedy of Two Sisters, 1914

(Трагедия двух сестер)

Aleksandr DRANKOV (Александр ДРАНКОВ)

Diana KARENNE (Диана КАРЕННЕ)

Aleksey TALDYKIN (Алексей ТАЛДЫКИН)