Bologna festival of rediscovered films draws new audiences

Bologna will be transformed into an open-air museum of cinema on Saturday as a nine-day festival dedicated to restored, rediscovered and overlooked films – some dating back more than a century – gets under way in the northern Italian city. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, Il Cinema Ritrovato has evolved from niche origins into an influential international gathering captivating a new generation of cinephiles.

Last year’s edition, which included the resurrection of Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush, drew a record 140,000 people who crowded into Piazza Maggiore and other locations in the city’s historic centre for screenings. Gian Luca Farinelli, who co-founded the festival and is now one of its four directors, likens the experience to “walking through the ruins of the past”.

He and two friends conceived the idea after being introduced to Bologna’s Cineteca, a film library formed in 1963 with a laboratory now regarded as one of the world’s most influential for the restoration of films and documentaries.

Italy, Bologna

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