Traveling film fest brings rare and restored movies to Minnesota this week
Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour is returning to the Twin Cities with a curated run of rare, restored, and recovered films that are rarely, if ever, seen on the big screen.
The festival alights at The Main Cinema from Feb. 14–16, bringing highlights from the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, held annually in Bologna.
The 2025 program, brought to Minnesota for the third time by the locally-based Archives on Screen, is focused on feminist, documentary, and anti-colonial cinema.
Part of the festival's one-of-a-kind magic is that it isn't just a program dedicated to preserving film history but brings exciting work — and important, often overlooked history — to the screen that would be almost impossible to see otherwise.
Those films include short silent films from cinema's birth, a satanic feminist revenge satire from the Czech new wave (Murdering the Devil), rarely seen films from Iran directed by women (The Sealed Soil, Marjan), and a documentary about the "indignity of being a woman in cinema." All the films will get some context as well, introduced by film historians and archivists.
Here's what will be playing during Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour, with all films playing at The Main Cinema in Minneapolis.
Feb. 14: The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897–1902)
Feb. 14: Murdering the Devil/Vražda ing. Certa (1970), introduced by Alice Lovejoy
Feb. 15: Festa - A trilogy of films by Sarah Maldoror (1979–80), introduced by Joëlle Vitiello
Feb. 15: Be Pretty and Shut Up! (1976), introduced by Morgan Adamson
Feb. 15: Blow for Blow/Coup pour coup (1972), introduced by Sarah Ann Wells
Feb. 16: The Sealed Soil/Khak-e Sar bé Mohr (1977), introduced by Sima Shakhsair
Feb. 16: Marjan (1956), introduced by Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu
Feb. 16: Films from The Albert Samama Chikli Project, introduced by Aboubakar Sanogo
Feb. 16: My Grandmother/Chemi bebia (1929), introduced by Michal Kobialka
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Britt Lower Is Certain She Was Helly R in ‘Severance' Season 2 Finale: 'There's No Trickery'
[Severance?] It's frustrating when TV storylines keep us in suspense for literal years, as was the case of Severance season one to season two. While the same (real) time will not lapse between the Apple TV+ series' second and third seasons — Ben Stiller promises! — we don't have to wait until season three to re-engage in some Severance season two-finale cliffhanger chatter. More from The Hollywood Reporter The Baltimore Ravens Spoofed 'Severance' for Their Schedule Reveal. They Just Forgot to Make It Funny Tribeca Festival Sets 'Casino,' 'Meet The Parents' Reunions and Talks With Sean Penn, Ellen Pompeo and More 2025 Nantucket Film Festival to Open With 'Twinless,' Jacinda Ardern Doc 'Prime Minister'; Tony Gilroy, Alex Gibney Among Honorees (Exclusive) The Hollywood Reporter grabbed Britt Lower while she was on a break filming Netflix's adaptation of Harlan Coben novel I Will Find You (Lower is 'still a redhead' for that one, she says) to ask her all the burning questions about her other streaming drama. Did Mark S. (Adam Scott) make the right decision at the end of season two, when he chose himself and Helly R. over his Outtie/Mark Scout and Gemma Scout/Ms. Casey? And, is she sure sure she wasn't actually Helena Eagan when that all went down? Read on for her answers, below. *** How much do you know about season three? I honestly don't know anything. I wish I did. I'm as hungry as the fans are to find out what these characters are going to get up to, and I probably have as many daydreams as as you all might about where they're gonna go and what they might be thinking. How has your career changed since ? It's really hard to comprehend the scope of how impactful the show has been. When you do theater, of which I do a fair amount, I do live performance — someone gave me this analogy the other day that I've been really thinking about. You do a play and you go out at the end to do a bow, and that bow is not only to receive applause, which is so lovely, but also it's a way to thank the audience for coming to the show, to honor the audience by saying, 'Hey, this would be weird if we were doing this to an empty room. Thank you for coming.' In TV and film, we don't have that immediate audience response, right? There's a year or two between when we step into the character's perspective and when the audience sees it. So, doing press and getting to see how the fans are impacted by what we've done is our chance to take that bow. That's always the goal with art, right? That it somehow has a resonance with the audience, and we're on this journey together. My personal opinion is that art is this chance for us to to think about what really makes us human. When we're making art, we're saying, 'Who am I really? What makes our consciousness different from a tulip or a bird or AI?' When did you first learn you would be playing Helena Eagan in addition to Helly R.? I suppose it was after I was cast — pretty early on that was embedded into the storyline. I did not know that it was Helly and Helena when I auditioned, but once I got the news that I was going to get to be Helly R., then Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller told me the full scope of season one and that all of the Innies get this little glimpse of who they are on the outside. Because we film the show out of order, we were privy to the whole arc ahead of time, so you're sort of stringing that process together. A trend has been one actor playing twins — is it like that for you? I'm always trying to come up with new analogies. It's these two parts of the same person. They share the same anatomy, they share the same physiology. They share some of the same psychology, because they have a subconscious that's shared, but it's their consciousness that's different, right? Their subjective experience of awareness, of being awake, is separate in the same way that, as an actor, I share the same body as Helly, and I share some of the same subconscious space. If I bruise my elbow on set as Helly, I'm gonna feel it as Brit. But I have a different consciousness than these two parts of the character that I play. Fans pretty quickly picked up on the physical differences you bring to the characters, like their different postures. Can you talk about creating that tool for yourself? My job is to sculpt the inner life of each of them, and sometimes stuff that's happening internally affects how the character moves through the world. Some of that the fans picked up on and that just happened as a result. Helly has this drive. She moves with a lot of conviction and determination. And Helena kind of waits for the world to come to her. Their psychology works differently, given their circumstances. When did you first learn what is? For season two, I had the pleasure as an actor of now stepping into that weird world of the Lumon higher-ups and seeing what it's like to be a Lumon worker as Helena, and how everyone's always watching each other — and the extent to which Helena is aware of what's happening in the company is also a little mysterious. She knows a lot, but there are also things kept from different departments within Lumon. I had to know at least what Cold Harbor was as Helena. But the extent to which she knows what it is, I'm not certain. I know you've said that was definitely Helly R. in the season two finale and not Helena (again pretending to be Helly R.) — but are you sure Dan (Erickson) and Ben (Stiller) didn't lie to you about that to get a certain performance? That's so funny. No, there's no trickery involved in the Severance collaborative. If you track the whole episode and you see Helly trapping Milchick (Tramell Tillman) in a bathroom, her friend, Dylan (Zach Cherry), comes to help. She runs and stands on the tri-desk, remembering her friend Irving (John Turturro) and looking out at this sea of humanity of the Innies… That speech really embodies the question of the whole season: Are Innies people? In season one, [Helena tells Helly] she isn't a person and has no right to make choices about her body. Helly had no connection to meaning in the work that they were doing on the Lumon floor. She was like, 'This has no meaning to me whatsoever, get me out of here at all costs. In fact, I'm willing to risk my life to do so. Get me out of here.' The question of season one is, who am I in relationship to this work, which doesn't have meaning to me (Helly)? Then, over time, she's forming this chosen family with Irving, Dylan and with Mark. The connection she has to these people who she loves is then the journey of season two. All of these Innies have this new information about who they are, and it makes them even hungrier for purpose and meaning in their lives. So then to see her on that tri-desk at the end saying, 'They give us half a life and think we won't fight for it?' I just can't believe that anyone else would have said that. Did Mark S. make the right decision at the end of season two? Well, again, I'm gonna go back to that question of, are Innies people? Like, Helena says to Helly R., 'I am a person, you are not. I make the decisions, you do not.' So I think embedded in your question is: Is he allowed to make a decision? Mark's subjective experience of awareness — his consciousness — is separate from his Outtie's. So, you have to put yourself in his shoes. These Innies have been stripped of so much already, right? They don't get to see daylight. They don't get to experience music or art — not really, not very much, at least. They don't get to make choices about what they're gonna have for lunch, or what they put on in the morning. And to expect him to make a decision for his Outtie's dream to reunite with his wife is perhaps a step too far. *** Seasons one and two of Severance are streaming on Apple TV+. Read THR's season coverage and interviews. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise


Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Harvey Weinstein found guilty of sexual assault in New York retrial, aquitted on another charge
Harvey Weinstein, the fallen Hollywood executive whose decades-long history of alleged sexual assault sparked the #MeToo movement and calls against workplace harassment across entertainment and beyond, was found guilty of one 2006 sexual assault but acquitted on another from the same year in the high-profile retrial of his sex crimes case in New York. The majority-female jury handed down its split verdict after a week of deliberation. Weinstein was convicted in February 2020 of rape and a felony sex crime connected to individual allegations from accusers Jessica Mann and Mimi Haley, respectively. He was acquitted at the time on two charges of predatory sexual assault. A month later, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. A New York appeals court overturned Weinstein's rape conviction in April 2024. On Wednesday, he was convicted of forcing oral sex on Haley and acquitted of the same regarding former model Kaja Sokola. The jury was hung on a third charge of raping Mann in 2013, the Associated Press reported. In closing arguments, which concluded June 4, Weinstein's defense attorney Arthur L. Aidala downplayed his client's alleged assaults as part of a 'courting game' and said they were 'transactional' exchanges of favors. According to Aidala, prosecutors were 'trying to police the bedroom.' Weinstein had become 'the poster boy, the original sinner, for the #MeToo movement,' he added. Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg took a different tone, throwing Aidala's phrases back at the defense: 'This was not a 'courting game,' as Mr. Aidala wants you to believe. This was not a 'transaction.' 'This was never about 'fooling around.' It was about rape,' she said. Weinstein's retrial began April 23 and featured emotional testimony from former Weinstein Co. production assistant Haley and once-aspiring actor Mann, who returned to the stand, plus Sokola, who did not testify against the mogul in the 2020 trial. Judge Curtis Farber oversaw the proceedings. The disgraced Hollywood boss, 73, was tried on the allegations that led to his original rape and felony sex act conviction, plus a new sexual assault charge stemming from Sokola's allegation that he forced oral sex on her in 2006 when she was 19. Weinstein pleaded not guilty to all those charges and his defense maintained the alleged sexual encounters were consensual. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Author Yuri Andrukhovych on Ukrainian dissident art in Soviet times
In Soviet times, being a pro-Ukrainian artist was dangerous. The Soviet secret police were particularly brutal in Ukraine, given that it was a country with a long history of resistance to Russian rule. Still, new generations of artists remained committed to their culture in the face of widespread Russification. Among them was Yuri Andrukhovych, who, in 1985, co-founded the Bu-Ba-Bu literary performance group. Today, Andrukhovych is one of Ukraine's most famous and celebrated authors. But his career started as part of a bold underground movement that quickly grew into a cultural phenomenon, signaling the country's push toward independence. Bu-Ba-Bu's rejection of censorship and societal taboos resonated deeply with the Ukrainian population, which was eager to embrace the ideals of creative expression. In an interview with the Kyiv Independent, Andrukhovych opened up about the origins of Bu-Ba-Bu, the struggle of Ukrainian cultural movements in the face of Soviet censorship, and the profound sense of pride he feels as he witnesses Ukrainian culture thrive despite the adversity brought on by Russia's war today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Kyiv Independent: April marks a special month for the history of Ukrainian culture — it's the 40-year anniversary of the founding of Bu-Ba-Bu. For our foreign audience, could you just tell us a little bit about what it was and your part in founding it? Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, it will be on April 17 — we have a precise date. I couldn't participate in that very first meeting which took place in Lviv, though. It was a meeting between my two friends, the poets Viktor Neborak and Oleksandr Irvanets. I was supposed to join them, but I fell ill the day before. The year was 1985, and we didn't know it yet, but it would turn out to be a very significant year in history. Bu-Ba-Bu is, of course, an abbreviation of three different notions. The first 'Bu' comes from 'burlesque,' and the second from 'buffoonery.' In between them is 'Ba,' which comes from the word 'balagan.' It is actually an old Hebrew world that means something akin to chaos or disorder. Later, the term took on a special meaning, particularly in the cultural spaces of Eastern and Central Eastern Europe. "Balagan" came to describe a kind of small, wandering theater — a nomadic circus. It was a form of cheap, simple entertainment for ordinary people. Marketplaces in cities and towns across Central Europe often featured them. We incorporated these three notions into our aesthetic program, but we never set out with a manifesto or a proclamation to change Ukrainian poetry or literature. We simply began by reading, writing, and sharing our poems — mostly with each other. Ukraine's longstanding aspirations for independence and freedom were seen (by the Soviet authorities) as the most dangerous tendencies in the former Soviet Union. So, there were three of us, young and full of energy. I was the oldest in our trio at 25. My friends (Neborak and Irvanets) were both 24. With everything ahead of us, we set out to create our own kind of circus in poetry. We wrote poems that could be both a show and a performance. Our goal was to blend live performance with poetry that was deep, clever, and witty. The Kyiv Independent: Could you talk about the public perception of your performances? Was there a hunger among the Ukrainian public for such poetry at the time? Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, everything came gradually, slowly. In 1985, there was still a difficult situation regarding censorship, with various obstacles imposed by the system to hinder artistic and literary initiatives. For the first two years (of Bu-Ba-Bu), our activities remained mostly private — built on friendships, personal connections, and informal gatherings. Our first decision was to meet regularly. These meetings weren't limited to Lviv, where Viktor Neborak lived then and still does today. We also gathered in Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk, the latter of which is my city. In many ways, our activities revolved around traveling and visiting one another. Along the way, we organized small gatherings — let's call them informal readings — held in intimate circles, often in artists' workshops or friends' apartments. These gatherings usually included the three of us, along with five to seven others. Our first real public performance took place in December 1987. By then, we had already existed for two and a half years before making our debut presentation in Kyiv. The venue was Molody Theater. A significant change in its administration had just taken place. Sometime earlier, the theater had invited the renowned Ukrainian director and dissident Les Taniuk. After escaping the KGB in Soviet Ukraine, he spent several years in Moscow. Then, in 1987, he was invited back to Kyiv to take over as director and administrator of Molody Theater. Les Taniuk was just brilliant. He completely reorganized the theater. He introduced an entirely new program. At the same time, he also launched several parallel initiatives. One of these was a series of literary readings. Our Bu-Ba-Bu event was actually the second in this series. The very first event was dedicated to the authors of the Executed Renaissance (a generation of artists that perished in the Stalinist purges in the 1930's). It was a bold and risky topic for that time. But it resonated deeply — people in Kyiv quickly realized there was a place where previously banned texts could be performed. A stage was open to anyone talented enough to bring something fresh and of high literary quality. I look back on that evening with great happiness. It's astonishing to remember a time without the internet or social networks. We had no advertising, nothing on TV or radio. At best, maybe a tiny mention, three or four sentences buried on the last page of a newspaper. Yet, word spread. Somehow, people found out. The space filled up completely. More and more people kept arriving, but there were no seats left. It was an incredibly promising start. The Kyiv Independent: You mentioned censorship and how certain material was considered risky. Many foreigners tend to associate this with the earlier years of — Stalin, the Great Purges. But can you talk about how, even in the later years of the Soviet Union, being a Ukrainian artist was still risky? What was it like to embrace the Ukrainian language and culture at a time when Russification was the norm? Yuri Andrukhovych: When it comes to censorship in Ukraine, our Soviet Republic was a unique case. In the late Soviet period — the 1970s and 1980s, well after the Stalinist era — Ukraine still endured what felt like a softer version of Stalinism. In many ways, the situation here was much worse than in other parts of the Soviet Union. There was more openness in the three Baltic republics, in Georgia, and, of course, in Moscow. Many Ukrainian artists and poets in the 1970s fled to Moscow, where it was less dangerous than staying in Ukraine. It was there they could escape the reach of the KGB, losing their trail in the vast sprawl of the city. Ukraine's longstanding aspirations for independence and freedom were seen (by the Soviet authorities) as the most dangerous tendencies in the former Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Republic was under very specific control. The previous generations of Ukrainian poets, known collectively as the Sixtiers and the Seventiers, faced tremendous challenges. Over the course of two nights (during the New Year's celebration), for example, the Ukrainian KGB launched a massive operation. Many people were arrested, and the Ukrainian cultural sphere faced continued severe attacks over the following weeks. This led to numerous trials, and by the mid-80s, when our generation began, most of the people from 1972 — let's call them the "people of 1972" — were still political prisoners. They were either in labor camps or prisons. The most significant figure from that group was, of course, Vasyl Stus, who was killed in a Russian penal colony in September 1985. Looking back, we can say with certainty that the situation in Ukraine at the time was a form of neo-Stalinism — a continuation of the same longstanding oppressive policies. Read also: 10 authors shaping contemporary Ukrainian literature The Kyiv Independent: Since 2014, there has been much talk about . What is the most rewarding aspect for you about this comment moment in Ukrainian culture? Yuri Andrukhovych: For me as a writer, the most significant changes have, of course, been in the publishing world and literary life. Since 2014, we've seen the rise of so many new publishing houses. There are also numerous new literary festivals and public readings. And, most importantly, we've witnessed a new wave of Ukrainian readers. But it's not just literature and publishing. There has been a rebirth of contemporary Ukrainian theater, and, of course, our visual arts have flourished as well. In fact, I'd argue that our visual arts were already unique and impressive even before 2014. In my opinion, they represented a kind of avant-garde in contemporary Ukrainian art. These artists were creating brilliant projects using very modern forms of expression. They worked actively with installations and video art. Before 2014, whenever I was in Europe, I would always find exhibitions or spaces showcasing new Ukrainian art. I felt incredibly proud to come from a country with such remarkable contemporary art. Since then, this diversity and richness have continued to thrive. And, of course, we can't overlook film and cinematography. I particularly see success in Ukrainian documentary films. But we also have feature films that are truly outstanding. The most important thing is that people now want to experience this — attending theaters, paying to watch Ukrainian films, all of which is a very positive sign. The Kyiv Independent: I'd like to conclude by discussing your poetry collection, 'Set Change,' which was recently . This is a significant achievement, not only for you but also for Ukrainian literature in translation. Could you talk about this collection? As I understand, it features poetry written early in your career, before you started to focus more on writing prose. Yuri Andrukhovych: Yes, this collection consists of selected poems from my three first collections. The poems were written in the 1980s, and it also includes two cycles, 'India' and 'Letters from Ukraine.' It's a mix of work I wrote from around 1980 to 1990. This period represents the active stage of my poetic career. After 1990, I wrote more poems, but those were composed between 1999 and 2004. Some of the poems from that time, from my collection 'Songs for a Dead Rooster,' had been published earlier in English translation by Lost Horse Press. The idea for this new collection came from my American translators, Ostap Kin and John Hennessy. They suggested putting together the collection and I think they did an excellent job. I was involved every step of the way, reviewing each batch of new translations. I paid close attention to each line, thinking carefully about how they had translated it. We had many interesting and productive discussions through our email exchanges — I'm looking forward to holding the hard copy in my hands. Read also: Wondering where to start with Dostoevsky? Try his Ukrainian contemporaries instead Hey there, it's Kate Tsurkan, thanks for reading my latest interview. Yuri Andrukhovych is one of the greatest living voices in Ukrainian literature and this was my second time interviewing him. I hope more and more people across the world will learn about his work and his contributions not only to Ukraine but to world literature. If you like reading this sort of material, please consider supporting us by becoming a paid member of the Kyiv Independent today. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.