Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute
September 2–November 29, 2023
It would not be possible for BAMPFA to showcase many essential films from the history of cinema without the stellar work of Rialto Pictures, a boutique distributor based in New York. This salute features digital restorations of many landmark films, including two by Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt and Alphaville; two French thrillers, Army of Shadows and Le cercle rouge, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; two Italian classics starring Alberto Sordi, Federico Fellini’s The White Sheik and Dino Risi’s Una vita difficile; Carol Reed’s exceptional The Third Man; a masterpiece from postrevolutionary Iran, The Runner; and Akira Kurosawa’s stunning film adaption of King Lear, the monumental Ran.
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Contempt, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures
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The Runner, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures
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Alphaville, Courtesy: Chaumiane/Film Studio/Kobal/Art Resource/Georges Pierre
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Ran, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures
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The Third Man, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures / Studiocanal
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Una vita difficile, Courtesy: Rialto Pictures / Studiocanal
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Contempt
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 19634K Digital Restoration
Saturday, September 2 7 PMView DetailsJean-Luc Godard’s Homeric homage to Fritz Lang, “one of the defining moments of modernist filmmaking” (Film Comment).
Alphaville
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 19654K Digital Restoration
Friday, September 8 7 PMView Details“[Jean-Luc] Godard’s conceptual masterpiece is a hardboiled, Pop Art, sci-fi gloss on [Jean] Cocteau’s Orpheus and [George] Orwell’s 1984” (Village Voice).
The Runner
Amir Naderi
Iran, 19844K Digital Restoration
Saturday, September 9 5 PMMadjid Niroumand in Person on October 6View DetailsAmiro, an illiterate eleven-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running . . . seemingly to nowhere.
Army of Shadows
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1969Digital Restoration
Saturday, September 9 7 PMView DetailsJean-Pierre Melville’s drama of the French Resistance, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret, “grips tighter than a Gestapo handcuff. . . . A film of noirish compositions and fantastic cool” (Independent).
Contempt
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 19634K Digital Restoration
Friday, September 22 7 PMView DetailsJean-Luc Godard’s Homeric homage to Fritz Lang, “one of the defining moments of modernist filmmaking” (Film Comment).
Alphaville
Jean-Luc Godard
France, 19654K Digital Restoration
Saturday, September 23 7 PMView Details“[Jean-Luc] Godard’s conceptual masterpiece is a hardboiled, Pop Art, sci-fi gloss on [Jean] Cocteau’s Orpheus and [George] Orwell’s 1984” (Village Voice).
The Runner
Amir Naderi
Iran, 19844K Digital Restoration
Friday, October 6 7 PMMadjid Niroumand in Person on October 6View DetailsAmiro, an illiterate eleven-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running . . . seemingly to nowhere.
The White Sheik
Federico Fellini
Italy, 19524K Digital Restoration
Friday, November 3 6:30 PMView DetailsProvincial newlyweds arriving in Rome get sidetracked by the wife’s obsession with a fumetto photo-comic star in Federico Fellini’s solo directorial debut. “A funny, sardonic, and clever satire on popular heroes and ordinary people’s illusions” (Chicago Reader).
Una vita difficile
Dino Risi
Italy, 19614K Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 4 4:30 PMView Details“Alberto Sordi’s pungent embodiment of a left-wing pamphleteer who can’t prosper in a capitalist republic propels [Dino] Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy. . . . The closest America has come to Alberto Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one” (Michael Sragow, Air Mail).
The Third Man
Carol Reed
United Kingdom, 19494K Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 18 4:30 PMView DetailsJoseph Cotten pursues Orson Welles through postwar Vienna in Graham Greene and Carol Reed’s cynical masterpiece. “Seeing it on the big screen is like watching it for the first time” (New York Times).
Le cercle rouge
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19704K Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 18 7 PMView DetailsAlain Delon and Yves Montand star in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).
The White Sheik
Federico Fellini
Italy, 19524K Digital Restoration
Sunday, November 19 2:30 PMView DetailsProvincial newlyweds arriving in Rome get sidetracked by the wife’s obsession with a fumetto photo-comic star in Federico Fellini’s solo directorial debut. “A funny, sardonic, and clever satire on popular heroes and ordinary people’s illusions” (Chicago Reader).
Una vita difficile
Dino Risi
Italy, 19614K Digital Restoration
Friday, November 24 6:30 PMView Details“Alberto Sordi’s pungent embodiment of a left-wing pamphleteer who can’t prosper in a capitalist republic propels [Dino] Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy. . . . The closest America has come to Alberto Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one” (Michael Sragow, Air Mail).
Army of Shadows
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 1969Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 25 6:30 PMView DetailsJean-Pierre Melville’s drama of the French Resistance, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret, “grips tighter than a Gestapo handcuff. . . . A film of noirish compositions and fantastic cool” (Independent).
Ran
Akira Kurosawa
Japan, France, 19854K Digital Restoration
Sunday, November 26 1:30 PMView DetailsKing Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. “A majestic piece of filmmaking” (Village Voice).
The Third Man
Carol Reed
United Kingdom, 19494K Digital Restoration
Sunday, November 26 5 PMView DetailsJoseph Cotten pursues Orson Welles through postwar Vienna in Graham Greene and Carol Reed’s cynical masterpiece. “Seeing it on the big screen is like watching it for the first time” (New York Times).
Le cercle rouge
Jean-Pierre Melville
France, 19704K Digital Restoration
Wednesday, November 29 7 PMView DetailsAlain Delon and Yves Montand star in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).