23 February 2017 (Hong Kong) – The 41st Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF41) is pleased to present six restored classics that stand the test of time and are given a new life through digital restoration. This year’s festival programme includes Fritz LANG's pioneering silent work Destiny (1921), Akira KUROSAWA's epic masterpiece Seven Samurai (1954), Cuban radical classic Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), the unique and monumental Out 1 (1971) by the late Jacques RIVETTE, Ermanno OLMI's Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) and Andrei TARKOVSKY's allegorical science fiction film Stalker (1979).
With its striking action sequences and innovative mise-en-scene, Seven Samurai is a powerful period drama that has inspired generations of filmmakers. It is considered by many as Kurosawa's greatest achievement, and was remade in Hollywood as The Magnificent Seven. The exquisite restoration of TARKOVSKY's Stalker presents another rich visual journey defying time and space, offering a deeply immersive film experience of self-discovery. As a poetic and hauntingly philosophical work of extraordinary visual beauty, this film demands to be seen on the big screen.
Before Fritz LANG's towering achievement Metropolis (1927), he had already achieved cinematic greatness with Destiny. With his bold narrative and special effects, LANG presents his exotic imagination of a romance in Renaissance Venice, an adventure in ancient Persia and a comic tale set in China. For years only seen in black and white, the restoration includes the original coloration that gave atmosphere to sequences. Jacques RIVETTE's rarely seen epic Out 1 is loosely based on BALZAC’s novel of conspiracy L’Histoire des Treize (History of the Thirteen) and becomes an exploration of the nature of acting, in the context of improvisational theatre as well as everyday life. With nearly 13 hours of enigmatic imagery, the film is a bohemian reflection of Paris in the late 60s, and a rumination on the dashed ideals of the people lost in time.
The historical change that Cuba recently experienced brings new perspective to Tomas Gutierrez ALEA's classic Memories of Underdevelopment. The consciousness of a critical moment in post-revolutionary Cuba captured in the film is a timely resonance to the nation today as it is reinventing itself. The Tree of Wooden Clogs is OLMI's poignant ode to the ennobling dignity in the lives of the peasants of the late 19th century, through a ravishing depiction of the changing season of rural Italy in stunningly beautiful cinematography. The film won the prestigious Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival for its humanity, realism and compassion.