>> TOUKI BOUKI Written and directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. Editing: Siro Asteni. Director of Photography: Pap Samba Sow, Georges Bracher. Music: Joséphine Baker, Mado Robin, Aminata Fall. Sound: El Hadji Mbow. Production Company: Cinegrit. Starring: Magaye Niang (Mory), Mareme Niang (Anta), Aminata Fall (Tante Oumy), Ousseynou Diop (Charlie). Running time: 88’. Colour. Language: Wolof with French/English Subtitles. From: GTC Paris.
Restored in 2008 by the World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca
di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory.
The story of Touki Bouki goes back centuries: men have always set out for new lands where they believe time never stops… Only few adventurers seem to make it, but that has never stopped anyone…
Djibril left his country with the dream of finding success and solace in Europe. He soon discovered, however, the cruelty of life. While his dream fell apart little by little Djibril found he was unable to leave “Europe”, his host country. That was when returning to Africa became the real dream for him. Ending his days in Africa was a dream he would never fulfill."Touki Bouki is a prophetic film. Its portrayal of 1973 Senegalese society is not too different from today’s reality. Hundreds of young Africans die every day at the Strait of Gibraltar trying to reach Europe (Melilla and Ceuta). Who has never heard of that before?All their hardships find their voice in Djibril’s film: the young nomads who think they can cross the desert ocean and find their own lucky star and happiness but are disappointed by the human cruelty they encounter. Touki Bouki is a beautiful, upsetting and unexpected film that makes us question ourselves.What a pleasure and what an achievement for Martin Scorsese’s Foundation to give Djibril Diop Mambéty a second life. To all those who support cinema: bravo!"
Souleymane Cissé, May 2008
Notes on the restoration
Touki Bouki has been digitally restored
at 2K resolution using the original 35 mm camera and sound negatives
provided by the director’s son Teemour Diop Mambéty
and preserved at the GTC in Paris.
Digital restoration
brought the film’s original chromatic elements to light. At the
end of the digital process a new 35 mm internegative was produced.
The restoration
has been carried out by Cineteca
di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata
Laboratory in May 2008.
>> HANYO
(The Housemaid)
by Kim Ki-Young,
South Korea, 1960
Written, directed and edited by Kim Ki-Young. Music: Han Sang-Ki. Art director: Park Seok-in. Director of Photography: Kim Deok-jin. Producer: Kim Young-chul. Production Company: Korean Munye Films Co., Ltd. Starring: Lee Eun-shim (Housemaid), Kim Jin-kyu (Dong-sik), Ju Jeung-nyeo (Dong-sik’s wife), Um Aeng-ran (Cho Kyung-hee). Running Time:110’. Colour: b&w. Language: Korean with English subtitles.
Restored in 2008 by KOFA with the support of the World Cinema Foundation
"Kim Ki-young’s Hanyo, or The Housemaid, is one of the true classics of South Korean cinema, and when I finally had the opportunity to see the picture, I was startled. That this intensely, even passionately claustrophobic film is known only to the most devoted film lovers in the west is one of the great accidents of film history. I’m proud that the World Cinema Foundation is participating in the restoration and preservation of this remarkable picture. I am eager for more people to get to know and love The Housemaid."
Martin Scorsese, February 2008
"In the film, the composer
sleeps with his housemaid while his wife is gone to her parents’ house;
he loses everything to the housemaid with personality disorders. Viewers
of the film said that the story could sufficiently occur in reality;
at that time, many such incidents occurred. Many households could afford
to hire housemaids for low costs; but housewives were worried about such
situations at the back of their minds. I made a set for the two-story
house, which I thought to be a miniature of the world. I made all accessories
and furniture for the film on my own, and especially I worked hard on
lighting. Viewers of the film praised the beautiful scenes, and asked
me what was the secret; however, I did not readily give the answer."
KIM Ki-Young
Hanyo (The Housemaid) has been restored digitally by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA) with the support of the World Cinema Foundation. The original negative of the film was found in 1982 with two missing reels, 5 and 8. In 1990 an original release print with handwritten English subtitles was found and used to complete the copy. Unfortunately, this copy was highly damaged, and the English subtitles occupied almost half of the frame area. So far the restoration process has included flicker and grain reduction, scratch and dust removal, color grading, etc. and has turned out to be very complex. The final removal of the subtitles is expected by the end of the year.
>> SUSUZ
YAZ (Dry Summer)
by Metin
Erksan, Turkey, 1964
Directed
by Metin Erksan. Story by: Necati Cumali. Screenplay: Metin Erksan
Kemal
Inci, Ismet Soydan. Editor: Stuart Gellman. Director of Photography: Ali
Ugur. Original Music: Manos Hatzidakis, Yamaci. Producer: Ulvi Doğan.
Starring: Ulvi Doğan (Hassan), Erol Taş (Osman), Hülya
Koçyiğit (Bahar). Length: 2349 m. Running time: 75’.
Colour: b&w. Language: Turkish with French and English subtitles.
Restored in 2008 by the World Cinema Foundation at Cineteca
di Bologna at L’Immagine
Ritrovata Laboratory.
"Dry Summer is a film of passion. A passion for water as well as the obsessive passion created by forbidden love. Who does water belong to? Can anyone actually own this fundamental life element, “the blood of the earth” as the director describes it?
Here is a film that, in the 45 years
since it was made, has lost none of its universal qualities, none of
its relevance, particularly today when wars and rebellions are waged
because of droughts.
Dry Summer is an important
piece of cinema because it is unlike any other film made at the time
and its narrative is strikingly original.
Dry Summer is a take on
the Cain and Abel story... It is a contemporary version of the tragedy
that scarred humanity thousands of years ago. And another version of
the film’s story was to unfold in real life simply because the
film was made.
Dry Summer is a film of
captivity...
Authorities at the time objected to Dry Summer representing Turkey overseas, which presented all kinds of obstacles when the film came to the Berlin Film Festival. The film walked away with the Golden Bear, but before success could even be celebrated it was ‘taken captive’ and completely forgotten for the next 45 years.
Today, in these times of intellectually dry summers, when greed is driving humanity to the brink of starvation, this film could hardly be more valid. Dry Summer is one of the most important legacies of Turkish cinema, and thanks to restoration it can be re-discovered by the next generations of audiences all over the world."
Fatih Akin, May 2008
The restoration of Susuz Yaz used
the original 35mm camera negative and the original 17.5 mm sound negative
and recaptured the black and white film’s tonal nuances.
The film’s
producer, Ulvi Dogan, provided the prints.
An interpositive preserved
at the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung in Wiesbaden was used for the
negative’s
last missing reel.
The opening and closing credits,
missing from all available sources, have been digitally reconstructed.
The restoration has been carried out by Cineteca
di Bologna / L’Immagine
Ritrovata Laboratory in May 2008.
