ROME — The Venice Film Festival will unspool a second installment of its revered vintage cinema Italiano retro titled "These Phantoms 2: Italian Cinema Rediscovered."
A new series of some 30 off-the-radar Italo pics dating between 1940 and 1980 has been unearthed from the vaults of Italy's National Cinetheque by the Lido retro's curator Sergio Toffetti, who is also the cinetheque's chief.
Several works are being restored specifically for the occasion and are likely to start circulating again following the fest.
This time around, the Lido lineup's diverse, often forgotten, goods have been divided into three sections.
"Eccentric" films will include Mario Monicelli's 1980 "Hurricane Rosie," in which Gerard Depardieu plays a former boxer who falls in love with a woman wrestler; films "for the people" will comprise "Uno Tra La Folla" (One Between the Crowd) a 1946 reconstruction of Italy's then recent liberation from Fascism, starring late great thesp Eduardo de Filippo; the "Films with female stars" section will see young Claudia Cardinale starrer "The Lovemakers," from 1961, back on the big screen.
A separate cluster of "forgotten classics" will include a film helmed by Federico Fellini's brother, Riccardo Fellini, titled "Stories in the Sand."
The 66th edition of the Venice Film Festival will run Sept. 2-12.
