30 Years of The Film Foundation
63 Episodes
In 1990, Martin Scorsese founded an organization whose stated mission told the world, in no uncertain terms, that movies matter, that the art of cinema and its history is a legacy worth preserving. Three decades later, The Film Foundation is an indispensable pillar of moving-image culture, helping to make possible over 850 restorations so far and raising much-needed awareness of the necessity of film preservation as central to the safeguarding of our cultural heritage. In recognition of thirty years of vital work, the Criterion Channel looks back at a selection of the many brilliant films that, thanks to the efforts of The Film Foundation, have been rescued from the ravages of time for future generations to discover. This series will expand over the next year, with new additions to be announced monthly.
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30 Years of The Film Foundation: Martin Scorsese and Ari Aster in Conversation
Episode 1
In the following conversation, recorded remotely in 2020, filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Ari Aster discuss the mission, evolution, and ongoing work of The Film Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving motion-picture history that Scorsese established in 1990.
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Lucía
Episode 2
Directed by Humberto Solás • 1968 • Cuba
Starring Raquel Revuelta, Eslinda Núñez, Adela LegráA breathtaking vision of Cuban revolutionary history wrought with white-hot intensity by Humberto Solás, this operatic epic tells the story of a changing country through the eyes of three women, each na...
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Pixote
Episode 3
Directed by Héctor Babenco • 1981 • Brazil
Starring Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, Gilberto Moura
With its bracing blend of unflinching realism and aching humanity, Héctor Babenco's electrifying look at lost youth fighting to survive on the bottom rung of Brazilian society helped put th... -
2:00:01Episode 4
Taipei Story
Episode 4
Directed by Edward Yang • 1985 • Taiwan
Starring Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai ChinEdward Yang’s second feature is a mournful anatomy of a city caught between the past and the present. Made in collaboration with Yang's fellow New Taiwan Cinema master Hou Hsiao-hsien, TAIPEI STORY chronicles the grow...
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Revenge
Episode 5
Directed by Ermek Shinarbaev • 1989 • Soviet Union
Starring Aleksandr Pan, Valentina Tyo, Kasym ZhakibayevA child is raised in Korea to avenge the death of his father’s first child in this decades-spanning tale of obsession and violence, the third collaboration between director Ermek Shinarbaev...
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1:51:23Episode 6
The Housemaid
Episode 6
Directed by Kim Ki-young • 1960 • South Korea
Starring Kim Jin-kyu, Ju Jung-nyeo, Lee Eun-shimA torrent of sexual obsession, revenge, and betrayal is unleashed under one roof in this venomous melodrama from South Korean master Kim Ki-young. Immensely popular in its home country when it was rele...
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1:21:28Episode 7
EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS: Part 1
Episode 7
Directed by Mikko Niskanen • 1972 • Finland
Starring Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo PentikäinenNewly restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, this long-unsung Finnish classic has been hailed by Aki Kaurismäki as “one of the masterpieces of European Cinema.” A relentles...
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1:21:59Episode 8
EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS: Part 2
Episode 8
Directed by Mikko Niskanen • 1972 • Finland
Starring Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo PentikäinenNewly restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, this long-unsung Finnish classic has been hailed by Aki Kaurismäki as “one of the masterpieces of European Cinema.” A relentles...
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1:28:31Episode 9
EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS: Part 3
Episode 9
Directed by Mikko Niskanen • 1972 • Finland
Starring Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo PentikäinenNewly restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, this long-unsung Finnish classic has been hailed by Aki Kaurismäki as “one of the masterpieces of European Cinema.” A relentles...
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1:16:08Episode 10
EIGHT DEADLY SHOTS: Part 4
Episode 10
Directed by Mikko Niskanen • 1972 • Finland
Starring Mikko Niskanen, Tarja-Tuulikki Tarsala, Paavo PentikäinenNewly restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, this long-unsung Finnish classic has been hailed by Aki Kaurismäki as “one of the masterpieces of European Cinema.” A relentles...
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1:43:14Episode 11
After the Curfew
Episode 11
Directed by Usmar Ismail • 1954 • Indonesia
Starring A. N. Alcaff, Dhalia, Netty HerawatyGiving voice to the anguish of a nation fighting for its soul, Usmar Ismail’s AFTER THE CURFEW follows the descent into disillusionment of a former freedom fighter who is unable to readjust to civilian life...
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Redes
Episode 12
Directed by Emilio Gómez Muriel and Fred Zinnemann • 1936 • Mexico
Starring Silvio Hernández del Valle, Antonio Lara, Miguel FigueroaEarly in his career, the Austrian-born future Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann codirected with Emilio Gómez Muriel the politically and emotionally searing REDES. In th...
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1:30:40Episode 13
Touki bouki
Episode 13
Directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty • 1973 • Senegal
Starring Magaye Niang, Mareme Niang, Aminata FallWith a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this French New Wave-influenced fantasy-drama, tw...
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Trances
Episode 14
Directed by Ahmed El Maânouni • 1981 • Morocco
The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic subject of this captivating musical documentary. Storytellers through song, with connections to political theater, the band became an international sensation (Western music critics have ofte...
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1:20:07Episode 15
The Color of Pomegranates
Episode 15
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1969 • Soviet Union
A breathtaking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES revives the splen...
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1:39:02Episode 16
Memories of Underdevelopment
Episode 16
Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea • 1968 • Cuba
Starring Sergio Corrieri, Daisy Granados, Omar ValdésThis film by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea is the most renowned work in the history of Cuban cinema. After his wife and family flee in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the bourgeois intellectual Serg...
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2:06:44Episode 17
Manila in the Claws of Light
Episode 17
Directed by Lino Brocka • 1975 • Philippines
Starring Hilda Koronel, Rafael Roco Jr., Lou Salvador Jr.Lino Brocka achieved international acclaim with this candid portrait of 1970s Manila, a breakout example of the more serious-minded filmmaking the director had turned to after building a career...
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Limite
Episode 18
Directed by Mario Peixoto • 1931 • Brazil
Starring Olga Breno, Taciana Rei, Carmen SantosAn astonishing creation, LIMITE is the only feature by the Brazilian director and author Mário Peixoto, made when he was just twenty-two years old. Inspired by a haunting André Kertész photograph on the cov...
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1:16:54Episode 19
Law of the Border
Episode 19
Directed by Lütfi Akad • 1966 • Turkey
Starring Yılmaz GüneySet along the Turkish-Syrian frontier, this terse, elemental tale of smugglers contending with a changing social landscape brought together two giants of Turkish cinema. Director Lütfi Ö. Akad had already made some of his country’s ...
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1:32:03Episode 20
Dry Summer
Episode 20
Directed by Metin Erksan • 1964 • Turkey
Starring Erol Taş, Hülya Koçyiğit, Ulvi DoğanWinner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival, Metin Erksan’s wallop of a melodrama follows the machinations of an unrepentantly selfish tobacco farmer who builds a dam t...
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2:38:28Episode 21
A River Called Titas
Episode 21
Directed by Ritwik Ghatak • 1973 • Bangladesh
Starring Kabari Choudhury, Roushan Jamil, Prabir MitraThe Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak’s stunningly beautiful, elegiac saga concerns the tumultuous lives of people in fishing villages along the banks of the Titas River in pre-Partition East Benga...
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1:25:25Episode 22
The Phantom of the Monastery
Episode 22
Directed by Fernando de Fuentes • 1934 • Mexico
Starring Marta Roel, Enrique del Campo, Carlos VillatoroLost in the forest, a trio of hikers enmeshed in an adulterous love triangle take refuge in a strange monastery that seems frozen in time. As bizarre portents—a bat-shaped shadow without a so...
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1:28:39Episode 23
L’Atalante
Episode 23
Directed by Jean Vigo • 1934 • France
In Jean Vigo's hands, an unassuming tale of conjugal love becomes an achingly romantic reverie of desire and hope. Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain, marries Juliette (Dita Parlo), an innocent country girl, and the two climb aboard Jean's boat, the L'Atalan...
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1:20:33Episode 24
Dos monjes
Episode 24
Directed by Juan Bustillo Oro • 1934 • Mexico
Starring Víctor Urruchúa, Carlos Villatoro, Magda HallerThis vividly stylized, broodingly intense early Mexican sound melodrama by Juan Bustillo Oro hinges on an audacious flashback structure. When an ailing monk recognizes a new brother at his cloi...