The 39th HKIFF to screen various restored classics And Martin Scorsese’s latest documentary work – The 50 Year Argument

10 March 2015 (Hong Kong) – The 39th Hong Kong International Film Festival will continue its popular program of screening immaculate digital restoration of classic films. This year’s festival program includes The Tales of Hoffman (1951) – adapted from Jacques Offenbach’s opera piece, Once Upon a Time in America (1984) by Italian director Sergio Leone, The Color of Pomegranates (1969) by Sergei Parajanov. In addition, The 39th Hong Kong International Film Festival will also feature Martin Scorsese’s latest document – The 50 Year Argument.

The Tales of Hoffman is a film adaptation of Jacques Offenbach’s opera, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Powell and Pressburger’s fantastical rendition of the Offenbach opera is an extravagant treat for the senses, a bold fusion of music, dance, art and performance, and an allegory of the sacrifices one makes in the name of art. The Tales of Hoffman recounts a poet’s three lost loves – the automaton Olympia, the Venetian courtesan Giulietta, and the ailing soprano Antonia. Its restoration was supported by Scorsese’s Film Foundation.

Sergio Leone’s magnificent last film – Once Upon a Time in America, delves into the myth of the American gangster, with its story of ‘Noodles’ Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his crew operating in Prohibition-era New York. Spanning over four decades, this epic story about loyalty, betrayal, and the American dream – now in its extended 251-minute version, was restored by Martin Scorsese and Leone’s family.

“In the temple of cinema there are images, lights and reality. Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple” so wrote Jean-Luc Godard about this director, whose masterpiece, The Color of Pomegranates, created a new language of film. Parajanov created a poetic and mythic world of ethnic identity, aspiration, and culture and language. Banned from export and withdrawn from circulation in the USSR, the film nonetheless has become a global classic, and is restored by World Cinema Project, a program of The Film Foundation and provided by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna.

The New York Review of Books was born in the struggles of the 1960s, from Civil Rights to the Middle East. It is known for its lengthy and thoughtful critiques, its independent polemical voices and the consistent engagement of major scholars and active readers. The 50 Year Argument was directed by Martin Scorsese (and collaborator David Tedeschi), and weaves together archival footage and contemporary interviews into vivid, engaging living history.