World Cinema Project

Not to be confused with World Cinema Fund.

The World Cinema Project (WCP), formerly World Cinema Foundation, is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and restoration of neglected world cinema, founded by Martin Scorsese.

History

Founded in 2007 as the World Cinema Foundation by American filmmaker Martin Scorsese,^[1] it was inspired by the work of The Film Foundation in the United States, a similar venture which Scorsese founded with George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood in 1990.

Trances, a music documentary about Nass El Ghiwane an influential Moroccan music group, was picked by Martin Scorsese as the inaugural release for the foundation; it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and at Djemaa el-Fna square in Morocco.^[2]

Description and governance

The World Cinema Foundation is backed by an advisory board "Filmmaker Council" which includes Martin Scorsese, Fatih Akin, Souleymane Cissé, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Frears, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wong Kar-Wai, Abbas Kiarostami, Deepa Mehta, Ermanno Olmi, Raoul Peck, Cristi Puiu, Walter Salles, Abderrahmane Sissako, Elia Suleiman, Bertrand Tavernier, Wim Wenders, and Tian Zhuangzhuang.^[3]

After leaving his position at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Kent Jones became the foundation's executive director.^{[when?][citation needed]}

Restored films

English title	Year	Director	Country of origin
After the Curfew[A 1]	1954	Usmar Ismail	Indonesia
Alyam, Alyam	1978	Ahmed El Maanouni	Morocco
Badou Boy	1970	Djibril Diop Mambéty	Senegal
Black Girl[4][5][6]	1966	Ousmane Sembène	Senegal & France
Borom Sarret[7]	1963	Ousmane Sembène	Senegal
The Boys from Fengkuei	1983	Hou Hsiao-hsien	Taiwan
A Brighter Summer Day[8]	1991	Edward Yang	Taiwan
Chess of the Wind[9][A 2]	1976	Mohammad Reza Aslani	Iran
Chronicle of the Years of Fire	1975	Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina	Algeria
The Cloud-Capped Star	1960	Ritwik Ghatak	India
The Color of Pomegranates	1969	Sergei Parajanov	Soviet Union
Contras'city	1969	Djibril Diop Mambéty	Senegal
Downpour[A 1]	1972	Bahram Bayzai	Iran
Dry Summer[A 3][11]	1964	Metin Erksan	Turkey
The Dupes	1973	Tewfik Saleh	Syria
Eight Deadly Shots	1972	Mikko Niskanen	Finland
Él	1953	Luis Buñuel	Mexico
El fantasma del convento	1934	Fernando de Fuentes	Mexico
The Eloquent Peasant[12]	1969	Shadi Abdel Salam	Egypt
Enamorada	1946	Emilio Fernández	Mexico
The Housemaid[A 3][13]	1960	Kim Ki-young	South Korea
Insiang[A 4]	1976	Lino Brocka	Philippines
Kalpana[A 2]	1948	Uday Shankar	India
Kummatty	1979	Govindan Aravindan	India
Law of the Border[A 4]	1966	Lüfti Ö. Akad	Turkey
Limite[A 4][15][16]	1931	Mário Peixoto	Brazil
Los Olvidados	1950	Luis Buñuel	Mexico
Lucía[A 1]	1968	Humberto Solás	Cuba
Lumumba: Death of a Prophet	1990	Raoul Peck	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Macario	1960	Roberto Gavaldón	Mexico
Manila in the Claws of Light	1975	Lino Brocka	Philippines
Memories of Underdevelopment[17]	1968	Tomás Gutiérrez Alea	Cuba
Muna Moto[A 2]	1975	Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa	Cameroon
Mysterious Object at Noon[A 4]	2000	Apichatpong Weerasethakul	Thailand
The Night of Counting the Years[18]	1969	Shadi Abdel Salam	Egypt
Pixote[A 1]	1980	Héctor Babenco	Brazil
Prisioneros de la tierra[A 2]	1939	Mario Soffici	Argentina
Raid into Tibet	1966	Adrian Cowell	United Kingdom
Redes[A 3][20]	1936	Emilio Gómez Muriel & Fred Zinnemann	Mexico
Revenge[A 4][21]	1989	Ermek Shinarbaev	Soviet Union
A River Called Titas[A 3]	1973	Ritwik Ghatak	India & Bangladesh
Sambizanga[A 2]	1972	Sarah Maldoror	Angola
Soleil Ô[A 1][23]	1970	Med Hondo	Mauritania
The Stranger and the Fog	1974	Bahram Beyzai	Iran
Taipei Story[A 4]	1985	Edward Yang	Taiwan
Thampu	1978	Govindan Aravindan	India
Touki Bouki[A 3][24][25]	1973	Djibril Diop Mambéty	Senegal
Trances[A 3][26]	1981	Ahmed El Maanouni	Morocco
The Treasure	1970	Lester James Peries	Sri Lanka
Two Girls on the Street[A 2]	1939	André de Toth	Hungary
Two Monks[A 1]	1934	Juan Bustillo Oro	Mexico
The Woman with the Knife	1969	Timité Bassori	Côte d'Ivoire
Xiao Wu	1997	Jia Zhangke	China
Yam Daabo	1986	Idrissa Ouédraogo	Burkina Faso & France

Upcoming restorations

English title	Year	Director	Country of origin
The Winds of the Aures	1967	Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina	Algeria
Faces of Women	1985	Desiré Ecaré [citation needed]	Côte d'Ivoire

References

1. DVD Savant Blu-ray + DVD Review: Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project
2. Official Film Foundation site
3. World Cinema Foundation
4. 10 Movie Classics From Scorsese's World Cinema Project — Taste of Cinema
5. Martin Scorsese's mission to save African cinema - CNN
6. Partnership with the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers to restore African cinema|UNESCO
7. Martin Scorsese's mission to save African cinema - CNN
8. Criterion Collection: Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 | Blu-ray Review - IONCINEMA.com
9. "The Chess Game of the Wind". Film at Lincoln Center. Film at Lincoln Center, Inc. September 2020. Retrieved October 17, 2020. Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project.
10. "Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project". The Criterion Collection.
11. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is uneven but illuminating|AV Club
12. Martin Scorsese's mission to save African cinema - CNN
13. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is uneven but illuminating|AV Club
14. "Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project No. 2". The Criterion Collection.
15. 10 Movie Classics From Scorsese's World Cinema Project — Taste of Cinema
16. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, Ghost World and The Last Word: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks|Filmmaker Magazine
17. 10 Movie Classics From Scorsese's World Cinema Project — Taste of Cinema
18. Martin Scorsese's mission to save African cinema - CNN
19. "Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project No. 3". The Criterion Collection.
20. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is uneven but illuminating|AV Club
21. 10 Movie Classics From Scorsese's World Cinema Project — Taste of Cinema
22. "Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project No. 4". The Criterion Collection.
23. 10 Movie Classics From Scorsese's World Cinema Project — Taste of Cinema
24. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is uneven but illuminating|AV Club
25. The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema|Movies|Empire
26. Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is uneven but illuminating|AV Club

Notes

1. Included in the Criterion Collection WCP No. 3 Boxset^[19]
2. Included in the Criterion Collection WCP No. 4 Boxset^[22]
3. Included in the Criterion Collection WCP No. 1 Boxset^[10]
4. Included in the Criterion Collection WCP No. 2 Boxset^[14]

External links

• Official Film Foundation site
• Roger Ebert.com articlesabout said projectand the many films restored