Cinema Ritrovato 2019

Asylrecht is a curious production: medium-length, an unclassifiable cross between documentary and fiction, made on order of the British Film Section, premiered at the Venice Film Festival, shown for the first time in West Germany on the occasion of a refugee congress, and never regularly released except by way of non-commercial distribution for decades in various versions. Call it a crypto classic, like several other works of Rudolf Werner Kipp, a master of educational filmmaking who, in his finest achievements, did honor to his professed main inspiration: John Grierson. Kipp filmed with real refugees in actual camps. While in many cases scenes were arranged with their participation, some of the most dramatic moments were shot using a hidden camera. The refugees whose plights we learn about here mainly try to leave the Soviet-occupied areas for the Trizone, but not everybody could enter. Curious considering that West Germany would need every person able to work (in fact, later shorts about refugees stress exactly this as the main argument for being less hostile towards the strangers). In the film's most haunting shots, groups of refugees walk like spectres through misty woods and meadows-lost to the world, fallen through a crack in space and time.

A veteran homicide detective who has witnessed his socialite girlfriend kill her husband sees his newly-minted detective brother assigned to the case alongside him.

Deputy sheriff Destry tames the town of Bottle Neck, including saloon singer Frenchy.

Written by Israel Becker, this is the first feature film to represent the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective. Shot on location at Landsberg, the largest DP camp in U.S.-occupied Germany, and mixing neorealist and expressionist styles, the film follows a Polish Jew and his family from pre-war Warsaw through Auschwitz and the DP camps.

An Iowa family finds adventure, love, and heartbreak when they spend a week at the state fair.

A small town in California is attacked by Martians, beginning a worldwide invasion.

Lilac is consorting with the criminal scum of Paris but then she falls in love with a handsome detective...

Three outlaws come to the aid of a young girl after her father is killed.

Notorious gunfighter Jimmy Ringo rides into town to find his true love, who doesn't want to see him. He hasn't come looking for trouble, but trouble finds him around every corner.

While building an irrigation system for a Southwestern desert community, an engineer vies with a local cowboy for the affections of a rancher's daughter.

A young gentleman goes to Australia where he reunites with his now married childhood sweetheart, only to find out she has become an alcoholic and harbors dark secrets.

When a 13-year-old boy is falsely accused of stealing his teacher's watch he runs away, embarking on a ship and experiencing many dangerous situations, fearful of the consequences of returning home.

No one seems to understand or love Fay, the little spoiled granddaughter of William Van Loan, a hard-hearted capitalist, but the old family butler, who tells her fairy stories. In Powhatan, a mining town controlled by Van Loan, Bessie, a sweet motherless child of Jasper Hunt, a mine foreman, lives with their housekeeper, Mrs. Flannigan. The mining company raises the price of food stuffs at the only store; the men resent this, and failing to get increased pay, strike. Van Loan refuses to yield and decides to use scab labor. Scenes of violence follow and, compelled to go to Powhatan, Van Loan takes Fay with him. Fay meets and plays with Bessie and for fun they change dresses. Separated, the unusual likeness deceives the Van Loan governess, who supposes Bessie to be Fay and whisks her away. Mrs. Flannigan finds and takes Fay, sick from exposure, to the Hunt home. Business hurriedly recalls Van Loan and mistaken for a changed Fay, Bessie revolutionizes the Van Loan household by her sweetness. Hunt, the real leader of the striking men, is summoned to meet Van Loan. During the unsuccessful arbitration meeting, Bessie comes in to bid her "grandfather" good night and, seeing her father, rushes to his arms. Hunt, busy with the strike, supposes her to be ill at home. They are all dumbfounded. Bessie tells them how she and Fay changed clothes. Looking up the family trees, the likeness of the "twin" kiddies is explained, and, completely won over, Van Loan yields to the men and Hunt is made mine superintendent. Years of dread follow, and just as a report of the other's death reaches him, his foe appears, immensely wealthy and wreaks the vengeance in a spectacular manner.

A bounty hunter escorts a killer to be tried for murder, with the killer's brother after them.

In Pontus, the land of the Amazons, gender roles and natures are completely reversed: men stay at home and take care of the children and women are the strong sex, thanks to the sacred girdle of the Roman goddess Diana. It is in the care of Queen Hippolyta and her sister Antiope, the commander of the female armed forces. Only Sapiens, Queen Hippolyta's new husband, advocates women's rights.

A judge sees his illegitimate daughter facing a trial for the murder of her newborn child, also out of wedlock. He is certain that she will be sentenced to death.

Ngando and Ndomé; are in love. Ngando wishes to marry Ndomé; but her family reminds him that the traditional dowry must be settled. Unfortunately, Ngando is poor and unable to fulfill the tradition. Ndomé; is pregnant and bears his child. According to the village tradition, she must take a husband, at least one who can afford to pay the dowry. The villagers decide that Ndomé; should marry Ngando's uncle, who has already three sterile wives. In despair, the young man kidnaps his daughter upon the day of the traditional feast. An African Romeo and Juliet story.

French POW Dumaine is sequestered near the castle of a prideful Prussian nobleman, Count Reinmacher, who lives for the day that his four sons will march triumphantly into Paris. Axelle, the daughter of one of the sons, makes periodic goodwill visits to the prison compound, and by-and-by she falls in love with Dumaine.

Peggy and her friend Millie are strolling down Broadway while Jimmy and Mac are trolling Broadway, and the four get together. Jimmy and Peggy get together in many romantic ways and Peggy soon finds that her expected baby needs a father. Since Jimmy is the father (to-be) she informs him, but Jimmy thinks she is lying.

Originally made with a German soundtrack for screening in occupied Germany and Austria, this film was the first documentary to show what the Allies found when they liberated the Nazi extermination camps: the survivors, the conditions, and the evidence of mass murder. The film includes accounts of the economic aspects of the camps' operation, the interrogation of captured camp personnel, and the enforced visits of the inhabitants of neighboring towns, who, along with the rest of their compatriots, are blamed for complicity in the Nazi crimes - one of the few such condemnations in the Allied war records.

The official U.S. government film about the 1st Nuremberg trial (The Trial of the Major Nazi War Criminals) which lasted from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946.

Hopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion-picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.

The O'Leary brothers--honest Jack and roguish Dion--become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

About the friendship of the Soviet people and Arabs working to build the gigantic Aswan Dam.