Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024: Charles Burnett’s “The Annihilation of Fish,”

After a five-year hiatus (due to the Covid pandemic), Milestone cofounders Dennis Doros and Amy Heller will be returning to Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato — the home of many great films, delicious meals, refreshing Aperol spritzes, and glorious meetings with cinema friends from around the world.

For 2024, Milestone is excited to help present a film restoration that took the company two decades to complete.

Charles Burnett first asked Dennis to try to locate the rights and material for The Annihilation of Fish in 2002.

Centennial of Filmmaker Lionel Rogosin

This year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato is also honoring the centennial of filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. As the representative for all the films by this great radical director, Milestone will be celebrating both his birthday and the Cineteca di Bologna’s restoration of four of his films!

Our colleague Yaël Halbron at Kino Lorber will also be at the festival representing our catalog for international distribution.

Charles Burnett’s The Annihilation of Fish

When The Annihilation of Fish first screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 1999, viewers loved Charles Burnett’s quirky comedy. But one harsh review sent the film into distribution limbo.

Milestone acquired the rights in 2022, after much research, many false leads, and even more patience.

Working with filmmaker Burnett (who helmed the masterpiece Killer of Sheep), the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson-Lucas Family Foundation, this wonderful love story of two unusual people was restored.

Starring James Earl Jones as Obiadiah Fish, a man who wrestles daily with an invisible demon and Lynn Redgrave as Poinsettia. a woman heartbroken after breaking up with the ghost of composer Giacomo Puccini, the film treats their delusions and romance with tenderness and humor.

The Annihilation of Fish screens Tuesday June 25 at 11:00 at Sala Scorsese with introductions by Jillian Borders from the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Dennis Doros;

Friday June 28 at 9:00 at Sala Scorsese

 

Lionel Rogosin’s Centennial celebration When Lionel Rogosin decided to become a filmmaker, he did so with the express idea of documenting and changing the world. And he did just that. Starting with his first feature On The Bowery (screening in Bologna in a new restoration!) — a devastating film portrait of life on New York’s skid row — Rogosin gave voice and agency to oppressed people. Il Cinema Ritrovato is showing four new restorations of his groundbreaking cinema. Lionel Rogosin’s Centennial will be celebrated: Thursday June 27 at 12:00 at DAMSlab with Michael Rogosin, Dennis Doros, and Andrea Meneghelli in conversation Black Fantasy, How Do Like Them Bananas, and Oysters ‘R’ in Season will screen: Tuesday June 25 at 18:00 in DAMSlab with an introduction by Michael Rogosin On The Bowery will screen: Tuesday June 25 at 16:45 at Cinema Arlecchino with an intro by Michael Rogosin Friday June 28 at 17:10 at DAMSlab