SAG HARBOR CINEMA PRESENTS
WEDNESDAY MATINEES OF RIALTO PICTURES’ RESTORATIONS
OF CLASSIC FILMS
February 26th-April 16th, 2025
The Cinema will screen eight restored films from acclaimed repertory distributor Rialto Pictures every Wednesday afternoon including Rififi, The Tales of Hoffmann, The Pianist, The Third Man, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Billy Liar, The Grand Illusion, and A Woman is a Woman
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Starting on February 26th Sag Harbor Cinema will pay an eight week tribute to the esteemed, New York-based distributor of classic cinema through a series of midweek matinee screenings of works by, among others, Jules Dassin, Jean Renoir, Michael Powell, Carol Reed and Jean-Luc Godard.
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Restorations of beloved masterpieces of foreign and American cinema from Rialto have been part of SHC’s programs since it re-opened its doors in 2021, with films such as Jacques Deray’s La Piscine; Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria; Francis Coppola’s The Conversation; the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers; Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge; and Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless on its 60th anniversary.
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Founded in 1997 by Film Forum’s legendary Artistic Director of Repertory Bruce Goldstein, who was joined a year later by partner Adrienne Halpern, Rialto Pictures has become a leading theatrical distributor of classic foreign and American films, with a rich catalog that includes generous selections of French New Wave and poetic realism, British and French film noir, Ealing comedies, British social realism, American cult classics, and commedia all’italiana in between.
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“Bruce and Adrienne’s impeccable taste and passion for film have made Rialto an indispensable resource for independent and arthouse cinemas like ours. It is because of Rialto that we have access to mint 35mm prints and 4K restorations of many renowned classics as well as great films that needed to be rediscovered,” says SHC’s Artistic Director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. “Their contribution to contemporary film culture and to the moviegoing experience in the US is invaluable.”
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“Rialto was a natural extension to my work as a film programmer, at Film Forum and other New York theaters. A lot of the classics I wanted to show were available only in the worst possible 35mm prints, or not at all, and I had many Holy Grails of unobtainable masterpieces,” says Rialto’s Goldstein. “But it was Godard’s Contempt, photographed in gorgeous color and CinemaScope, that was my real impetus for starting the company. Contempt had no U.S. distribution in 1996, so the only way I could strike a sparkling new 35mm print was to get the theatrical rights myself. We backed it up with a fresh new marketing campaign, a new English translation and new subtitles, a brand new trailer — in other words, releasing it exactly as we would a new movie. And that’s how we’ve done every one of our releases since. In our 25 years, we’ve re-released nearly 100 international classics and now represent the StudioCanal catalogue, one of the world’s largest film libraries.”
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The series kicks off February 26th with Jules Dassin’s 1955 thriller Rififi which set new standards for all heist films to follow. In March, the matinees will feature Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1951 visionary The Tales of Hoffmann, based on the 1881 opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach; Roman Polanski’s Academy award-winning 2002 biopic The Pianist about celebrated Polish composer and pianist Władysław Szpilman, a role that won Adrien Brody an Oscar; and Carol Reed’s 1949 noir The Third Man written by Graham Greene and starring Orson Welles.
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In April, the Cinema will screen two films from Jean Renoir: The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) which François Truffaut called “the richest in miracles of camera work, the most full of pure beauty and truth…a film touched by divine grace”; and WWI film The Grand Illusion (1937), the first foreign language film ever nominated for a best picture Academy Award and one of the most celebrated antiwar films of all time, called “Cinema Enemy No. 1” by Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who had prints of the film seized when the Germans occupied France during WWII.
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The matinees will also include John Schlesinger’s 1963 British New Wave comedy Billy Liar starring Tom Courtenay as Billy and Julie Christie as one of his three girlfriends. Finally, the series will close out on April 16th with one of Rialto’s latest restoration, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1961 New Wave take on Hollywood musicals A Woman is a Woman starring Anna Karina as a dancer who desperately wants to have a baby with her unenthusiastic boyfriend.
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Wednesday Matinees of Rialto Pictures’ Restorations of Classic Films is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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The series will run from February 26th-April 16th, with one of the eight films screening every Wednesday. The full lineup and tickets are available at the box office or sagharborcinema.org.
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THE FILMS
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BILLY LIAR
Directed by John Schlesinger
UK, 1963; 98 mins, in English
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Billy Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is a feckless aspiring comedy writer in a Yorkshire town who indulges in a rich fantasy life amidst the reality of his endlessly nagging family, stuffy boss, and two fiancées. When his old flame Liz (Julie Christie) appears, the consequences of his immature decisions come crashing down.
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THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE
(LE CRIME DE MONSIEUR LANGE)
Directed by Jean Renoir
France, 1936; 83 mins, in French with English subtitles
After Amedée Lange’s (René Lefèvre) maliciously charming boss Batala (Jules Berry) is presumed dead following his flight from debt collectors, Lange, with the assistance of his lover Valentine (Florelle), helps organize a community of workers into a cooperative publishing house for his hit Western serial “Arizona Jim.”
Restored in 4K by Studiocanal at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory (Bologna)
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THE GRAND ILLUSION (LA GRANDE ILLUSION)
Directed by Jean Renoir
France, 1937; 114 mins, in French with English subtitles
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A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin), grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
Restored in 4K by Studiocanal and the Cinémathèque de Toulouse from the nitrate camera negative by L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory (Bologna)
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THE PIANIST
Directed by Roman Polanski
France/Poland/Germany/UK, 2002; 149 mins, in English, German, and Russian with English subtitles
Rated R
A celebrated composer and pianist, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody) plays the last live music heard over Polish radio before Nazi artillery hits. During the brutal occupation, Szpilman evades deportation, struggling to stay alive in the devastated Warsaw Ghetto. Based on the autobiography of Władysław Szpilman. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival and three Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay).
Restored in 4K from the original camera negative by StudioCanal in collaboration with DI Factory at DI Factory and reKino laboratory. Funding provided by StudioCanal and the Polish Film Institute.
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RIFIFI
Directed by Jules Dassin
France, 1955; 118 mins, in French with English subtitles
Tony Le Stéphanois (Jean Servais), back from prison after taking a rap for Jo le Suédois (Carl Möhner), is ready to settle a few scores and mastermind a brilliant jewel heist. A worldwide smash hit, Rififi earned director Jules Dassin the Best Director prize at Cannes and set the standard for screen robberies for decades to come.
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THE TALES OF HOFFMANN
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
UK, 1951; 133 mins, in English
Newly restored version of the 1951 Powell and Pressburger classic, based on the 1881 opera by Jacques Offenbach. An anthology of fantastic and romantic adventures, recounted by the fableist Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) and featuring Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes), Ludmilla Tchérina, and Ann Ayars. The film has been singled out by both Martin Scorsese and George A. Romero as a major influence on their own work.
Restored by The Film Foundation and the BFI National Archive in association with Studiocanal.
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THE THIRD MAN
Directed by Carol Reed
UK, 1949; 104 mins, in English
Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives in a bombed-out, post-war Vienna at the invitation of his childhood friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) only to find him dead. Martins develops the ultimate conspiracy theory after learning of a “third man” present at the time of Harry’s death, butting up against interference from British police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), and falling head-over-heels for Harry’s grief-stricken lover Anna (Alida Valli).
4K restoration by Deluxe Restoration on behalf of Studiocanal
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A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
France, 1961; 84 mins, in French with English subtitles
Dancer Angela (Anna Karina) wants to have a child, but finds her boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) is an unwilling participant. She decides to ask his friend (Jean-Paul Belmondo) instead.
The restoration was produced from the original 35mm negative and sound negative. Scanned in 4K by Hiventy, then color-graded and digitally cleaned to remove imperfections in the original elements. Supervised by Studiocanal’s Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget. Restored with the support of the CNC.
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As a not-for-profit 501(c)3, community-based organization, Sag Harbor Cinema is dedicated to presenting the past, present and future of the Movies and to preserving and educating about films, filmmaking, and the film-going experience in its three state-of-the-art theaters. The Cinema engages its audiences and the community year-round through dialogue, discovery, and appreciation of the moving image – from blockbusters to student shorts and everything in between. Revitalized and reimagined through unprecedented community efforts to rebuild the iconic Main Street structure after a fire nearly destroyed it in 2016, SHC continues a long historic tradition of entertainment in the heart of Sag Harbor Village.
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Rialto Pictures
Founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein, who was joined a year later by partner Adrienne Halpern, New York–based Rialto Pictures has become a leading theatrical distributor of classic foreign and American films in the US, with a catalog that ranges from Alfred Hitchcock’s silent The Ring (1927) to John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981)—including generous selections of French New Wave and poetic realism, British and French film noir, Ealing comedies, British social realism, American cult classics, and commedia all’italiana in between. Rialto specializes in relaunching venerable classics in new 35mm prints or 4K digital restorations—after decades of being circulated only in inferior copies—with updated subtitles and fresh new posters and trailers. But it’s also known for rediscovering overlooked, undistributed, and underappreciated films. Since 2012, Rialto has been the main U.S. theatrical and non-theatrical representative of the Studiocanal library of 6,500 international titles, one of the world’s most important film catalogues.
In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the company’s National Sales Director. In 1999, Rialto received a special Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics, and in 2000 a special award from the New York Film Critics Circle, presented to Goldstein and Halpern by Jeanne Moreau. The two co-presidents have each received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Most recently, Rialto received the 2019 Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics “for distributing 4K restorations of beloved classics like Kind Hearts and Coronets and for presenting neglected work by international masters, such as Fellini’s The White Sheik, and, for the first time, the uncut version of Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli, with restored prints and upgraded subtitles.” In 2013, Goldstein became the first person to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for Film from George Eastman House. He has also received career awards from Anthology Film Archive and the San Francisco Film Festival (Mel Novikoff Award).
For its 10th anniversary in 2007, Rialto was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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