The section Venice Classics has grown into a way for classic cinema to reach younger audiences, who are today the majority of the VFF’s attendees and who never had the chance to see these films properly. They probably watched some degraded version on YouTube—we can barely call that ‘watching a movie’. We want these younger generations to understand the importance and the beauty that is essential to understand and appreciate the cinema of today. Restoration is a growing industry, which makes for ample choice year after year. Just to make a couple examples relative to important international cinema, the Government of Japan recently gave the Japan Film Foundation a large trust to restore Classic Japanese cinema. France did the same. They are restoring basically everything they have. And then there are private enterprises: they know how to market the appeal of classics on streaming platforms. Occasionally, restored classics will be screen in theatres, too, with decent-sized audiences. We couldn’t be happier, and it is great that commercial considerations affected positively the upkeep of an heritage of unparalleled value.
