Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà announce Beware of Dario Argento: A 20-Film Retrospective, from June 17-29. After three decades of collaboration, the two institutions join forces once again, to co-present the twenty-film retrospective of the iconic Italian horror director’s influential feature films, 17 of them premiering in brand-new 4K restorations prepared expressly for this occasion by Cinecittà, with the director in person for select screenings.
“We are delighted to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our ongoing partnership with FLC, by offering its audience the world premiere of 17 restorations of Dario Argento’s magnificent works, prepared by our laboratory at Cinecittà. Following the record-breaking 2018 Luchino Visconti and 2019 Ermanno Olmi retrospectives, we have decided to come back after these difficult months with Dario Argento, whose retrospective has already been booked by international venues for the next two years,” said Chiara Sbarigia, President of Cinecittà.
“It is always a pleasure to collaborate with Cinecittà, partner on some of our most popular retrospectives of all time, and this time in honor of a living legend,” said Dennis Lim, Director of Programming, FLC and Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “To be able to present these striking new restorations to New York audiences with Dario Argento in person is a thrill and an honor.”
Ever since his heart-stopping directorial debut in 1970, Dario Argento has been redrawing the boundaries of cinematic horror with flamboyant violence, feverish plotting, and deliriously stylized compositions. Initially associated with giallo, the pulpy Italian subgenre he helped formalize and would later take to unprecedented heights with his international breakthrough, Deep Red (1975), Argento embraces a gamut of fantastical influences — from sublime Gothic art and penny dreadfuls to Murnau, Hitchcock, and Disney — with his distinctively baroque style of disorientating cinematography, stained-glass colorwork, and elaborate musical scores (often composed by his own rotating house group, Goblin).
RELATED: 45 Years Later: Black Belly of the Tarantula Is Must-See Giallo
The retrospective will pay homage to Argento’s singular voice in horror cinema, from his seminal debut feature The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, widely regarded for popularizing giallo internationally, and other unforgettable contributions to the subgenre including Deep Red, Tenebrae, and Opera; to his masterful paranormal-tinged Phenomena, and supernatural “Three Mothers Trilogy.” It includes the wildly influential Suspiria, 35mm screenings of Inferno, and Mother of Tears. Also represented will be underscreened gems like Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome, The Black Cat, and Dracula 3D, as well as his made-for-television feature Do You Like Hitchcock?. The lineup also will host the North American Premiere of Dark Glasses, his first film in 10 years, distributed by Shudder.
Organized by Madeline Whittle and Tyler Wilson of Film at Lincoln Center, and by Camilla Cormanni, Paola Ruggiero, and Marco Cicala of Cinecittà. Co-produced by Cinecittà, Rome. Presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute.
Beware of Dario Argento: A 20-Film Retrospective is sponsored by MUBI, a curated streaming service for award-winning cinema.
