Alphaville
Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute
at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
September 2 – November 29, 2023
"Film distribution is an essential part of the theatrical film experience; quite literally, it would not be possible for BAMPFA to showcase many essential films from the history of cinema without the stellar work of Rialto Pictures, led by Bruce Goldstein, founder and president, and Adrienne Halpern, the company’s co-president since 1998. Together with dedicated staff members Eric Di Bernardo and Dave Franklin, Rialto Pictures holds a respected position as a boutique distributor that represents an exceptional catalog of international and American classics.
This salute features digital restorations of many landmark films, including the sixtieth anniversary rerelease of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival; Godard’s stylish neo-noir Alphaville; as well as two French thrillers, Army of Shadows and Le cercle rouge, directed by one of the best practitioners of the genre, Jean-Pierre Melville.The magnificent actor Alberto Sordi stars in two Italian classics, Federico Fellini’s first solo directorial effort, The White Sheik, and Dino Risi’s satirical Una vita difficile, which receives its long-overdue US release this year thanks to Rialto Pictures. We also present The Third Man, hailed by the New York Times as “one of the finest films ever made” and certainly the most famous collaboration between director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene. Rounding out the selection is an early masterpiece from postrevolutionary Iran, The Runner, directed by Amir Naderi, and Akira Kurosawa’s stunning film adaption of King Lear, the monumental Ran."
— Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
