Kevin Costner‘s 1990 western Dances With Wolves has an extended director’s cut that now has received a 4K restoration, which will premiere at the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland this summer.
Its Histoire(s) du Cinéma (History/-ies of Cinema) program was unveiled by organizers on Monday, offering restorations and classic screenings.
On Friday, Aug. 7, the audience in Locarno’s Piazza Grande square will get to experience the new version of Dances with Wolves, restored by Zurich-based laboratory Cinegrell in collaboration with the Locarno festival through its Locarno Heritage project and its international sales agent, K5 International. “Costner’s western epic, which won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, helped redefine the western at the turn of the 1990s and drew global attention to the historical plight of Indigenous peoples on the American continent,” Locarno said. “As presented on the giant screen of the Piazza Grande in the nearly four-hour extended edition – incorporating over half an hour of previously unseen additional material – this restoration offers audiences the chance to rediscover Costner’s expansive popular masterpiece as it was originally intended to be seen by the director himself.”
Safi Faye’s Letter From My Village (1975), the winner of the 2025 Heritage Restoration Contest that blends documentary and fiction, has also been newly restored by Cinegrell, the Locarno Heritage project and its rights holder, Arsenal FilmInstitut. “Recognized as the first feature film by a woman from sub-Saharan Africa to receive commercial distribution, Letter from My Village is set in the Serer region of rural Senegal and follows a young couple whose plans to marry are thwarted by drought and the precarious conditions of village life,” Locarno noted.
Said Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno’s artistic director: “The Locarno Film Festival’s connection with the history of cinema runs deep and spans all its eras and forms. From the tradition of major, innovative retrospectives – which are enriched each year with new and exciting additions – to the world-renowned restorations of Locarno Heritage, the festival has fostered a meaningful and multifaceted dialogue both with universally acclaimed masterpieces and with those chapters of cinema yet to be discovered or preserved.”
He concluded: “From Kevin Costner to Safi Faye, the Locarno Film Festival engages with cinema of the past with an eye to the new generations and the audiences of tomorrow, who are already preparing today for the challenges posed by new technologies.”
In a special centenary tribute, Histoire(s) du Cinéma will also screen Roger Corman’s last film as a director, Frankenstein Unbound (1990), starring John Hurt, Raúl Juliá and Bridget Fonda, which organizers called “a bold hybrid of science fiction and Gothic horror that creatively reconfigures the Frankenstein myth for the late 20th century.” The screening will honor “the legacy of a fearless and extraordinarily prolific producer-director,” Locarno said.
“In keeping with the spirit of previous editions, this year’s Heritage selection brings together a rich array of filmmakers and perspectives – from Isao Takahata to Roger Corman – to ensure that the cinema of the past continues to live on in the present,” Locarno said.
As part of the festival’s longstanding partnership with the Cinémathèque Suisse, two films by Swiss experimental filmmaker Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch, namely Sirenen-Eiland (1981) and Geister und Gäste (1989), will screen in the section Cinéma Suisse Redécouvert, which showcases rediscovered Swiss cinema of the past. The illustrator and graphic artist turned filmmaker at the age of 50.
Also, Locarno and mudac – Cantonal Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts at the Plateforme 10 arts district are joining forces to celebrate the work and legacy of the late Isao Takahata, one of the co-founders of Japan’s Studio Ghibli and “one of animation’s great masters,” as the fest highlighted. Locarno79 will screen his Grave of the Fireflies (1988) in a tribute to the filmmaker on Friday, Aug. 7, introduced by his son, Kosuke Takahata. The legendary Takahata visited Locarno in 2009 to receive an Honorary Leopard.
The 79th Locarno festival will take place Aug. 5-15.
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