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Venezia Classics 2025: The Official Selection of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival Announced Chiedi a ChatGPT

15 July 2025

The official selection for Venezia Classici at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival has been announced. This selection will present 18 world premieres of films restored over the past year. The selected titles come from film archives, cultural institutions, and production companies from around the world, representing true masterpieces of cinema history, restored to their renewed beauty.

Among the standout titles in this prestigious selection is Lo Spettro (1963), a gothic masterpiece directed by Riccardo Freda, which comes back to life in a spectacular 4K restored version. It will be presented in the Venezia Classici section of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.

The restoration, carried out by Minerva Pictures in collaboration with Severin Films, represents a high-value philological and technical intervention aimed at returning to the audience the original visual experience of the film. The movie will be screened as a world premiere from August 27 to September 6, 2025, as part of the Festival.

Director Tommaso Santambrogio (Taxibol, Gli oceani sono i veri continenti) will preside over the Cinema Students Jury, which, for the twelfth consecutive year, will award the Venezia Classici Prize for Best Restored Film. The Jury, composed of 24 students selected by professors from various Italian universities, DAMS, and the Venice Ca’ Foscari, will also have the opportunity to award the Best Documentary on Cinema presented in the Section.

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First take for L’orto americano, Pupi Avati’s gothic film

11 December 2023

The filming of L’orto americano is underway, a gothic film based on Pupi Avati‘s novel, who also directs it. The cast includes Filippo Scotti (È stata la mano di Dio), the award-winning British actress Rita Tushingham, Armando De Ceccon (Oltre la bufera), Roberto De Francesco (Il silenzio grande), Chiara Caselli (Lei mi parla ancora), Romano Reggiani (Eravamo bambini), Cesare Cremonini, and Andrea Roncato.

Cesare Bastelli is in charge of cinematography, Biagio Fersini handles the set designs, Beatrice Giannini designs the costumes, and Ivan Zuccon takes care of the editing.

Seven weeks of filming are planned, spanning locations in Rome and its surroundings, Cinecittà Studios, the Delta del Po, and the city of Davenport in Iowa.

L’orto americano is produced by Santo Versace and Gianluca Curti for Minerva Pictures, and Antonio Avati for DUEA Film, in collaboration with Rai Cinema. The film is made with the support of the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission.

Synopsis
Bologna, in the 1940s. A mentally troubled young man with literary aspirations falls desperately in love with a female auxiliary in the American army with just a glance. A year later, circumstances lead him to live in the American Midwest, right next to, but separated by a ominous garden, where the elderly mother of the soldier lives. The woman is desperate for her daughter, who, since the end of the conflict, after writing that she would marry an Italian, has not been heard from. The young man embarks on a tense search for the girl, experiencing a particularly dramatic situation, leading to an entirely unexpected conclusion in Italy.