Dalton Trumbo (left) and John Howard Lawson campaigning before being sent to prison in 1950 This interview with me was conducted by Georg Szalai for The Hollywood Reporter. You can read Georg's intro here . — EK Georg Szalai: Have you been working on this retrospective for Locarno for a long time, and how easy was the decision that the time was ripe for it? Ehsan Khoshbakht: I had this project…
Body and Soul Brief notes on all the titles to be screened in Locarno as part of the Red & Black retrospective. — EK . Symphony of Swing (Joseph Henabery, 1939) A groovy jazz short featuring sumptuous compositions and trick shots of Artie Shaw and his orchestra performing four songs, including a smashing version of Lady Be Good. Shaw was blacklisted in 1953. He subsequently abandoned music and…
The Hollywood 19 These questions were sent to me by email by the Italian critic Maurizio Porro. If I have understood correctly, he used parts of my responses in his Corriere della Sera article on the forthcoming Hollywood Blacklist retrospective that I have curated for the Locarno Film Festival. — EK Are there obvious points of contact between the titles? They’re all connected like the branches of…
Screening of Guy Maddin's Careful at Sala Scorsese I was interviewed by Spanish journalist David Pardillos Rodríguez for Infobae España via email. I share my responses here. — EK - Please introduce yourself to our readers who may not know you: what is your role, and what do you do for the festival? What is a typical day like for you as you prepare for this year’s edition? Along with Gian Luca…
Red and Black: Hollywood Left and the Blacklist Edited by Ehsan Khoshbakht Published by Les éditions de l'oeil Out in late July 2026 | Pre-order here (Shipped from August) In the period now known as the McCarthy era, a climate of fear bordering on paranoia took root. Communists, it was claimed, had infiltrated Hollywood for its profits and its immense global propaganda power. They had to be…
I have already shared news about Red and Black , a forthcoming programme on the Hollywood Left/leftism and the blacklist/McCarthyism, which will take place at the Locarno Film Festival from 5–15 August. (Previous posts included the accompanying podcast series, which you can still access here .) Now I am delighted to share the complete programme. The retrospective features 26 films that will be…
Tony Rayns in Bologna in 2018 Il Cinema Ritrovato joins the international film community in mourning the great British film critic, historian, programmer, and lifelong champion of Asian cinema, Tony Rayns, whose passing was announced today. Tony Rayns was the author of landmark books on Rainer Werner Fassbinder, In the Mood for Love, and Kenji Mizoguchi. His final book, published in 2024, was Just…
This project encompasses my curatorial work, including a retrospective of more than 50 films at Locarno, a book published in Paris, and a podcast recorded in London, all three on Hollywood radicals and the ensuing blacklist.
Young Frankenstein turned 52; Mel Brookes turned 100; we turned 40. We're still the youngest. "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing," I once heard King Vidor say in a cameo appearance. This year in Bologna, we certainly took him at his word. Not only did we overdo it, but so did the generally inhospitable weather and the drifting audience navigating the scorched cityscape between the…
Behind the scene of episode 1, feat. Duke Ellington Jazz 625: Music Giants on the Small Screen An illustrated talk by Ehsan Khoshbakht at Close-Up Cinema on July 20 Its title alludes to the new 625-line broadcasting technology, which provided higher image quality. Jazz 625 captured the excitement of the newly launched BBC2 and showcased the cream of American – and occasionally British – musicians…
This television documentary by Richard Schickel plays at Il Cinema Ritrovato on June 17, 2026. — EK “Kiss me in my mouth as if we are lovers,” a 76-year-old Barbara Stanwyck – still provocatively breaking taboos – tells a priest (Richard Chamberlain) in the TV miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983). Rejected by him, she lambasts a vengeful God who cruelly punishes bodies and beauty – in effect a God…
For the first-time ever on home video, this collection presents the complete output of the iconoclastic independent Iranian film studio founded in the late 1950s by a towering figure of Iranian culture, Ebrahim Golestan. The studio’s earliest productions were documentaries that helped bring Iranian cinema to international attention, including The House Is Black , directed by the poet Forough…
This six-part series on the Hollywood Left and the Blacklist is my first foray into the world of podcasting. Written and produced for the Locarno Film Festival – where I have also curated a major retrospective on the same subject for the forthcoming 2026 edition – the series is narrated by Eve P. Thompson and sound-edited by Rob Szeliga. The episodes are: The Left on the Rise From Hot War to Cold…
Restored in 4K in 2026 by Hammer Films at Silver Salt Restoration laboratory, from the original 35mm elements. Note written for the world premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato. — EK W hat at first seems to be a genteel story of an Englishwoman abroad being driven around in an antique Rolls-Royce by the Mediterranean Sea – all in calm, saturated Eastmancolor – is in fact a coldly executed heist plot that…
This year, Il Cinema Ritrovato will present more than 120 titles on celluloid, the majority in 35mm and a dozen in 16mm. These are the films to be screened on film: La sposa del Nilo | Enrico Guazzoni | 1911 Agrippina | Enrico Guazzoni | 1911 Una tragedia al cinematografo | - | 1913 Alla deriva | Enrico Guazzoni | 1915 La casa di nessuno | Enrico Guazzoni | 1915 Tol’able David | Henry King | 1921…
Newspaper advertisement for the second theatrical run of Ebrahim Golestan’s Secrets of the Jinn Valley Treasure (1974), which opened on 27 June 1978. (The film’s original release was on 10 December 1974.) In the atmosphere of mounting revolutionary fervour, it was this time promoted under the subtitle “The Secrets of the Nouveau Riche Society.” The film played for two weeks at the Moulin Rouge…
Eight Girls in a Boat Final part of my recommendations from Il Cinema Ritrovato 2026. — EK 31 Tol'able David Dir: Henry King | USA, 1921 We dedicated a retrospective to Henry King’s sound films in 2019, and this is the perfect opportunity to catch up with what both King and his admirers regarded as his first true masterwork. The film bears touches of autobiography in its depiction of the…
Tallinna Turg Part three of what I – and, in some cases, colleagues I have spoken to – recommend from the 2026 edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato. Parts one and two can be accessed here. 21 La Grève des bonnes Dir: Charles Lucien Lépine | France, 1906 + Les Effets de la foudre Dir: Gaston Velle | France, 1906 For the Century of Cinema: 1906 series, Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratschko watched…
Mudar de Vida My favourite things: Personal recommendations and favourite discoveries from among the more than 500 films awaiting you at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2026. Part one here . – EK 11 Anémic cinéma Dir: Marcel Duchamp | France, 1926 The only film directed by Marcel Duchamp – the early Dadaist, later Surrealist, and, much later, solitary painter and chess player – this classic of the weird…
La Dérive A selection of personal tips, recommendations, and favourite discoveries from the more than 500 films awaiting you at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2026. 1 La Dérive Dir: Paula Delsol | France, 1964 Biased historiography haS long buried the work of this suppressed member of the French New Wave, who, alongside Agnès Varda, was one of the movement’s few female directors. Time to rediscover this…
John Cromwell's Caged (1950) will play as part of Red & Black: Hollywood Left and the Blacklist at 79th Locarno Film Festival, August 2026. — EK Hearings regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry Tuesday, October 21, 1947 House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities, Washington D.C. * * * Robert E. Stripling: Do you know Mr. John Cromwell? Adolphe Menjou:…
Transcribed from Photoplay , March 1948, Vol. 32, No. 4. A segment of this I have used in my upcoming, six-episode podcast about Hollywood Blacklist, to be released in June 2026. — EK A s the guy said to the warden, just before he was hanged: “This will teach me a lesson I’ll never forget.” No, sir, I'll never forget the lesson that was taught to me in the year 1947, at Washington, D. C. When I…
Turn the Key Softly Notes written for the monthly programme of BFI Southbank, May 2026. In May and June some of these films are also playing at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA, Filmhaus Nürnberg in Nuremberg, and Filmoteca Española in Madrid. – EK Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema Handpicked highlights from a recent retrospective at Locarno, revealing the humanism, exuberance,…
It Always Rains on Sunday Notes written for the monthly catalogue of Filmoteca Española on Great Expectations, currently screening in Madrid as part of the May–June 2026 programme. — Ehsan Khoshbakht 1945 was a watershed moment for Britain. To this day, it is debated whether it marked the beginning of greatness or the start of decline. A 45-film retrospective at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival…