Martin Scorsese is saving world cinema, or trying anyway. The goal of his new World Cinema Foundation, with Kent Jones as its executive director and allied with Criterion and the Auteurs, is “preserving and promoting films from around the world.”
The Foundation, which has four films in this year’s Cannes Classics section at the Festival de Cannes, will use its alliances to take films from the fest in France to other festivals and museums, followed by a roll out to universities, film clubs, online at The Auteurs, via iTunes and Netflix, through to Criterion DVDs.
“These are considered to be the best films to have ever been made,” praised Cakarel from The Auteurs, adding that the films need to be made available worldwide, for free, so that they can be discovered by international audiences. His site has launched four preserved WCF titles online today.
The Auteurs, a virtual Internet-based cinematheque, will present a World Cinema Foundation portal on their emerging international platform online, incorporating discussion forums, video interviews and editorial content built around the films themselves. B-Side will re-launch and re-develop the WCF website. Criterion will create special DVDs of WCF titles.
“Film culture is richer now than fifteen years ago,” proclaimed Becker from Criterion, saying that these alliances can arm engaged audiences while also reaching out to new moviegoers.