restoration

For the third year in a row the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was applauded at the annual Noir City, the San Francisco noir film festival, for its support of the restoration of endangered noir films. The 14th edition of Noir City, currently under way in San Francisco, has an added international flavor: the film restored with HFPA support, Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) is not a USA noir, but an Argentinian classic, the 1956 winner of the Silver Condor award for best feature, given by the Argentinian Film Critics Association.

Yoram Kahana (left) with Film Noir Foundation founder Eddie MullerBy Yoram Kahana The HFPA, which has been supporting film restoration for many years, last year gave a grant to a very specialized restoration-minded organization: the Film Noir Foundation, a San Francisco based non-profit dedicated to the research, restoration and showing of this most American of film genres. Film noir, in the words of one historian, is made of.