Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves rides again with restored 4K festival debut
The Oscar-winning western will be screened in an extended 4K director’s cut at the Locarno Film Festival, with more than 30 minutes of additional footage included in the restored version.
Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning western Dances With Wolves is set to return to the big screen in a newly restored 4K director’s cut at this year’s Locarno Film Festival.
The acclaimed epic us receiving a high-profile screening as part of the festival’s celebration of cinema history, with 71-year-old actor and filmmaker Kevin’s landmark film set to be presented in its extended version – running for almost four hours and featuring more than 30 minutes of additional footage.
Kevin’s 1990 western, in which he stars as an American Civil War soldier who develops a relationship with a group of Lakota people, won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, cementing his status as one of Hollywood’s leading filmmakers.
The restoration has been completed by Zurich-based laboratory Cinegrell in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival through its Locarno Heritage project and international sales agent K5 International.
The screening will take place on 7 August in the festival’s Piazza Grande as part of its Histoire(s) du Cinéma programme.
The announcement comes as Kevin continues to attract attention for his long-running Horizon: An American Saga western project, following the release of the first chapter and ongoing discussion about the future of the ambitious film series.
Alongside Dances With Wolves, Kevin remains widely recognised for starring in The Bodyguard, Field of Dreams and the hit television drama Yellowstone.
In a statement announcing the new Dances With Wolves screening, the Locarno Film Festival said: “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.”
The restored version being shown at the Swiss festival is the film’s director’s cut, incorporating more than half an hour of previously unseen material.
The Histoire(s) du Cinéma section will also include a newly restored version of Letter From My Village by pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye, who died aged 79.
According to the festival, the film is “recognised as the first feature film by a woman from sub-Saharan Africa to receive commercial distribution”.
It added 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”.
Also screening in the strand is Frankenstein Unbound, the final film directed by Roger Corman, who died aged 98, starring John Hurt, who died aged 77, Raúl Juliá, who died aged 54, and Bridget Fonda, 62. Festival organisers described the film as “a bold hybrid of science fiction and Gothic horror that creatively reconfigures the Frankenstein myth for the late 20th century.”
The programme will also feature a screening of Studio Ghibli classic Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Isao Takahata, who died aged 82.
The presentation will be introduced by his son, Kosuke Takahata, and forms part of a tribute to the celebrated filmmaker, who previously attended Locarno in 2009 to receive a lifetime achievement award.
Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said: “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.”
The 79th Locarno Film Festival runs from 5 to 15 August, with the full programme due to be announced on 9 July.
