Mar­tin Scorsese’s Film Foun­da­tion is launch­ing a vir­tu­al screen­ing room for clas­sic films

Though the past cou­ple of years have seen Mar­tin Scors­ese become some­thing of a light­ning rod for con­tro­ver­sy due to his polar­iz­ing beliefs that some movies should not be pro­duced by Dis­ney, those famil­iar with his life and works know him bet­ter as an elder states­man of the cin­e­ma, ded­i­cat­ed to pro­tect­ing the art form to which he’s ded­i­cat­ed his life. As a founder of the Film Foun­da­tion non-prof­it, he’s sup­port­ed preser­va­tion and exhi­bi­tion of less-seen clas­sics, and now he’s bring­ing that activist spir­it online.

Dead­line made the dreams of reper­to­ry nerds — known as ​‘rep rats’ in the States, ​‘bag­men’ in the UK — come true with the announce­ment of a vir­tu­al screen­ing room run by the Film Foun­da­tion, through which a selec­tion of their restora­tion projects will be made avail­able to screen, free of charge. The ser­vice will launch on 9 May, and reg­u­lar­ly cycle dif­fer­ent films in and out on the sec­ond Mon­day of each month as more of a vir­tu­al event sys­tem than a grow­ing stream­ing library.

The flag­ship title will be Michael Pow­ell and Emer­ic Press­burg­er​‘s 1945 film I Know Where I’m Going!, their time­less romance set on the wind-swept Isle of Mull with Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey. Pre­sent­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the BFI Nation­al Archive who over­saw the restora­tion, the screen­ing will include an intro­duc­tion from Scors­ese him­self, and be fol­lowed by inter­views with mas­ter edi­tor and Michael’s wid­ow Thel­ma Schoon­mak­er Pow­ell, as well as super­fans Joan­na Hogg, Til­da Swin­ton, and Kevin Mac­don­ald.

And that’s just the begin­ning — the Dead­line item teas­es a robust slate to come, includ­ing Fed­eri­co Felli­ni​‘s sem­i­nal La Stra­da, G. Aravindan’s Malay­alam-lan­guage film Kum­mat­ty, a film noir dou­ble fea­ture of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour and Arthur D. Ripley’s The Chase, Sarah Maldoror’s Angolan lib­er­a­tion film Sam­bizan­ga, Mar­lon Brando’s oft-homaged One-Eyed Jacks, John Hus­ton​‘s fran­cophile extrav­a­gan­za Moulin Rouge, and the New York leg­end Jonas Mekas‘ auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal doc­u­men­tary Lost Lost Lost. Scors­ese co-curat­ed these picks with long­time friend and for­mer New York Film Fes­ti­val head Kent Jones.

While this mag­nan­i­mous ges­ture of good­will is sure to trig­ger anoth­er round of elit­ism accu­sa­tions for the saint­ly Scors­ese, it’s far less unpleas­ant to spec­u­late about what oth­er sur­pris­es might be up his sleeve. The Film Foun­da­tion has a deep cat­a­logue of restored gems to choose from — show­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic Robert Downey Sr.​‘s ultra-low-bud­get debut Babo 73 for free would be an absolute good, and that’s just one example.

I Know Where I’m Going! was restored by The Film Foun­da­tion and BFI Nation­al Archive, in asso­ci­a­tion with ITV and Park Cir­cus. The 9 May screen­ing is co-pre­sent­ed by the BFI Nation­al Archive, Janus Films, ITV and Park Circus.