If an audience doesn't get to see a film, does it really exist?
That's the question Dave Filipi, head of film at the Wexner Center for the Arts posed, only half-joking.
"If it's just sitting in a can and an archive somewhere and people can't see it. What good does that do?" Filipi asked.
Filipi is curator for the 12th annual Cinema Revival: A Festival of Film Restoration. The weekend film festival celebrates the often underappreciated art of film restoration, and film's role as part of the cultural record.
The festival, which began on Thursday, includes about a dozen offerings of recently restored films from the dawn of cinema through the 1980s. Filipi said the selection showcases many films from different eras and different parts of the world that have have been forgotten to history.
Highlights include a series of restored short films made by brothers August and Louis Lumière more than 120 years ago, and animated films from the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
The festival will also be the world premiere for a new restoration of "Money From Home," Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis' only 3D film.
Filipi said the restoration took years because of the nature of the original print. The film was shot on two cameras to produce the 3D effect, and was made in three-strip technicolor.
"Each of those cameras had three color separations in it. So, instead of like a normal film where you maybe are restoring one negative, in this one, you're restoring essentially six negatives and then trying to line all of those up to make it look right," Philippi explained.
"Money from Home" shows at 7 p.m. on Friday.
Saturday's big show is a high-definition 70-millimeter restored print of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Films are usually projected on smaller 35-millimeter film.
"It's a rare print and it's rare opportunity to see a film this way," Filipi said.
Filipi said showing restored films shines a light on film history. Some films have not been seen by audiences for generations, creating gaps in the modern viewer's film cannon, he said.
Filipi said films capture what was going on at the time they were shot.
"But when you restore these films and bring them back to the present day, you know today's audience might read these films in a completely different way," Filipi said. "A contemporary audience sees it, (and) it just takes on a completely new life."
The festival runs through Monday.
