The trade paper Variety reported today that the Venice Film Festival will pay tribute to late Gina Lollobrigida, who died in January, with a pre-opening event featuring a short filmed by Orson Welles.
The Lido’s annual pre-opening event on August 29 will feature a 27-minute short by Welles titled Portrait of Gina. Welles interviewed Lollobrigida in her villa on the Appian Way as the pilot for an ABC TV series — a U.S. version of Around the World With Orson Welles – that ABC rejected.
Welles’ portrait remained unseen until 1986, when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival a year after Welles’ death.
This piece has been defined by Welles as a “personal essay” on Lollobrigida.
Interestingly, when Lollobrigida saw Portrait of Gina in Venice in 1986, she reportedly tried to have it banned.
The short’s restoration was done by the Munich Film Museum and Italy’s Cinecittà.
In 2015, FormaCinema screened a never-before-seen extract from Portrait of Gina in Milan Portrait of Gina can be viewed on online at https://youtu.be/7LxyA4wxjdg
Portrait of Gina will be followed by the 1953 film La Provinciale (The Wayward Wife) by Italian director Mario Soldati, a drama based on a novel by Alberto Moravia.
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