Lorenza Mazzetti Collection (Limited Edition, Region B)

A new BFI collection celebrating the work of filmmaker Lorenza Mazzetti, including new remasters of her short films, plus a new documentary.

Lorenza Mazzettiarrived in London from Italy in 1951, survivor of a wartime atrocity in which her Jewish relatives were murdered, she quickly made friends with other artists in a new and different world. Though associated with the realist Free Cinema movement, her stark yet playful films – all shot on location in the capitals bomb-devastated, smog-caked vistas – take the form of psychodramas, influenced by Kafkas bleak absurdity, the horrors she had endured, and the agony she faced missing her twin sister back home.

This new set includes Mazzettis three deeply poetic, avant-garde, narrative London works, all newly remastered by the BFI National Archive, plus a brand new documentary.

Contents:

• K(1953, 29 mins): the angular, chopped-up K, based on Kafkas The Metamorphosis, made on equipment borrowed from the Slade art school, captures feelings of genuine animalistic terror

• The Country Doctor(1953, 11 min): considered a lost film and only discovered in Wisconsin in 2019, The Country Doctor is based on the writing of Franz Kafka, and stars painter Victor Willing

• Together (1956, 51 mins): focusing on two deaf-mute and alienated dockworkers in the bombed-scarred East End of London, Together stars artists Eduardo Paolozzi and Michael Andrews

• Together with Lorenza Mazzetti(2023, 55 mins): Brighid Lowes new, intimate documentary, made with Henry K Miller, builds around candid interviews, with Mazzetti herself, to provide new insights about the Italians life of love and trauma and the unparalleled efforts she expended to make films in 1950s London

Extras

• Audio commentaries: a series of discussions about the BFI National Archive’s curatorial and restoration processes for these films, featuring the BFIs William Fowler, Elena Nepoti and Mike Kohler

• Refuge England(1959, 26 mins): with its uncompromising outsiders view of an inhospitable 1950s London, the themes in Robert VassRefuge Englandare just as resonant in todays society

• The Landscape of Free Cinema(2022, 3 mins): a short video essay presented by William Fowler, looking at some of the themes ofTogetherand how they relate to Lorenza Mazzetti’s life

• Limited edition (1,000 copies) includes illustrated booklet with writing by William Fowler, Henry K Miller and Ali Smith plus notes on the restorations by Elena Nepoti