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The film is a Belgian-Italian-Dutch-Bulgarian-Armenian co-production.

US actor Geraldine Chaplin and the Netherlands’ Jonas Smulders have joined the cast of US-Belgian filmmaker Jessica Woodworth’s drama Fortress.

Filming on the drama got underway this week in Sicily, and will run until October 5.

Woodworth has written the screenplay for the film, adapted from Dino Buzzati’s 1940 Italian novel The Tartar Steppe. It is about a young solder, hungry for battle, who embeds himself in an isolated fort where men wait in vain for an enemy to strike.

Woodworth is also producing with Peter Brosens for Belgium’s Bo Films and Krater Films.

Handsome star of spaghetti westerns including A Pistol for Ringo

When the spaghetti western was born in the early 1960s, some of the Italian lead actors disguised their names under American-sounding ones (though nobody was fooled). Among those competing successfully with bona fide Yanks such as Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef were Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti), Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli) and Montgomery Wood, a temporary pseudonym taken by Giuliano Gemma, who has died in a car accident aged 75.

The strikingly handsome Gemma was one of the brightest stars of the once deprecated, now revered, genre. After five years in sword-and-sandal epics (also known as peplum films), usually supporting muscle men, Gemma made a name for himself (even if, initially, it wasn't his own) in two westerns directed by Duccio Tessari: A Pistol for Ringo (1965) and The Return of Ringo (1965). Their big box-office success granted Gemma stardom and...

A still from “Charulata”

Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (The Lonely Wife) is one among the twenty feature films to be presented at Cannes Classics, as part of the Official Selection.

Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore about a lonely housewife, the film features Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee and Shailen Mukherjee. It won Satyajit Ray a Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin international film festival in 1965.

Cannes Classics was created in 2004 to present old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored. It is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyrightholders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world.

This year’s programme of Cannes Classics is made up of twenty feature-length films and three documentaries.

Restored Prints

Borom Sarret (1963, 20’) by Ousmane Sembène

Charulata (Charluta: The Lonely Wife) (1964, 1:57) by Satyajit Ray

Cleopatra (1963, 4:03) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz...

The 2013 Cannes Film Festival lineup continues to grow, today with the announcement of the films playing in the Cannes Classics selection as well as the titles playing on the beach at night as part of the Cinema de la Plage selection. It was already announced Kim Novak would be in attendance to present the restored version of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, but the restorations that will be screening don't end there. In addition to Vertigo a restored print of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Cleopatra will screen along with restorations of Billy Wilder's Fedora, Yasujir? Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon, Hal Ashby's The Last Detail starring Jack Nicholson and a 3-D conversion of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. Additional notable names include films from Alain Resnais, Marco Ferreri, Chris Marker and Rene Clement. In addition to those titles a special presentation of Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete...

The Cannes Film Festival today announced the 23 film screening in the tenth edition of its Cannes Classics sidebar, which screens restored films that the festival deems essential to the history of the medium. Highlights include Satyajit Ray's "Charulata: The Lonely Wife," Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor 3D," and Billy Wilder's "Fedora." The festival previously announced that Kim Novak will present a new restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." The full Cannes Classics lineup can be found below. Restored Prints Borom Sarret (1963, 20’) by Ousmane Sembène Charulata (Charluta: The Lonely Wife) (1964, 1:57) by Satyajit Ray Cleopatra (1963, 4:03) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Fedora (1978, 1:50) by Billy Wilder Goha (1957, 1:18) by Jacques Baratier Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, 1:32) by Alain Resnais Il Deserto Dei Tartari (The Desert Of Tartars) (1976, 2:20) by Valerio Zurlini La Grande Abbuffata (La Grande Bouffe) (1973, 2h05) de Marco Ferreri La Reine Margot (1994, 2:39)...