CSC – Cineteca Nazionale, the Italian National Film Archive, will join the 2023 Berlinale in the section “Berlinale Classics” with the world premiere of the restored version of Nanni Moretti’s Sweet Dreams (Sogni d’oro, 1981).

Nanni Moretti:
“Amazing! “My films are already being restored! I am very pleased that the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – Cineteca Nazionale, with skill, carefulness, and passion, restored Sweet Dreams, a film of mine dating back to forty years ago. Sweet Dreams was produced by Gaumont Italia; I vividly remember the guys of the ‘Gaumont school’ who would come look around on the film set – they now are established directors, producers, editors, and cinematographers. I am glad that the restored film is presented at the Berlin film festival, where I won the Silver Bear in 1986 with The Mass Is Ended. The president of the jury was Gina Lollobrigida. Awarding the Golden Bear to Stammheim, she said, “I was against”…”

Alberto Anile, Cineteca Nazionale Curator:
“Sweet Dreams is Moretti’s most hilarious and most enigmatic film, a work that forty years on is still provocative, and possibly even more than at the time of its release, switching as it does from Fellini to Freud, from parody to delusion, from courage to narcissism, from Don Siegel to Renato Zero. Here at CSC – Cineteca Nazionale, we are proud to have conducted its restoration wholly in-house, in our laboratories, in constant collaboration with the film director (regarding the lights, tones, colours, and volumes).”

Sweet Dreams will be presented on Saturday, February 18^th, 9.30 pm at the Cubix 6. The screening will be attended by the President of Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Marta Donzelli and the Manager of the CSC – Cineteca Nazionale Preservation and restoration department, Sergio Bruno.

The restoration was completed in 2023 by CSC – Cineteca Nazionale from the original 35mm and optical soundtrack negative made available by Sacher Film. All laboratory work was supervised by the film director Nanni Moretti and was carried out at CSC Digital Lab.

SWEET DREAMS (SOGNI D’ORO) directed by Nanni Moretti (Italy, 1981, 105’)

Cast: Nanni Moretti, Piera Degli Esposti, Remo Remotti, Laura Morante, Alessandro Haber, Gigio Morra, Miranda Campa, Nicola Di Pinto, Claudio Spadaro, Tatti Sanguineti, Enrico Antonelli, Mario Cipriani, Alberto Abruzzese, Dario Cantarelli, Sabina Vannuchi, Giampiero Mughini, Chiara Moretti, Oreste Rotundo, Sara Di Nepi, Luigi Moretti, Mario Garriba, Giovanna De Luca, Livio Galassi, Cinzia Lais, Maria Cristina Nanni, Massimo Milazzo, Adriana Pecorelli, Vincenzo Salemme, Mario Toschi Monaci, Conchita Airoldi, Fabrizio Beggiato, Claudio Ciocca, Marco Colli, Mauro Fabretti, Amedeo Fago, Massimo Garzia, Carmelo Lombardo, Tommaso Vittorini

Even before beginning principal photography of his third film, La mamma di Freud (Freud’s Mom) – that portrays the founder of psychoanalysis as a childish adult who calls Jung on the phone, dictates his memories to his daughter, but at the same time throws a tantrum in front of his mother, stamps his feet, and screams like a little boy – Michele (Nanni Moretti) has been the object of harsh criticism. Apparently, everyone wants to destroy him. His sleep is filled with nightmares, with former disciple Silvia (Laura Morante) who flees from him, who wants to leave him, while he obstinately runs after her until he wakes up abruptly, then falls asleep again, falling prey to more nightmares. However, Michele keeps on working spasmodically on his film, but he feels depressed, anguished, and sad; he hardly laughs at jokes and is almost annoyed by the flirting between members of the cast and crew. And so on and so forth, we get to the film’s premiere…