The Venice Film Festival has announced that a newly restored version of Erich von Stroheim's controversial 1929 silent film 'Queen Kelly' will serve as its pre-opening event. The film, starring Gloria Swanson, will premiere in a 4K reconstruction incorporating newly discovered materials and based on von Stroheim's original script.
The restoration will debut on August 26 at the Lido's Sala Darsena theatre, accompanied by a live performance of a new orchestral score by US composer Eli Denson. The film follows Patricia Kelly, a convent girl who becomes involved with a dissolute European prince and ends up running a brothel in Africa.
Originally shut down by Swanson after an expenditure of $800,000, the film was in production for less than three months in 1928-29. In 1985, Dennis Doros of Milestone Films created a 'completed' version that premiered at Venice. Forty years later, Doros has returned to the project, using new research and digital tools to create a new reimagining of the lost masterpiece.
The 82nd Venice Film Festival runs from August 27 to September 6, with the full lineup announced on July 22.
