The first adaptation of a short story by Dostoevsky which also inspired Robert Bresson and James Gray

Mario arrives in a city that looks like Livorno. On his first night, wandering through the deserted streets, he comes across a young woman in tears on a bridge, Natalia. Sometimes ecstatic, sometimes overwhelmed, the latter has a strange and fascinating behavior. The following night, Mario finds her in the same place. Natalia confesses to him that she runs away every night to wait, on this bridge, for the man she loves and who made an appointment with her a year before...

Adapted from a short story by Dostoyevsky that also inspired Robert Bresson ( Four Nights of a Dreamer ), James Gray ( Two Lovers ) and Sanjay Leela Bhansali ( Saawariya ), White Nights marks a turning point in Luchino Visconti's career. Breaking with the neorealism of his early works, the filmmaker turns to an ornate and baroque poetic realism closer to the world of Marcel Carné ( Children of Paradise ) and his future works ( Death in Venice ). Carried by a trio of legendary actors, the Italian Marcello Mastroianni, the Austrian Maria Schell and the French Jean Marais, White Nights is a timeless work that, through its black and white and its phantasmagorical settings, concentrates all the imaginary powers of cinema.

WHITE NIGHTS
(1957 – B&W – 102 mins – VOSTF)
New Restored Master

SUPPLEMENTS

. TIMELESS COSTUMES (23 mins)
White Nights required extreme precision supported by the will of the perfectionist Visconti. How to work the costumes with black and white? How to adapt Dostoevsky's novel? Piero Tosi, costume designer of the film and faithful collaborator of Luchino Visconti, returns to these questions.

. DREAM AND REALISM (24 mins)
Vieri Razzini, film critic and producer, explains how Luchino Visconti and his artistic team orient characters and staging towards a certain theatricality, between dreamlike and realism.

. TRAILER