At the Cannes Film Festival Hollywood director Martin Scorsese announced that he will head a foundation to find and restore neglected world films.
The World Cinema Foundation was inspired by the work of the Film Foundation in the United States, a similar venture which Scorsese founded with George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood in 1990.
At a press conference 'The Departed' director indicated how the World Cinema Foundation has its roots in the US venture.
"That was started in 1990 and for the past 16 years that actually has changed and things have gotten different there in terms of restoration of films and preservation of archives."
The Academy Award-winning director is backed by an advisory board of prominent international directors, including Germany's Wim Wenders ('Wings of Desire'), Mexicans Guillermo Del Toro ('Pan's Labyrinth') and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ('Babel') and Britain's Stephen Frears ('The Queen').
At this year's festival, the foundation is presenting three restored films from Morocco, Brazil and Romania dating as far back as 1931.
