Kevin Costner’s ‘Dances With Wolves’ Set for New Restored Director’s Cut That Will Launch at Locarno

Kevin Costner’s 1990 Western “Dances With Wolves,” about an American Civil War soldier who forges a relationship with a group of Lakota Indians, is getting a new 4K restoration that will launch at the upcoming Locarno Film Festival.

The cult classic, which earned Costner the best director prize at the 1991 Oscars, along with six other Academy Awards, will screen on Aug. 7 on the giant screen of the Swiss lakeside fest’s large outdoor Piazza Grande venue as part of its Histoire(s) du Cinema section. The film’s restored director’s cut is a nearly four-hour extended edition that incorporates over half an hour of previously unseen additional material. “Dances With Wolves” has been restored by Zurich-based laboratory Cinegrell in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival through its Locarno Heritage project and the film’s international sales agent, K5 International.

“Costner’s western epic, which won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, helped redefine the western at the turn of the 1990s and drew global attention to the historical plight of Indigenous peoples on the American continent,” the Locarno fest said in a statement.

Pioneering Senegalese director and actress Safi Faye’s “Letter From My Village” (1975), that has also been newly restored by Cinegrell, the Locarno Heritage project, and its rights holder, Arsenal FilmInstitut, will also screen in the section. “Recognized as the first feature film by a woman from sub-Saharan Africa to receive commercial distribution, ‘Letter from My Village’ is set in the Serer region of rural Senegal and follows a young couple whose plans to marry are thwarted by drought and the precarious conditions of village life,” according to the Locarno statement.

The Histoire(s) du Cinema section will also feature Roger Corman’s last film as a director, “Frankenstein Unbound” (1990), starring John Hurt, Raúl Juliá and Bridget Fonda, which organizers called “a bold hybrid of science fiction and Gothic horror that creatively reconfigures the Frankenstein myth for the late 20th century.”

The program, among other titles, will also feature a screening of landmark 1988 anime “Grave of the Fireflies” directed by Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata in a tribute to the late-great filmmaker that will be introduced by his son Kosuke Takahata. Isao Takahata, who passed away in 2018, attended Locarno on 2009 to receive a lifetime achievement award.

“From Kevin Costner to Safi Faye, the Locarno Film Festival engages with cinema of the past with an eye to the new generations and the audiences of tomorrow, who are already preparing today for the challenges posed by new technologies,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro in a statement.

The 79th Locarno festival will take place Aug. 5-15. The full lineup will be announced on July 9.