Celebrating 30 Years of The Film Foundation - Thursdays in October

On its 30th anniversary, TCM salutes The Film Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization established in 1990 by Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers to protect and preserve motion picture history. By working in partnership with archives and studios, the Film Foundation has helped restore over 850 films that have been made available to festivals, museums, and educational institutions around the world. The Foundation's World Cinema Project has restored 42 films from 25 different countries. It also has a free educational curriculum, The Story of Movies, that has taught more than 10 million young people about film language and history.

TCM's tribute includes five films included in the World Cinema Project, as shown below. The restorations were done by Italy's Cineteca di Bologna/L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratories in association with the World Cinema Project and other organizations. All these films were released on digital formats through the Criterion Collection.

Dos monjes (Two Monks, 1934) is a horror film from Mexico, directed by Juan Bustillo Oro and made during the period known as the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. The setting is a monastery where two brothers become caught up in an exorcism and revisit a scandal from the past involving their love of the same woman.

Black Girl (1966), a French-Senegalese film whose original title in French was La noire de..., was written and directed by Ousmane Sembène in his feature debut. The story concerns a young Senegalese woman who struggles with her decision to work as a nanny for a French couple after they immediately treat her harshly and makes her work as their servant. The film is considered the first by a Sub-Saharan African filmmaker to receive international attention.

A River Called Titas (1973), a joint production between India and Bangladesh, was directed by Ritwik Ghatak and based on a novel by the same name by Adwaita Mallabarman. The film studies the life of fishermen on the bank of the Titas River in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh.

Trances (1981) is a musical documentary by Ahmed El Maânouni about the popular Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane, sometimes called "the Rolling Stones of North Africa." The film includes concert footage, interviews, archival footage and vignettes.

A Brighter Summer Day (1991) is a Taiwanese epic crime drama that is set in Taiwan during the 1960s and focuses on the problems of alienated teenagers. Directed by Edward Yang and performed by a large cast of non-professional actors, the movie won several awards at international film festivals.

TCM is screening 20 more films from four decades with restorations in which the Film Foundation participated.

1930s: The Front Page (1931), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939).

1940s: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), The Memphis Belle: A Story of the Flying Fortress (1944), The Seventh Cross (1944), Detour (1945) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).

1950s: The Breaking Point (1950), Winchester '73 (1950), La Strada (1954), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).

1960s: Primary (1960), Tunes of Glory (1960), Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963), The Killers (1964), Two for the Road (1967) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).