The Faun Returns, Guillermo del Toro Brings Pan’s Labyrinth Back to the Big Screen
After a 3D premiere at the Academy Museum, del Toro takes a new 4K restoration of his 2006 fable to Beyond Fest tonight.
Two nights, two theaters, one faun. The Academy Museum gave Pan’s Labyrinth in 3D its North American premiere on Thursday, October 1, with Guillermo del Toro billed to introduce it in person, and on Friday, October 2, he takes the film to Beyond Fest at the Directors Village in Westwood for a 7 p.m. screening billed as the North American premiere of its 4K restoration.
The museum presented the film in a brand-new restoration that del Toro personally supervised at every stage, working from the original 35mm negative. The American Cinematheque bills the Westwood night as a 20th anniversary screening, and both the Cinematheque and Beyond Fest list a Q&A with the filmmaker.
The 2006 film follows Ofelia, played by Ivana Baquero, who arrives in 1944 at the home of her new stepfather, a brutal captain in Franco’s army played by Sergi López. While Franco’s forces fight republican rebels in the surrounding countryside, she is drawn into an ancient maze, where a faun tells her she is a long-lost princess and sets her three tasks.
It earned six Academy Award nominations, including Foreign Language Film, and won for Art Direction, Cinematography and Makeup. Del Toro regular Doug Jones played both the Faun and the Pale Man, and Alfonso Cuarón was among the producers.
The screening is one of the retrospectives anchoring this year’s Beyond Fest, which Variety reports expects some 37,000 people by the time it wraps on October 5. The festival plays all four American Cinematheque houses, the Aero, the Egyptian, the Los Feliz 3 and the Directors Village, where Michael Mann brings a new cut of Miami Vice the following night.
Beyond Fest lists the Westwood screening as sold out. Tickets were $22, including a $2 online booking fee. The film plays in Spanish with English subtitles, and Cineverse is the distributor.
