Rare shots depicting the 1915 Armenian Genocide survivors will be shown in the Italian Bologna city Thursday as part of the 29th Cinema Ritrovato festival dedicated to the rediscovery of rare and little-known films.  

The silent film, which is a significant historical source discovered completely by chance, in the US Library of Congress was shot in 1923 and includes images of children packed onto boats in Turkey and lines of refugees trudging along roads, AFP reports.  

The film will be shown as part of a selection which aims to underscore the importance of the Armenian a century after the beginning of the slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish forces.

The festival will also include such films as "Namus" (Honour), a 1925 work by Hamo Beknazarian that is considered the first Armenian film, "Sayat Nova" (The Color of Pomegranates) a 1969 film by Sergei Paradjanov and "Naapet", Henrik Malyan's 1980 film about a Genocide survivor.

Other rare documentary images include a five-minute film shot by the French army of Armenian refugees in camps at Port-Said in Egypt.

But the jewel in the festival's crown is the four-minute film "Armenia, Cradle of Humanity" shot in Turkey soon after the end of the slaughter - a period previously considered to have only been recorded in still images.

Mariann Lewinsky, one of the festival's curators came across the film by "a miracle" during her search in the internet database of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).

According to the Swiss researcher, who shot the film and how it got to the Oregon Historical Society before being deposited in the Congress library remains a mystery.