Best Archive Restoration & Preservation Title

The FOCAL International Restoration and Preservation Title Award endeavour to recognise the archives and / or technical facilities that have restored and preserved archival moving image content, of a single title originating on film or video.

2021 Winner

Ostatni Etap | The Last Stage

Country of Production:: Poland
Original Release:: 1948
Involved Partners:: Filmoteka Narodowa - Instytut Audiowizualny (FINA), TOR Film Production currently Documentary and Feature Film Studio (WFDiF), European Regional Development Fund, the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport

Synopsis

The digital restoration of image and sound was undertaken in July 2019 at the FINA's laboratory in Warsaw in collaboration with TOR Film Production (now WFDiF). The project took 6 months, with 25 specialists involved. No nitrate film elements survived. Six positive and negative acetate elements were compared for the restoration, with dup-negative chosen as the base for restoration of both image and sound, and dup-positive and positive copies used to complement missing frames.

The unification of quality of the three generations of film, the initial credits part (no additional elements have survived), the restoration of sound, which turned out had survived in terrible conditions, were the most challenging issues of the project. The re-premiere took place at the Berlinale Classics 2020.

Archival highlights

We believe that The Last Stage is one of the most important films in history of cinema. It was shot on location in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1947, which brought many technical problems for the crew, who worked with poor and random quipment and on various film stocks. Its prior value lies strongly in the cultural and historical contexts, making it a valid film heritage for generations to come. We are very proud of this restoration. It wasn’t easy to work for several months on the film that treats on such a painful and powerful topic. Also, not being able to work on the original negative posed challenges to make the most of the acetate elements featuring many mechanical damages, especially in the sound area. However, we made it and the final effect is very rewarding. Thank you!

Shortlisted

Shatranj-E Baad (The Chess game of the Wind)

Country of Production:: Italy
Original Release:: 1976
Involved Partners:: L'Immagine Ritrovata, The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Mohammad Reza Aslani, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation

Synopsis

Under the Kadjar dynasty, the death of the first lady of a noble house creates a conflict between the heirs for taking over her rich inheritance.

Archival highlights

Every year the The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project takes the challenge to find and save world heritage lost masterpieces: the restoration "Chess of the Wind" is one of the most unique for it added an unknown masterpiece to film history. After its “physical” premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato, its participation at the LFF attracted a significant amount of press: “Audiences won’t have seen anything like this" titles The Guardian. “Chess of the Wind” was only screened once, 50 years ago, before being restored and its disappearance was due not only to the Iranian regime censorship but also to its narrative complexity and aesthetic sophistication. Recovering its beauty, its colour and texture was like restoring Renaissance art.

The Ladykillers

Country of Production:: United Kingdom
Original Release:: 1955
Involved Partners:: Studiocanal, Silver Salt Restoration, Fidelity in Motion, Deluxe Digital Cinema

Synopsis

As The Ladykillers was the last Technicolor three-strip film shot in the UK, it was crucially important that the original camera negative was used for a restoration that will serve as the best version of the film since its original release. In total the film benefitted from over a 1000 hours worth of 4K digital restoration.

One of the biggest issues to overcome was aligning the colour separations together, this was automated to a certain extent, but a huge amount of manual tweaking was required and involved tracking each one of the perforations in each corner of the film frame on a channel by channel basis

A 35mm Technicolor print was used as a reference for the colour grade to ensure the new HDR Dolby Vision master stayed true to the films original 1950s ‘color by Technicolor’ look

Archival highlights

Not since the original release has such a release of this title existed in such clarity with the integrity of the original materials. This was the first restoration in which the original three-strip negative was used and months of digital restoration and precise colour management executed to remove the issued that blighted previous releases of it. When viewed against the previous releases it is comfortably obvious how superior this is and most of all how much it resembles the release prints we would have seen in 1955. This is a project that takes world class technical quality combined with passion for a UK classic title and delivers the viewer an unparalleled experience. With the home entertainment release we offered out two aspect ratios thus re-creating the options audience had in 1955