Digital Struggles: from Film Restoration to a Digital Historical-Critical Environment

Our presentation is focused on the ongoing reconstruction and restoration of La battaglia dall'Astico al Piave (Regio Esercito - Sezione Cinematografica, 1918, 35mm, tinted and toned, film certificate n. 13649 of 01.09.1918, mt 1255), carried out by the University of Udine in collaboration with Kinotealje, La Cineteca del Friuli, Istituto LUCE, Cineteca Italiana, Lobster Films and supported by MIBACT. To the present day are documented three versions of La battaglia dall'Astico al Piave: the 1918 Italian and French Version, both realized by Italian Royal Army Film Department, and a further version, named “Ta Pum”, released in 1927 and still in circulation around 1930-1933, likelihood re-edited by Istituto LUCE. The project aims to reconstruct the first Italian edition of 1918 and at the same time give an historical and visual account of the other versions, especially the 1927 re-release. Restoration and reconstruction are based on film materials collected after a first survey among film archives (and on several non-film materials such as journals articles, archival documents, etc.): - witness “K”: that is, the main reference for the Italian version, retaining the most part of the narrative order, the original intertitles and tinting and toning, including the handwritten information on the color palette printed on the film edge (from Associazione Kinoatelje: 35mm nitrate print on three reels, long approximately 900 mt); - witnesses “G1” e “G2”: two 35 mm fragments of the French version preserved by Cineteca del Friuli (restored 35mm copies from the nitrate prints preserved by Lobster Films); - witness “G3”: a short fragment of the Italian version, preserved by Cineteca del Friuli within a nitrate print of Da Capodistria a Fiume italiana; - witness “RM”: a long duplicate negative (1000 mt ca.) with flash intertitles on 35mm safety stock, preserved by Istituto Luce, and likelihood dating back for the image contents and intertitles to both the late 1920s re-release and the 1918 edition; - witness “MI”: 35mm positive fragment on nitrate film preserved by Cineteca Italiana in Milan and close to the 1927 edition. The aim of our contribution is twofold: on one hand to highlight specific restoration and reconstruction issues (film material description, documentation and analysis; version, editions, rereleases; tinting and toning reconstruction; performative aspects concerning the specific status of film, involving both commemorative and trauma reliving aspects during the screenings); on the other hand to focus on the reloading and reframing of the long-standing and sensitive field of digital researchand educational-oriented critical edition of films, addressed to document the restoration and reconstruction process and give a wider account of the material, visual and cultural history of film as a set of apparatus, discourses, and practices, here proposed through an innovative digital design and environment and following new interdisciplinary approaches.