As part of the restoration meetings presented during the mornings of Il Cinema Ritrovato, today the Auditorium DAMS Lab hosted the talk on the two new Cinémathèque française’s restorations: F for Fake and Un chien andalou. While the choice may appear strange, these two films are connected by the importance of the pioneers behind them: respectively Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel.

The restoration of F for Fake, carried out by Les Film de l’Astrophore and the Cinémathèques française in collaboration with Documentaire sur grand écran, the Cinémathèque suisse and the Institut audiovisuel de Monaco and with the help of Hiventy and the L.E. Diapason Studio, was first presented during Cannes Classics and will be screened in Piazza Maggiore tonight at 21:30. To give a detailed explaination of the restoration work, the conference saw the participation of members from Hiventy and L.E. Diapason. F for Fake has parts in 16mm and others in 35mm and Hiventy’s work consisted in creating a more cohesive visual flow, while preserving the photochemical quality of the original copy. For the sound, L.E. Diapason studio had to work on the post-synchronization of the dialogues.

Un chien andalou will be screened in Piazza Maggiore on Saturday at 21.30. The 4k restoration was carried out by the Cinémathèque française and Filmoteca Española in collaboration with Les Grands Films Classiques. The Filmoteca Española has restored Buñuel’s works over the years, but Un chien andalou was a difficult operation for the availability of the original prints. Hiventy’s work started from an original negative and a safety countertype stored in Cinémathèque française and a 2003 analogical countertype from the Filmoteca Española. In order to preserve the film in its best and most accurate form, the speed of the projector must be changed during the screening. The restoration was possible thanks to the contribution from the Creative Europe project in the context of “A Season of Classic Films”.