The best restoration of the year is by the laboratory L'Immagine Ritrovata
This year’s prestigious FOCAL Award for the Best Archive Restoration and Preservation Title was assigned to the restored version of La Roue, directed by Abel Gance between 1919 and 1923.
The restoration, commissioned by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, was carried out as a team by restorers of the Bologna-based L'Immagine Ritrovata and the Paris-based L'Image Retrouvée laboratories, in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Française and the Cinémathèque Suisse.
La Roue is one of the most legendary silent movies but no version of the initial 1923 version has ever been seen again. Restoring the original beauty of the seven hours of Abel Gance's monumental film has been one of the most challenging projects ever undertaken by L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory of the Cineteca di Bologna.
The objective of this restoration was not only to reconstruct as faithfully as possible a mutilated and invisible film, but also had the ambition to restore an exceptional cinematographic show, with orchestra accompaniment close to the one the spectators of the Gaumont-Palace attended in early 1923.
The preview of the Prologue of La Roue was presented in Bologna in the 2017 edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato festival. The premiere of the full film was at the Festival Lumière of Lyon in October 2019.
The prize is a further recognition of the quality of the work carried out by L'Immagine Ritrovata, which has been awarded the FOCAL International Award several times, until its consecration, in 2013, with an ad hoc FOCAL Award, given to L'Immagine Ritrovata as the best laboratory ever.