Seeing The Unseen
The project “Vedere l’invisibile. Capolavori ritrovati del cinema muto italiano” (”STU-Seeing The Unseen” in English) was conceived with the aim of restoring and showing Italian silent films that have survived exclusively in extremely rare or unique copies. Through advanced digital restoration techniques, it seeks to recover a lesser-known part of Italy’s cinematic heritage, making the retrieved titles once again accessible to scholars, enthusiasts, and the general public.
The context
Worldwide, the rich film heritage from the period before the advent of sound (i.e., all those productions made roughly between 1895 and 1927) has been largely lost as the years have progressed, and today only a few of these films survive, often in battered, incomplete copies of poor visual quality. As an example, American historian and archivist David Pierce has estimated that just 14 percent of U.S. feature films produced during the silent era survive in their original versions. And there are far more tragic scenarios where, in the case of countries that had more modest film industry, simply nothing of their film productions of the era survives today.
There are many reasons behind this, and above all: the flammability of nitrate film stock (produced until the mid-1950s); the gradual deterioration of the emulsion or the film base itself, especially in cases of poor storage conditions; the occasional lack of regard for film as an artifact to be preserved and safeguarded beyond its commercial lifespan; and the storage costs of such bulky media.
This phenomenon has similarly affected Italy’s silent film heritage, as is clearly evident from a comparison between the titles listed in the monumental filmography compiled by Aldo Bernardini and Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, a 21-volume work published by RAI-ERI, as part of the Biblioteca di Bianco e Nero series) and the database Treasures from the Film Archives, edited by the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF), where film archives worldwide divulge the silent films in their possession. The situation is severe, and this is considering only fiction films.
Thus, as time passes, the need to preserve the extant materials becomes increasingly urgent, and similarly, every new discovery gains significant value. In this sense, even the recovery of short fragments and deteriorated copies represents an extraordinary achievement, helping in some way to counter the tragic fate of an unpreserved film: its transformation into an amorphous mass of liquefied material or, worse, into mere dust inside a metal can.
The project
The project “Vedere l’invisibile. Capolavori ritrovati del cinema muto italiano” originated from a recent initiative by the Russian Federation national film archive — Gosfil’mofond Rossii — to systematically and scientifically identify and catalog foreign silent films in its collections. This review has led to the discovery of extraordinary Italian titles, sometimes in complete copies, but almost always in unique elements that have not survived either in Italy or elsewhere.
Made possible thanks to the resources allocated by the European Union – Next Generation EU, by means of Public notice aimed at providing grants to micro and small enterprises, third sector entities, and both profit and non-profit organizations operating in the cultural and creative sectors, to promote innovation and digital transition. PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), Mission 1 – Digitalization, Innovation, Competitiveness, Culture, and Tourism, Component 3 – Tourism and Culture 4.0 (M1C3), Measure 3 “Cultural and Creative Industries 4.0”, Investment 3.3: “Capacity building for cultural operators to manage the digital and green transition”, Sub-Investment 3.3.2: – Support for cultural and creative sectors for innovation and digital transition (Action A II), the initiative has led to an exclusive collaboration with this archive for the digital restoration of several important titles, following a shared workflow structured into three main phases: scanning, digital cleaning/correction, and editing/mastering. To achieve this, modern digital technologies are employed for image enhancement, reconstruction, and manipulation, ensuring the preservation of the original visual information as much as possible. Advanced professional tools for stabilization, cleaning, cloning, interpolation, dewarping, as well as grading/color correction, editing, and mastering are used by dedicated personnel under continuous supervision to prevent the creation of artifacts.
Some titles have survived only in incomplete form, but the existence of non-film materials—such as stills, postcards, screenplays, and intertitle lists—often makes it possible to fill the gaps and reconstruct a narrative that would otherwise be incomprehensible in its current state. In such cases, a parallel reconstruction effort is carried out based on the available elements.
All of this is carried out with a clear purpose—not to forcibly adapt the original work to the modern viewer’s eye through extensive cleaning and modernization of the images, but rather to make early cinema titles accessible, understandable, and worthy of appreciation. This is achieved through a process of philological reconstruction and scientific restoration grounded in a conservationist approach.
In addition to the reconstruction/restoration work, “Vedere l’invisibile” is committed to the dissemination and use of these films, encouraging their rediscovery through dedicated screenings and collaborations with cultural institutions, archives and film festivals. In this way, the project not only safeguards a precious artistic heritage, but also contributes to keeping alive the historical memory of early Italian cinema, allowing present and future generations to explore its fascination and importance.
The project is continuously evolving, and it is characterized not only by the ongoing development of the catalog of titles within the “Film library” section—achieved through a progressive and targeted expansion—but also by the commitment to establishing strategic collaborations with new stakeholders. The goal is to foster similar partnerships with archives and related institutions, creating synergies that contribute to the project’s growth and enhance its ability to offer an increasingly comprehensive and diversified experience to interested users. In this context, new contents and the implementation of fresh collaborations are fundamental to consolidating the overall cultural and cinematic offering of the initiative.