Working on the Arrigo Frusta retrospective gave us the chance to take stock of the existing copies of his films and select some titles we felt deserved new restoration. We organized them in this section (although there is one defector, La regina di Ninive, that we have placed elsewhere). Nerone was a decidedly complex restoration, based on a comparison of three incomplete prints with different kinds of deterioration from Cineteca di Bologna, the EYE Filmmuseum and CSC – Cineteca Nazionale. Reconstructing the colours was especially fascinating; we were confronted with a still unsolved mystery, which viewers, however, will not notice in the restored copy. Cineteca di Bologna’s vintage tinted positive print contains a handful of frames coloured (presumably) by hand that are indistinguishable when screened. This seems to us like a very rare case, worthy of further study, and complicated by the rediscovery of a stencil coloured extract conserved by Lobster.
Speaking of colour, curiosity about the tinting of the originals is the reason we chose some nitrate prints from the vast Joye collection, which had been beautifully reprinted by the BFI on black and white 35mm. The bloody reds of the foundry where awful crimes take place, the orange cannon shots that light up the snow of Russian Alps, the blue of night punctuated by a flash of light signifying salvation. In fact, the drama of colour provides us with another way of understanding and enjoying Frusta’s films.

Andrea Meneghelli