IN TUNISIA
Jacques Deslandes and Francis Lacassin, both of them meticulous researchers, indicate in their 1975 filmography that Georges Hatot and Victorin Jasset shot seven titles in Tunisia, during the first months of 1910. The filmmakers went there for the light, still a problem in 1910, and for the couleur locale provided by picturesque locations and dresses of the people. Of these seven films, only Dans les ruines de Carthage, seems to have survived in a complete print, while La Résurrection de Lazare is missing the final 40m. Only two shots of La Fleur de mort are known to exist at present and they have been restored by Cinémathèque française for our festival. No trace could be found of L’Enseveli de Tebessa, La Reconnaissance de l’Arabe, Morgan le pirate – L’Épave and Ginhara ou Fidèle jusqu’à la mort. That is, no trace of a film print. A wad of 18×12 still photographs of these titles (and possibly some more yet unidentified ones) has miraculously turned up in the paper archives of Albert Samama Chikli, now in the collection of the Cineteca di Bologna. Samama Chikli not only acted as still photographer to his colleagues from Paris but also as their travel guide; there are more photographs showing Victorin Jasset and Josette Andriot on an excursion. Andriot can be identified in still photographs of La Fleur de mort, Ginhara and Morgan le pirate playing bit parts, which helps to complete her filmography, and the addresses of Jasset and Andriot (who lived together) and of Hatot are listed in Samama Chikli’s address book.

Mariann Lewinsky

To follow: stills from the lost films of Georges Hatot and Victorine-Hippolyte Jasset from the Albert Samama Chikli Fund