You Bring Our Work to Life
Pan Twardowski
Władysław Starewicz, Russia, 1916
Here is our digital restoration of the 1916 Russian film, Pan Twardowski, directed by Władysław Starewicz, loosely based on a Polish folk legend and the Faustian tale. Pan Twardowski survived in a single nitrate print, held in the collection here at the George Eastman Museum. The print is suffering from severe nitrate decomposition. Fortunately, an initial black and white preservation negative was made back in 1980. For this digital restoration, we have scanned the preservation negative and are combining it with the single nitrate print, which is elaborately tinted and toned in red and other colors. We’ve combined the color tinting with both sections from the nitrate and the black and white preservation. But until we can receive funding to go to film out with a brand new 35 mm preservation negative and 35 mm color print, we will not consider this to be a completed project.