Recent Film Restorations

[Hogfather]

Gone to Earth! That's so major, and not something I'd ever expect Disney to actively prioritize themselves. I wonder how this came about, assuming it really has been restored. I think I remember hearing that Kino's Blu-ray was initially just going to be Selznick recut/reshot version The Wild Heart until Thelma Schoonmaker and/or Scorsese convinced them to include Gone to Earth as a bonus feature. Maybe Schoonmaker has been quietly making more things happen for this wonderful film.

She did an interview after the 4K restoration of Peeping Tom and that new Michael Powell documentary came out where she said that she and Scorsese were going to focus their efforts on Gone to Earth as their next restoration.

[Stefan Andersson]

Interesting Thelma Schoonmaker quotes from 2023 on Gone to Earth:
"One of the problems is that Selznick cut the negative when he did his thing. So now it’s almost impossible for us to restore it."
"We’ll have to spend a lot of money and see if there’s some way to save it."
https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/cutt ... e-by-scene

[beamish14]

Interesting Thelma Schoonmaker quotes from 2023 on Gone to Earth:
"One of the problems is that Selznick cut the negative when he did his thing. So now it’s almost impossible for us to restore it."
"We’ll have to spend a lot of money and see if there’s some way to save it."
https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/cutt ... e-by-scene

Fortunately, an absolutely pristine nitrate print of Selznik’s does survive. Whenever I’ve seen a nitrate film, it’s the ones from his his collection that always looked the most incredible (Rebecca and Black Narcissus, too)

[jmj713]

Is anyone aware of a restoration of Angels of the Night (Wilson Barros, 1987)?

[Stefan Andersson]

Germany´s Film Heritage Funding Programme, for digitization of German films, is coming to a standstill due to budget cuts.

Web browser translation:
"In 2025, only just under 5.5 million euros were distributed instead of the planned 10 million euros. In a joint flyer, the institutions DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and DEFA-Stiftung, which are members of the Cinematheque Association, demand that the funding programme must be continued in full in order to preserve film history and make it visible."

https://www.stummfilm-magazin.de/aktuel ... n-filmerbe
https://www.filmportal.de/sites/default ... 20web2.pdf

[Stefan Andersson]

News from Nov. 2025 -

Satyajit Ray´s Kanchenjungha (now in the public domain according to Sandip Ray) to be restored; restoration of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne has begun.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of the Film Heritage Foundation: "For ‘Kanchenjungha', we are going to work closely with the British Film Institute, the Academy, and the National Film Archive of India."
https://bengalinfo.com/newsdetail.php?newsid=437848

Dungarpur says that rights for Kanchenjungha was in dispute, but Sandip Ray has secured the clearances:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ent ... 872125.cms

Info from 2009 re: Kanchenjungha:

Sandip Ray: “The Academy will have to do with the copy of the master negative of the film, made by the maestro in 1962, as the original negative was destroyed due to mishandling,”. the master negative of the film, starring one of the Bengali film doyens Chhabi Biswas, was damaged beyond repair as the canned stock was kept exposed to the sun and rain on the roof of a film laboratory in Mumbai.
Ray: “This happened as the producers probably lost interest since the film did not bring the expected box office returns and the storage fee was not given to the lab,” he said.
The film’s titles show the NCA as the production company while Harrison Pictures were the Indian distributors.
“In the absence of the original negative, they had to scour other sources and procured another negative, copied from the original lying with the Pune Film archives,” Sandip said.

Plans for restoring Chiriakhana (1967), and the documentaries about Sikkim and Rabindranath Tagore are also mentioned.
https://satyamshot.wordpress.com/2009/0 ... from-copy/

[Stefan Andersson]

Shyam Benegal´s Bhumika and John Abraham´s Amma Ariyan to be restored by the Film Heritage Foundation:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ent ... 872125.cms

On Bhumika:
"Our film conservators have begun work on the two 35 mm release prints that were preserved at the NFDC-National Film Archive of India."
https://www.instagram.com/p/DUAzOEplIIv/

April 2026 update on Bhumika: there is only one surviving print, according to this article:
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/shiv ... 236727536/

[jmj713]

Has there been any work done on restoring Henry Barakat films? Seems to be completely overlooked. Would love a Criterion set of The Nightingale's Prayer, The Sin, and The Open Door.

[Stefan Andersson]

Has there been any work done on restoring Henry Barakat films? Seems to be completely overlooked. Would love a Criterion set of The Nightingale's Prayer, The Sin, and The Open Door.

Barakat´s "adaptation of Yousuf Idris' The Sinners (1965)" restored:
https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/535192.aspx

[jmj713]

Has there been any work done on restoring Henry Barakat films? Seems to be completely overlooked. Would love a Criterion set of The Nightingale's Prayer, The Sin, and The Open Door.

Barakat´s "adaptation of Yousuf Idris' The Sinners (1965)" restored:
https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/535192.aspx

Amazing, that's The Sin! Hopefully this is picked up by someone soon.

[Stefan Andersson]

Has there been any work done on restoring Henry Barakat films? Seems to be completely overlooked. Would love a Criterion set of The Nightingale's Prayer, The Sin, and The Open Door.

Barakat´s "adaptation of Yousuf Idris' The Sinners (1965)" restored:
https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/535192.aspx

Amazing, that's The Sin! Hopefully this is picked up by someone soon.

The Open Door had a digital format showing (=possible restoration) in 2025:
https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2025/films/the-open-door

[hearthesilence]

Didn't notice this until now but 20th Century Fox (back when it was still called that) completed a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks's Monkey Business and it has screened around the country via a 4K DCP. In fact, Schawn Belston (Senior Vice President, Library and Technical Services, 20th Century Fox) personally introduced screenings that took place here at Short North in Columbus, OH and here at the Wexner Center.

[Matt]

I'm pretty sure the Indicator Blu-ray was sourced from this 4K resto.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I'm pretty sure the Indicator Blu-ray was sourced from this 4K resto.

Indicator did Monkey Business?

[hearthesilence]

I'm pretty sure the Indicator Blu-ray was sourced from this 4K resto.

Wrong Monkey Business (and wrong film studio and reissue label - you're thinking of Arrow's reissue of the Paramount film), but that was also restored in 4K, yes.

[Matt]

I'm so sorry! I read "Howard Hawks" and "20th Century" and seem to have completely missed the title of the actual film. Strange, then, that no one has released the restoration on disc (but I'm not a huge fan of it at any rate).

[hearthesilence]

It's a polarizing film, but even though it's possibly the least of Hawks's collaborations with Grant (I haven't seen I Was a Male War Bride yet), I have to side with those who championed it. Surprisingly entertaining after a long, slow start (including the first loose chimp sequence which never takes off), once Grant takes the formula, the charms miraculously appear. In hindsight, the stiffness and slow pace of the setup make the graceful athleticism displayed in Grant's transformation all the more stunning, as well as the way Grant and Rogers grow more and more dangerously crazed as they regress in maturity. I find Bogdanovich's argument that Monroe should've been paired with Grant over Rogers very amusing, partly because it goes against the whole point of the movie and misses the main draw of Rogers's performance which probably wouldn't have come through with a much younger performer (the stark contrast of a mature appearance with manic infantile behavior).

[domino harvey]

Hawks’ worst comedy, but I’m admittedly biased against infantilism. Doubtful it’s coming from Criterion (they going to produce an extra tut-tutting depictions of children playing Cowboys and Indians?) so I’m not sure what good a new restoration does anyone who wants to see this

[therewillbeblus]

It might still be his worst comedy, but I got a lot more out of it on a revisit last year. Those thoughts:

Monkey Business played better for me using Rivette and Bogdanovich's readings of a more disturbing picture as a jumping off point; employing comedy to model an uncomfortable commentary on a preoccupation with youth and the myopia of intelligentsia. Personally it's more interesting to view it a bit differently, towards an inverted-'Hawksian' vision of how that inherent narcissistic quality in man affects relationship dynamics, to the point of possibly making them doomed organically, taking effort and artifice via ideology to make them function effectively. After reading McCarthy's biography, one could even view it as Hawks' self-reflexive admission of his own failure to make his romantic relationships work due to a preference for self-driven 'boyish' hobbies.

Yet at the same time, Hawks clearly shames the juvenile nature of youthful behavior through a brief Grant monologue two-thirds of the way through the film that comes off as genuine, and the film can be seen as a celebration of maturity as well. Hawks' biography also indicates a man who was always aloofly 'mature' and this could be taken conversely as proof that relationships can be lasting and meaningful if we just stay 'grown up' and don't ever reduce ourselves to these pathetic pubescent aspects of our 'selves' that Hawks sees in other people, muses on, but just can't relate to (well I think he can in slight ways, like when Rogers tells a white lie to Grant -that he said the percentage number that will make him feel less embarrassed- but the grey area of where this is acceptable and when it's appalling is suddenly an ocean in this one). There's an ambiguity regarding intent here that's fascinating because it seems directly related to Hawks' own concerns, in a much rawer and persistently sober fashion compared to his other pictures.

Is that why it's an inaccessible failure for so many? Because it's too broad, ambiguous, and ambivalent? Or because Hawks gets too intimately attached to concerns that are very intentional, and this contrarily blurs whatever his intention is out of focus? Is Hawks acknowledging that an existential meditation on mortality evokes an individualistic pull to put the self first above the group, and does he validate and detest this from different parts of his psyche? Is that why we get these two wildly opposing tones to work with, woven throughout his body of work and often entangled within individual films? Or did Hawks just want to give Cary Grant an opportunity to demean his persona even further, play around with some monkeys, and aggressively devolve the screwball comedy down to its most inane content left bare, a meta-statement reflected in the plot's regressive material itself? Did Hawks want to kill the screwball once and for all, or was it an accident exacerbated by its superfluous substance? If we're at the point where characters can believe a magic serum can transform a man into a baby, maybe we're there at the very edge of the cliff with the possibilities of milking idiocy for humor.

So, it only took maybe a handful of watches across a few decades for this to move from comedy jail to 'interesting failure' territory - I even laughed a few times! I guess this means I need to give Red Line 7000 another go too.. oh boy

[Stefan Andersson]

The Cinema Reborn 2026 lineup:
https://cinemareborn.com.au/2026-Program

[Lowry_Sam]

So I went to see Ben-Hur: A Tale Of Christ (1925) @ Cinequest. The program listed it as 155 minutes & since doors opened @ 7:15 and credits were done @ 10:15 this is probably correct (though it felt like 3 hrs) - there was no introduction and the film started only a few minutes after I took my seat. There was also no info in the program notes on the source of the film. Because the listed time was longer than anything I've seen online I wondered if it was a new restoration. Projection was digital and the film alternated between tinted and 3-color technicolor. It was projected though blown out so that maybe close to 10% expanded beyond the screen's frame. The image itself looked very clean but it had scratches baked in, particularly noticeable during scene transitions. The image resolution was different in different scenes. The type in opening credits were noticeably fuzzy & the chariot race scene also was noticeably blurrier than I had scene before and a marked contrast to production stills used to advertise it. Another thing I noticed was that a diagonal black border occassionally crept in to the right edge of the frame during some scenes. I searched online but last restoration I found info on was in 1996, the one inducted into the National Registry @ 143 minutes, which I assume is the 1931 re-edit with Carl Davis score (b&w). It looks like George Eastman Museum has a copy of the original with technicolor @ 153 minutes, so this was probably a copy of that, but again I haven't found any further info yet and there hasn't been any blu-ray of any version of the film (I believe the bonus disc with the Ultimate Ben Hur set was a dvd). Anyone with more info?

[Stefan Andersson]

Allegro non troppo, Bozzetto, 2K restoration:
https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999004740

Reunion, Schatzberg:
https://www.rialtopictures.com/
https://filmforum.org/film/reunion

[hearthesilence]

Reunion, Schatzberg:
https://www.rialtopictures.com/
https://filmforum.org/film/reunion

Interesting. I did indeed see this at the MoMA Schatzberg retrospective mentioned (which I also posted about before), and it was a very nice looking DCP. I wonder if it's the same one? Rialto's site says the film's restored but has no further detail - neither does Film Forum (or MoMA's page, if it ends up being the same DCP).

[Aunt Peg]

Cinema Reborn Film Festival during May in Sydney & Melbourne: https://cinemareborn.com.au/2026-Program

Aside from Esben Storm's hugely under seen and undervalued In Search of Anna (1978) most these restorations are widely known, with a number of them already available on Blu Ray.

[GaryC]

Aside from Esben Storm's hugely under seen and undervalued In Search of Anna (1978)

Hopefully that will lead to a Blu-ray. I've only seen it on an ex-rental VHS. Other than one TV showing in 1984, to the best of my knowledge it's not been shown in the UK, not in London anyway, and has never been distributed here. I'd suggest it to the London Australian Film Society, but I doubt it'd get much of an audience.

I haven't checked, but was this the first time AC/DC turned up on an Australian film's soundtrack?